How it happened that such an army as that commanded by General

Elphinstone had been so disastrously and disgracefully beaten in the

field by an enemy of such calibre as these undisciplined Afghans, was

a terrible mystery to the brave men who had been scattering their

besiegers like sheep. They heard something of the want of provisions

that had reduced the force to this melancholy strait; but, when Sale’s

brigade sate down in Jellalabad, it had only two days’ provisions. They

heard, too, that the extent and the weakness of the Caubul cantonments

had paralysed the efforts of the garrison; but there, at Jellalabad,

they had found their defences in a state of absolute ruin. It seemed to

them easy to obtain provisions, and to build up their defences. At all

events, they had done both; and the troops at Caubul were of three or

four times their numerical strength.

Half of the month of December had worn away, when a whisper went round

the garrison that the Caubul force had capitulated. With mingled

feelings of incredulity and indignation the humiliating intelligence

was received. Sale and Macgregor knew only too well how Elphinstone and

Shelton had been throwing away chance after chance of rescuing their

miserable troops from destruction. But it was not wise to damp the

spirits of their own gallant and successful garrison by any revelations

of the unhappy manner in which their old comrades had been sacrificed

at Caubul. When, therefore, on the 17th of December, it was known that

some disastrous intelligence had been received from the capital, it was

slowly believed that the main body of the British army in Afghanistan

had thrown itself on the mercy of a barbarous foe.

But soon other intelligence of a grievous and afflicting character

was conveyed to the garrison. At first it appeared only in the

shape of a native rumour, which, though it seemed to swell into the

substantial proportions of fact, was believed, with something perhaps

of self-deception, by Macgregor, to be only a shadowy figment that

he ought at once to dismiss from his mind. It was rumoured that

the British Envoy at Caubul had been murdered, at a conference, by

Akbar Khan; but Macgregor argued, when communicating, on the 30th of

December, this report to the authorities below, that it was not likely

Macnaghten would have gone unattended to a conference with the chiefs,

or that Akbar Khan, whose father and family were in the hands of the

British, would commit an act of such outrageous folly as to murder the

representative of the British Government. But Macgregor’s incredulity

was soon dispersed. After three days of doubt, authentic tidings

came in from Caubul to disquiet the hearts of the British chiefs at

Jellalabad. On the second day of the new year, a letter was received

from Major Pottinger, full of the most painful and disheartening

intelligence. It announced the murder of Macnaghten. It announced that

the Caubul force was about immediately to abandon its position, and to

fall back upon Jellalabad, with every prospect of being attacked by

a faithless and infuriated enemy upon the way. Into a few sentences

of terrible significance was crowded the record of these melancholy

events. The letter was written on Christmas-day:

Caubul, December 25, 1841.

MY DEAR MACGREGOR,

We have had a sad Comedy of Errors, or rather tragedy here. Macnaghten

was called out to a conference and murdered. We have interchanged

terms on the ground he was treating on for leaving the country; but

things are not finally settled. However, we are to fall back on

Jellalabad to-morrow or next day. In the present disturbed state of

the country we may expect opposition on the road, and we are likely to

suffer much from the cold and hunger, as we expect to have no carriage

for tents and superfluities. I have taken charge of the Mission.

Mackenzie, Lawrence, and Conolly are all seized. The first two I fear

for. The latter is quite safe. The cantonment is now attacked.

Yours, very truly,

ELDRED POTTINGER.

With deep emotion the officers now discussed the dangers of this

fearful retreat through the snow, and the too probable treachery

of the chiefs; and there were those among them who predicted that

Elphinstone’s army would be cut to pieces by the enemy, or destroyed

by the snow almost to a man. All this was very discouraging; but the

Jellalabad garrison were not in a temper to be easily cast down. On

they went from day to day, working cheerfully at the defences—never

fearing for themselves, and, in spite of the evil prophecies of a few

amongst them, hoping the best for their miserable comrades.

So passed the first week of January. To Sale and Macgregor they

were days of intense anxiety. Eagerly as they looked for cheering

intelligence from Caubul, nothing came to refresh them with new hopes.

