At Bombay 105 non-commissioned officers and men were invalided, and the regiment in one division, amounting in number to 313 (being reduced by sickness to less than one-third its strength), proceeded to Poonah on the 4th of April 1845, but did not arrive there until the 18th, being unable to march more than six or seven miles a day.
“Fort-William, 15th August 1845.
“To the Secretary to Government,
“Military Department, Bombay.
“Sir,—I am directed to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, No. 3167, of the 14th ultimo, and in reply, to express to you, for the information of the Government of Bombay, the satisfaction with which the Governor-General in Council has perused the correspondence to which it gave cover, so clearly proving, as it does, to be utterly unfounded, the report that intemperance had occasioned the sickness by which Her Majesty’s 78th Highlanders was prostrated in Sinde, and which, unhappily, proved so fatal to that fine corps.—I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,
(Signed) “J. Stuart, Lieut.-Col.
“Secretary to Government of India,
“Military Department.”
The 78th left Goraporee lines, Poonah, on the 18th of December 1845, for Khirkee, six miles distant. The regiment returned to Poonah on the 14th of February 1846, and marched for Belgaum, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Douglas, who died of fever at Hyderabad on the 1st of October 1849, while on staff employ, and was succeeded by Major Walter Hamilton.
After being stationed at Khirkee and Belgaum for some time, the regiment left Belgaum for Bombay and Aden, on the 6th and 7th of November 1849. The left wing, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel W. Hamilton, arrived at Aden on the 25th, and the right wing, under the command of Major H. Stisted, proceeded to Colabba, Bombay, where it arrived on the 16th of the same month. An exchange of wings took place in October 1850, the headquarters still remaining at Aden.
During the year 1851 the Arab tribes round Aden committed several outrages, in one of which, near Labaj, in the month of March, Lieutenant Macpherson of the 78th was very dangerously wounded, having been stabbed in no fewer than seven places. About a fortnight after this affair, as Lieutenant Delisser of the regiment was riding to Steamer Point (about five miles distant from the barracks), at eight o’clock A.M., he was attacked by an Arab, armed with a crease or dagger, and wounded severely in the arm and slightly in the stomach. Lieutenant Delisser got off his horse, and, seizing the Arab, wrested the crease from his hand, and with one blow nearly severed his head from his body. The corpse was afterwards hung in chains at the entrance to the fortifications from the interior.
The regiment being ordered to Poonah, the left wing, consisting of the light and Nos. 5, 6, and 7 companies, under command of Major Colin Campbell M’Intyre, left Bombay for that station on the 10th of February 1853, and arrived on the 18th of the same month. The right wing left Aden for Poonah in three detachments in January and February; and thus, after a separation of upwards of three years, the regiment was once more united at Poonah on the 5th of March 1853.