The mail received this week from India does not recount
any more great engagements, but it supplies evidence that a fierce campaign in the Punjaub has only begun. The Sikhs, though astonished, are neither broken up nor cowed ; and they have already been measuring swords with our troops again, in some effective skirmishing. Two facts furnish a practical commentary on the past : a great British army was in process of rapid con- centration on the disturbed frontier, and a strong force of artillery was to be added. The absolute deficiency of guns, however, in the great battles of December, is now explained : the officer in charge of that arm was labouring under some hallucination, and he had ordered the artillery back to Ferozepore. That question had become one for medical rather than military, investigation. On the whole, although a campaign was not ended but begun, and the path to ultimate victory is beset with difficulties, no serious doubt hung over the issue : the Sikhs are brave, and not yet smitten down ; but, barbarian-like, they are quarrelling among themselves, and British valour has powerfully impressed them.
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