On the 8th of January, another letter from Pottinger, dated the 28th of

December, was received by Macgregor. It was written in French, as there

were men in the enemy’s camp who could read and interpret English;[220]

and it announced that the position of the British force at Caubul

was becoming more and more perilous—that the treaty commenced by

the late Envoy was still being negotiated—that some delays had been

occasioned by the difficulty, real or pretended, of providing carriage

and provisions to enable the troops to commence their march; and that

it was not improbable that, in spite of the promises of the chiefs, the

British column would be compelled to fight its way down to Jellalabad.

In conclusion, Pottinger spoke of instructions for the evacuation of

Jellalabad that had been despatched by Macnaghten, but urged Macgregor

to stand fast until the receipt of further orders from Caubul.

On the following day those further orders arrived. A few horsemen

appeared under the walls of Jellalabad, one of whom was the bearer of

a letter from the English authorities at Caubul, addressed to Captain

Macgregor. It contained instructions for the evacuation of Jellalabad,

couched in the following words:—

Caubul, December 29, 1841.

SIR,

It having been found necessary to conclude an agreement, founded

on that of the late Sir W. H. Macnaghten, for the evacuation of

Afghanistan by our troops, we have the honour to request that you

will intimate to the officer commanding at Jellalabad, our wish that

the troops now at that place should return to India, commencing their

march immediately after the receipt of this letter, leaving all guns,

the property of Dost Mahomed Khan, with the new Governor, as also such

stores and baggage as there may not be the means of carrying away, and

the provisions in store for our use on arriving at Jellalabad.

Abdool Ghuffoor Khan, who is the bearer of this letter, will render

you all the assistance in his power. He has been appointed Governor of

Jellalabad on the part of the existing government.

We have the honour to be, &c.,

ELDRED POTTINGER, in charge of Caubul Mission.

W. K. ELPHINSTONE, Major-General.

Macgregor laid the letter before Sale, and a council of war was held.

It does not seem that there were many doubts and misgivings to agitate

and perplex the brave men, who then asked each other whether they

should cast further discredit on their country, by abandoning their

post and flinging themselves into the snares of the enemy. It seemed to

them that a bait had been laid to lure them to destruction. Macgregor

knew that Akbar Khan had issued a proclamation to the chiefs of the

surrounding country, calling upon them, as followers of the true faith,

to rise and slay the Feringhees on the road; his voice was all for

the retention of their post, and the military chiefs were of the same

temper. Little time elapsed, therefore, before the following letter was

written to Major Pottinger and General Elphinstone:—

Jellalabad, January 9, 1842.

SIRS,

We have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the

29th ultimo, which you therein state was to be delivered to us by

Abdool Ghuffoor Khan, appointed Governor of this place by the existing

powers at Caubul. That communication was not delivered to us by him,

but by a messenger of his; and though dated 29th of December, 1841,

has only this moment reached us. I have, at the same time, positive

information that Mahomed Akbar Khan has sent a proclamation to all

the chiefs in the neighbourhood, urging them to raise their followers

for the purpose of intercepting and destroying the forces now at

Jellalabad. Under these circumstances we have deemed it our duty to

await a further communication from you, which we desire may point out

the security which may be given for our safe march to Peshawur.

