We this day erected howitzer and mortar-batteries; and, when they first opened, they struck terror and consternation into the enemy, who fled in every direction, to avoid those destructive engines; but, in a few hours, they dug holes in the ramparts, which they got into whenever they saw those unwelcome visitors on the wing; and, unless the shell happened actually to fall on them, they escaped in this way. But our shelling in those days was a mere bagatelle to what it is now. A shell in five minutes was then enormous; now, twenty in one minute is by no means extraordinary, and these twice as big as in the times of which I speak.
This day the enemy was pretty passive; no doubt, making places of refuge. Our shells, if thrown further into the town, must have been most destructive, for the population was evidently prodigious, from the number of fighting men. The houses frequently appeared on fire, and several small explosions took place daily; no doubt small magazines. These little incidents generally created cheering by the besiegers, and redoubled firing by the enemy. In the course of the day we saw the rajah for the first time: he was on the shabroodge, or royal bastion, with his suite, reconnoitring with a spy-glass. The officer commanding the howitzer battery laid a shell for the shabroodge, which struck the very top of it, and soon dislodged his highness and suite. In a moment not a soul was to be seen. On this bastion was an enormous gun, about a seventy-two-pounder, which before had been laid up in embryo, but which, as a mark of revenge for our having disturbed his highness, was now got ready. From its gigantic size they could not depress it sufficiently to bear upon our batteries, or it must have torn them to pieces. At last off it went; the report was like that of an earthquake, but the ball went a good quarter of a mile over us. Several other shots were, in the course of the day, fired from it, but the balls never came nearer. Our soldiers, finding it did no harm, christened it _Civil Tom_; but, from the enormous dust it kicked up, the enemy thought it did wonders for some time; until, at last, finding out their mistake, they turned its gigantic muzzle towards camp, and actually threw a ball close to the flag opposite Lord Lake's tent, more than two miles from the fort. The only real mischief Civil Tom ever did (which, by the by, was rather uncivil) was killing a poor water-carrier's bullock, and carrying away the poor man's right arm. This was more than a mile from camp.