The officers at that time wore those horrid little forage-caps covered on line of march with black oilskin. To ride fourteen miles with such a covering to the head, under a burning sun, was infinitely worse than being exposed to the hottest fire. My informant, the doctor, assured me that if he had not devised a special defence he must have fallen from his horse from sunstroke. His plan was this: he arranged with the regimental puckally (that is, the man who attends with a bullock carrying two mushues, or bullock-hides, filled with water) to be always close at hand during the march. Nothing but this could have saved him. He utilized the mushues in this way: before starting on the second march he had taken out two towels, which the puckally kept constantly soaked with water. One, well-soaked, was placed under the forage-cap, and as soon as it got heated it was replaced by the other. All the officers resorted to the use of wet cloths, but no one carried out the plan so systematically as the doctor did, and he escaped as well as any of them, though he had previously suffered from sunstroke.
At last the second march was accomplished, but the men were so tired and exhausted that they had taken five hours and a half to do it, though they had performed the first fourteen miles in little more than four hours. Both men and officers were so dead-beat that, on reaching the ground, everyone wanted to throw himself down where he stood; but necessary duties had to be attended to. Luckily some Bamans, Bunganies, as they were called, had halted at this stage, and readily supplied the men with the various grains they wanted; and large mango-tops afforded shelter from the sun, and gradually food and rest were obtained. By-and-by palanquins, tents, and carts arrived, and the officers got better shelter and their usual food; and as there was a halt for the next day, all things gradually fell into working order. On the morning after the halt, the march was resumed, and in a week the regiment reached the cantonment of Secunderabad.