We have the honour to be, &c.,

R. SALE, Major-General.

G. H. MACGREGOR, Political Agent.

It is right that Macgregor and Sale should be suffered to state in

their own words, the motives which impelled them to adopt this worthy

resolution. “The conduct,” wrote Captain Macgregor sometime afterwards,

“of Major-General Sir R. Sale and myself, in having declined, under

the circumstances, to deliver up Jellalabad to Abdool Ghuffoor Khan,

Barukzye, in conformity with the instructions contained in the letter

to my address of the 29th of December, signed by Major Pottinger and

General Elphinstone, has already been approved by government; but

perhaps it may be proper here to relate a few of the causes which

led to such a resolution. When the British authorities at Caubul had

decided upon capitulating, and the terms of capitulation were in the

course of negotiation, my spies informed me that letters had been

received from Mahomed Akbar Khan and the Ghilzye chiefs, desiring the

different tribes on the road to assemble to attack the British army,

which was shortly to leave Caubul for India. This information was

confirmed by the letter from Burkutt Khan ... An intercepted letter

from Mahomed Akbar Khan, which reached us at the same time, will

serve to show the spirit with which he regarded us; therefore I felt

convinced that treachery was intended by the Afghan chiefs, in which

case our retaining possession of the fortress of Jellalabad became of

incalculable advantage to the retreating force; and if it succeeded in

reaching Jellalabad, strengthened as it would be by the garrison, we

might yet have upheld our authority in Ningrahar, until an opportunity

would have been afforded to the British Government to reinforce us, so

as to commence operations for the recapture of Caubul. The troops left

Caubul on the 6th of January; and not until the 9th did we receive the

letter in question. Their fate had been sealed ere that period; and had

the requisition been complied with, Government would most undoubtedly

have had to lament the destruction of the Jellalabad garrison as well

as that of the Caubul force, the wishes of the enemy evidently being to

inveigle us into their power, and then to do their worst towards us.

Moreover, to have evacuated Jellalabad would have doubtless increased a

hundred-fold the difficulties of re-establishing the British authority

in this country, in the event of Government determining so to do. Our

national honour, and the safety of our Indian dominions, seemed to

render this latter course of paramount necessity.”[221]

“As regards my own line of conduct,” said General Sale, “in this

difficult crisis, I am of opinion, in the absence of all instructions

from India, that I am at liberty to choose between the alternatives of

being bound or not by the convention, which was forced from our Envoy

and military commander with the knives at their throats, according as

I see either one course or the other to be most conducive to British

interests. It does not absolutely impose any obligation on my force,

which is no party to it, and under the consideration of its having been

extorted by force, unless it should be ratified by the Governor-General

in Council. If, therefore, I see a prospect of being re-inforced from

Peshawur within the period for which my provisions and ammunition will

last, I propose to hold this place on the part of the government,

until I receive its orders to the contrary. If, however, any untoward

incidents should preclude the prospect of Brigadier Wild’s crossing

the Khybur, I should esteem it wiser and better to retire upon

Peshawur, with the _débris_ of the force of Caubul, on its reaching

me, than to remain here; but in no event would I retire unsupported

by other troops to Peshawur, unless absolutely compelled to do so by

the failure of food and ammunition. I feel assured that the rebels

at Caubul dare not proceed to extremities with the force there, so

long as they know me to be strong here; and that I should, therefore,

be compromising them by evacuating this place, until they have been

permitted to retire upon it.”[222]

A season of painful anxiety and suspense followed the receipt of the

letter from Pottinger and Elphinstone. But it was not without its

alleviations. Money had become scarce at Jellalabad. The cupidity of

the Afghans had seldom been proof against English money; and now to

lack the means of appealing to it was to lose one of our principal

means of defence. It was, therefore, with no common delight that the

garrison now welcomed the arrival of a sum of money which Mackeson,

ever strenuous in his activity, had sent on from Peshawur, through the

agency of Tora-baz Khan, the loyal chief of Lalpoora. The defences of

the place, too, were rising under Broadfoot’s hands, and “by the middle

of January, the commencement of the rainy season, a parapet, nowhere

less than six feet high, with a banquette as wide as the nature of the

rampart allowed, was completed entirely round the place. The gates were

repaired and strengthened by buttresses. Two of them were re-trenched,

and a ditch carried round the north-west angle, whilst some of the most

dangerous ravines were laid open to our force, and roads were opened

into the low ground on the north side.”[223] There was little, indeed,

at this time, except a scarcity of ammunition, to render the garrison

apprehensive on their own account; but every day made them more and

more anxious concerning the fate of their countrymen, who by this time

had left Caubul on their perilous retreat through the snowy passes. A

letter from Captain Lawrence, dated on the 4th instant,[224] announced

that the force was to march in a day or two, with every expectation of

being attacked upon the road. Nothing could Sale’s brigade do in this

emergency, but patiently abide the result.

At last, on the 13th of January, when the garrison were busy on the

works, toiling with axe and shovel, with their arms piled and their

accoutrements laid out close at hand, a sentry, on the ramparts,

looking out towards the Caubul road, saw a solitary, white-faced

horseman struggling on towards the fort. The word was passed; the

tidings spread. Presently the ramparts were lined with officers,

looking out, with throbbing hearts, through unsteady telescopes, or

with straining eyes tracing the road. Slowly and painfully, as though

horse and rider both were in an extremity of mortal weakness, the

solitary mounted man came reeling, tottering on. They saw that he was

an Englishman. On a wretched, weary pony, clinging, as one sick or

wounded, to its neck, he sate or rather leant forward; and there were

those who, as they watched his progress, thought that he could never

reach, unaided, the walls of Jellalabad.

A shudder ran through the garrison. That solitary horseman looked

like the messenger of death. Few doubted that he was the bearer of

intelligence that would fill their souls with horror and dismay. Their

worst forebodings seemed confirmed. There was the one man who was to

tell the story of the massacre of a great army.[225] A party of cavalry

were sent out to succour him. They brought him in wounded, exhausted,

half-dead. The messenger was Dr. Brydon, and he now reported his belief

that he was the sole survivor of an army of some sixteen thousand men.

CHAPTER IV.

[January, 1842.]

The Retreat from Caubul—Departure of the Army—Attack on the

Rear-Guard—The First Day’s March—Encampment at Begramee—The Passage

of the Koord-Caubul Pass—Tezeen—Jugdulluck—Sufferings of the

Force—Negotiations with Akbar Khan—Massacre at Gundamuck—Escape of

Dr. Brydon.

The story told by Dr. Brydon was one of which history has few

parallels. A British army, consisting of more than four thousand

fighting men and twelve thousand camp-followers, had, as he confusedly

related, disappeared in a few days. Some had perished in the snow;

others had been destroyed by the knives and the jezails of the enemy;

and a few had been carried into captivity, perhaps to perish even more

miserably than their unhappy comrades who had died in the deep passes

of Koord-Caubul, Tezeen, and Jugdulluck.

In the struggle between life and death which then threatened to stifle

the evidence of poor Brydon, he told but imperfectly what he knew; and

but imperfectly did he know the whole dire history of that calamitous

retreat. It was long before the garrison of Jellalabad had more than

a dim perception of the events which ended in the annihilation of the

Caubul force. No one man could speak of more than certain scenes of the

great tragedy; what had happened before, behind, around him, he could

only conjecture. But there were other survivors than the solitary man

who was brought, wounded and feeble, into Jellalabad on that January

morning; and enough is now on record to enable the historian to group

into one intelligible whole all the crowded circumstances of that

lamentable retreat.

On the 6th of January, 1842, the army commanded by General Elphinstone,

which, for sixty-five days, had been enduring such humiliation as never

before had been borne by a British force, prepared to consummate the

work of self-abasement by abandoning its position, and leaving the

trophies of war in the hands of an insolent enemy. A breach had been

cut, on the preceding day, by the Engineer Sturt, through the low

ramparts of the cantonments, the earth of which bridged over the ditch;

and now through this opening, and through the rear gate, the baggage

filed out into the open plain, and the troops prepared to follow it.

It was a clear, bright, frosty morning. The cold was intense. The snow

was lying deep on the ground. Shelton had recommended that the baggage

should be loaded by moon-rise; but it was not before eight o’clock that

it was ready to move. About half-past nine the advanced-guard[226]

moved out of the cantonments. The English ladies and the children were

with it; for it was supposed to be the place of safety, if safety could

be found amidst the certain horrors of this perilous retreat.

It had been agreed that the chiefs should furnish a strong Afghan

escort to protect our retiring troops from the furious zeal of the

Ghazees, and the uncontrollable cupidity of those Afghan bandits who

had all along looked upon the revolution only as an opportunity for

much plunder. But the army commenced its march without an escort; and

the Newab Zemaun Khan, whose good faith and true nobility of character

are beyond suspicion, despatched a letter to Pottinger, warning him of

the danger of leaving the cantonments without any such provision for

their safety.[227] But it was too late now to stand still. The Mission

premises had already fallen into the hands of the enemy; and could not

be regained without an engagement, which at such a time it was thought

imprudent to risk. Pottinger instructed Conolly, who remained as one

of our hostages with Zemaun Khan, to explain all this to the Newab.

The good old man admitted the cogency of Pottinger’s arguments, and

promised to do his best to protect the retreating force. He fulfilled

his promise to the utmost of his ability; but he lacked the power

to restrain the people from perpetrating the outrages of which long

impunity had habituated them to the commission, and made them regard

themselves as the privileged instruments of chartered violence and

rapine.

The good intentions of the Newab are not to be denied; but the true

policy of the British, on that January morning, was to wait for

nothing, however advantageous in itself, but to push on with the utmost

possible despatch. But everything seemed to favour delay. The passage

of the Caubul river was to be accomplished by means of a temporary

bridge constructed of gun-waggons, though the river was fordable at

many places, and might have been ridden or waded through without

detriment to those who had been struggling through the deep snow.

On this service, Sturt, active in spite of his wounds, was employed

from an early hour; but it seems that the despatch of the gun-waggons

was delayed, for some unexplained reason, and it was not until the

hour of noon that the bridge was ready for the passage of the troops.

Shelton had endeavoured to expedite the movement;[228] but had met with

his usual success. He went to the General’s quarters—found him at

breakfast; and returned with nothing but a rebuke.

Had the whole of Elphinstone’s army crossed the Caubul river before

noon, and pushed on with all possible despatch to Koord-Cabul, it

might have been saved. But the delays which arose on that dreadful

morning, sealed the fate of the unhappy force. It is hard, indeed, to

say when the force would have moved out of the cantonments, if another

effort had not been made to rouse the General to issue the necessary

order. Colin Mackenzie, estimating aright the fatal consequences of

his chief’s hesitation, hastened to Elphinstone’s quarters, and found

him on horseback before the door of his house, with characteristic

irresolution wondering what he ought to do. Eagerly did Mackenzie

point out that the stream of people, whose egress from the cantonments

was so much desired, had been dammed up, and was now in a state of

terrible stagnation—eagerly did he call the attention of the General

to the crowds of Ghilzyes who had already begun to swarm into the

extensive enclosures of the British Mission-house—eagerly did he

beseech the hesitating chief either to issue orders for the advance of

the troops, or to recall them and expel the intruding Afghans. And he

did not implore in vain. A reluctant assent to the onward movement of

the troops was wrung from the General; and Mackenzie galloped back to

communicate to Shelton the orders he had received. But much mischief

was already done. The day was well-nigh lost. It was a day of suffering

and confusion, presaging worse suffering and confusion to come. The

advanced-guard under Brigadier Anquetil moved out with some order and

steadiness; but in a little while the rush of camp-followers destroyed

all semblance of military array. They mixed themselves up with the

soldiers—a vast overwhelming assemblage of ten or twelve thousand men.

Not a mile of the distance had been accomplished before it was seen how

heavily this curse of camp-followers sat upon the doomed army. It was

vain to attempt to manage this mighty mass of lawless and suffering

humanity. On they went, struggling through the snow—making scant

progress in their confusion and bewilderment—scarcely knowing whether

they were escaping, or whether they were rushing on to death.

The main body under Brigadier Shelton, with its immense strings of

baggage-laden cattle, was moving out of the cantonments during the

greater part of the day. The rear-guard manned the cantonment-walls,

and looked down upon a scene of uproar and confusion beyond the

imagination to conceive. The enemy, as the day advanced, began to be

busy at their work of plunder. Dashing in among the baggage, they cut

down the helpless camp-followers, and carried off whatever they could

seize. The snow was soon plashed with blood. From the opening in the

ramparts to the bridge across the river streamed one great tide of

soldiers and camp-followers, camels and ponies; and at the bridge there

was an enormous mass of struggling life, from which arose shouts,

and yells, and oaths—an indescribable uproar of discordant sounds;

the bellowings of the camels, the curses of the camel-drivers, the

lamentations of the Hindostanees, the shrieks of women, and the cries

of children; and the savage yells of the Ghazees rising in barbarous

triumph above them all.

So tedious was the exode of the force, such were the embarrassments

that beset its progress, that when the shadows of evening began to

descend upon this melancholy scene, the rear-guard was still on the

walls. At six o’clock they marched out of the cantonments; and, moved

by one common thirst of plunder, the Afghans poured themselves upon

the abandoned homes of the English, and, when they could not gratify

their cupidity, began to gratify their revenge. The Feringhees

had left little behind them. They had destroyed almost everything

which they could not carry away, except the guns, which the General

had deemed it expedient to leave in good condition for the use of

his “new allies.”[229] But at all events there were buildings

standing there—buildings erected by the English for their own

purposes—insolent monuments of the Feringhee invasion. The work of the

incendiary commenced. The Mission-house, the General’s quarters, and

other public buildings were soon in a blaze; and the British army, now

scattered over the whole line of country between Caubul and Begramee,

some already at the halting-ground and others only now starting on

their dreary march, looked out through the frosty night at the great

conflagration, which lit up the super-incumbent sky like a stormy

sunset, and for miles around reddened the great coverlid of snow.

Not until two hours after midnight did the rear-guard reach its

encamping ground, on the right bank of the river, near Begramee. They

had been under arms since eight o’clock in the morning. They had been

savagely attacked on leaving the cantonments, and had left fifty of

their numbers dead or dying in the snow, and two of their guns in the

hands of the enemy.[230] They had now only accomplished five or six

miles of their fearful journey; but they had seen enough to fill them

with horrible forebodings of the fate that was in store for them.

The road was strewn with dying wretches, smitten by the unendurable

cold. The miserable people of Hindostan—the weaker women and young

children—had already begun to lay themselves down to die in the

dreadful snow. Even the Sepoys were sinking down on the line of march,

and quietly awaiting death.

The night was one of suffering and horror. The snow lay deep on the

ground. There was no order—no method in anything that was done. The

different regiments encamped anywhere. Soldiers and camp-followers

were huddled together in one inextricable mass of suffering humanity.

Horses, camels, and baggage-ponies were mixed up confusedly with them.

Nothing had been done to render more endurable the rigour of the

northern winter.[231] The weary wretches lay down to sleep—some never

rose again; others awoke to find themselves crippled for life by the

biting frost.

The morning dawned; and without any orders, without an attempt to

restrain them, the camp-followers and baggage struggled on ahead, and

many of the Sepoys went on with them. Discipline was fast disappearing.

The regiments were dwindling down to the merest skeletons. It was

no longer a retreating army; it was a rabble in chaotic flight. The

enemy were pressing on our rear; seizing our baggage; capturing our

guns;[232] cutting up all in their way. Our soldiers, weary, feeble,

and frost-bitten, could make no stand against the fierce charges of the

Afghan horsemen. It seemed that the whole rear-guard would speedily

be cut off. All thoughts of effectual resistance were at an end. There

was nothing now to be hoped for, but from the forbearance of the Afghan

chiefs.

The Newab Zemaun Khan had ever been true to us: ever in the midst

of the wild excitement of the Caubul outbreak, and in the flush of

national triumph, he had been serene, generous, and forbearing; had

borne himself as a worthy enemy; had been betrayed into no excesses;

but had endeavoured to vindicate the rights of the Afghans, without

inflicting upon the Feringhees the misery and humiliation which others

contemplated with irrepressible delight. He had exerted himself on the

preceding day, to control the fierce passions of his countrymen; and

now he wrote to Major Pottinger, exhorting him to arrest the progress

of the retreating army, and promising to send supplies of food and

firewood, and to disperse the fanatic bands which were hovering so

destructively on our flanks. Pottinger went to the General; and the

General consented to the halt.[233] Shelton, on the other hand, was

eager for an advance. He believed that their only chance of safety lay

in a rapid forward movement, shaking off the baggage and camp-followers

as they went. In this conviction, he hurried forward to Elphinstone,

and implored him to proceed.[234] But the General was not to be moved;

and the doomed army halted at Boot-Khak.

Here Akbar Khan appeared upon the scene. With a body of some 600

horsemen he rode up, and Pottinger saw him in the distance. Believing

that he was a Sirdar of note, the political chief despatched Captain

Skinner, with a flag of truce, to communicate with him. Skinner brought

back a friendly message. The Sirdar, he said, had reproached the

British authorities for their hasty movement on the preceding morning;

but added that he had come out to protect them from the attacks of the

Ghazees. His instructions were to demand other hostages, as security

for the evacuation of Jellalabad; and to arrest the progress of the

force, supplying it in the interval with everything it required, until

such time as intelligence of the retirement of Sale’s force should be

received. “It was too late to send a reply,” wrote Pottinger, in his

report of these proceedings, “and nothing was determined—but some

persons persuaded the General to abandon his intention of marching by

night.” And so the doomed force, whilst the enemy were mustering to

block up the passes in advance, spent another night of inactivity and

suffering in the cruel snow.

It was at the entrance of the Koord-Caubul Pass that the force, now

on the evening of the 7th of January having in two days accomplished

a distance of only ten miles,[235] halted on some high ground. The

confusion far exceeded that of the preceding night. The great

_congeries_ of men, women, and children, horses, ponies, and camels,

there wallowing in the snow, no words can adequately describe. Many lay

down only to find a winding-sheet in the snow. There was no shelter—no

firewood—no food. The Sepoys burnt their caps and accoutrements to

obtain a little temporary warmth. One officer[236] narrates how he and

eleven others “crowded round the hot ashes of a pistol-case, and with

some bottles of wine still remaining, tried to keep off the effect of

the cold. They then all huddled together and lay down on the ground to

sleep.”

The sun rose upon many stiffened corpses; and a scene of still greater

confusion than had marked the dawn of the preceding morning now

heralded the march of the force. Doubt and uncertainty regarding the

intentions of their chiefs brooded over the officers of the force; but

few of the soldiers now remembered their chiefs, and the camp-followers

were wholly regardless of their wishes.

One paramount desire to escape death held possession of that wretched

multitude; and a crowd of soldiers and camp-followers, at an early

hour, began to push on confusedly to the front. Whilst some efforts

were being made to restrain them, Akbar Khan was in communication

with the officers of the British Mission. Skinner again went out to

meet the Sirdar. It was proposed that the army should either halt on

their present ground at Boot-Khak, or make their way to Tezeen, there

to await intelligence of the evacuation of Jellalabad. Four hostages

were demanded as security for Sale’s retreat; and Brigadier Shelton

and Captain Lawrence were named as two of them. But Shelton had always

resolutely refused to give himself up to the enemy, and Elphinstone was

unwilling to order him. Pottinger, therefore, volunteered to take his

place,[237] and Brigadier Anquetil consented, if a general officer were

peremptorily demanded, to accompany the political chief.

Pottinger rode to the rear, where Akbar Khan sent a party of horsemen

to conduct him to his presence. Welcoming the young English officer

with a respectful kindliness of manner, the Sirdar declared himself

willing to receive three hostages—Major Pottinger, Captain Lawrence,

and any other officer whom the former might select. Pottinger named

Colin Mackenzie, than whom there was not in all the army a braver or a

better soldier,[238] and those three officers placed themselves in the

hands of Akbar Khan.

The force was now again in motion. It was agreed that they should push

on to Tezeen, there to await certain tidings of the evacuation of

Jellalabad. Between Boot-Khak and Tezeen lies the stupendous pass of

Koord-Caubul. For a distance of five miles it runs between precipitous

mountain-ranges, so narrow and so shut in on either side that the

wintry sun rarely penetrates its gloomy recesses.[239] Into the jaws of

this terrible defile the disorganised force now struggled in fearful

confusion. In vain did Akbar Khan issue his orders; in vain did his

principal adherents exert themselves to control the hordes of fanatic

Ghilzyes, who poured upon our struggling rabble a deadly fire from

their jezails. Nothing could restrain the fierce impetuosity of our

cruel assailants. Pent in between the incumbent walls of the narrow

pass, now splashing through the mountain torrent, now floundering

through the snow which filled the hollows, or was banked up beside

the stream, the wretched fugitives fell an easy prey to the Ghilzye

marksmen, who shot them down from the hill-sides. It was not a time to

think of saving anything but human life. Baggage, ammunition, public

and private property, were abandoned;[240] and the Sepoys suffered

their very firelocks to be taken out of their hands.

The massacre was fearful in this Koord-Caubul Pass. Three thousand

men are said to have fallen under the fire of the enemy, or to have

dropped down paralysed and exhausted, to be slaughtered by the Afghan

knives. And amidst these fearful scenes of carnage, through a shower

of matchlock balls, rode English ladies on horseback, or in camel

panniers, sometimes vainly endeavouring to keep their children beneath

their eyes, and losing them in the confusion and bewilderment of the

desolating march.

Many European officers perished in the Koord-Caubul Pass. Among them

was Captain Paton, the assistant adjutant-general—a good and gallant

officer who had lost an arm in action at Caubul. Here, too, fell,

mortally stricken, Lieutenant Sturt of the engineers, a very fine

young officer, who, though severely wounded at the commencement

of the outbreak, stabbed in the face at the door of Shah Soojah’s

presence-chamber, had exerted himself with overflowing zeal and

unfailing activity, whenever his services, as the only engineer at

Caubul, were required; and whose voice, when others counselled unworthy

concessions, had ever been lifted up in favour of the noblest and the

manliest course. He lingered some little time, in agony of body, but

unbroken bravery of spirit, and died on the 9th of January, attended by

his wife and mother-in-law; the daughter and wife of Sir Robert Sale.

That night the force again halted in the snow, now deepened by a heavy

fall, which, as the army neared the high table-land of Koord-Caubul,

had increased the bitterness of the march.[241] The night was, like its

predecessors, one of intense suffering, spent by the perishing troops

without shelter, without firewood, and without food. At early morn

there was another rush of camp-followers and undisciplined Sepoys to

the front; but the march of the troops, which had been ordered at ten

o’clock, was countermanded by the General. Akbar Khan was then offering

to supply the force with provisions, and to do his best for its future

protection. At his suggestion a halt was ordered by Elphinstone;

and the perishing troops sate down in the snow, which another march

would have cleared, for a day of painful uncertainty. The whole force

was against the delay. Shelton went to the General to remonstrate

against it. In vain he urged that such a measure would cause the total

destruction of the column. The General was not to be moved from

his purpose. The day was one of idleness and desertion. The Native

troops, led by Shah Soojah’s cavalry, began to bethink themselves of

escaping from the horrors of the retreat by going over to the enemy.

The General had paraded the ruins of the different regiments to repel

an anticipated attack; and now Captain Grant, the adjutant-general,

accompanied by the Tezeen chief, Khoda Bux Khan, rode to the head of

these skeleton corps, now numbering scarcely more than a hundred men in

each, and explained to them that Akbar Khan had declared his intention

to kill all, who deserted to him, on the spot. But the contagion was

then fast spreading; and nothing could check the progress of the

disease. The Shah’s 2nd Cavalry had gone over nearly to a man.

In the mean while Major Pottinger, who had passed the night in a

neighbouring castle, was in consultation with Akbar Khan; and Captain

Skinner was acting as the vehicle of communication between them and the

head-quarters of the army. A new, and, at the first sound, startling

proposition was now made by the Sirdar. He proposed that all the

English ladies with the force should be placed under his charge, that

he might convey them safely to Peshawur. Remembering that the families

of the Sirdar himself were prisoners in the hands of the British, and

believing that he was sincere in his desire to save the ladies and

children from the destruction that awaited them on the line of march,

Pottinger sanctioned the proposal; and Skinner was despatched to the

head-quarters of the force to obtain the General’s consent. “Desirous

to remove the ladies and children, after the horrors they had already

witnessed, from the further dangers of our camp, and hoping that, as

from the very commencement of the negotiations the Sirdar had shown the

greatest anxiety to have the married people as hostages, this mark of

trust might elicit a corresponding feeling in him,”[242] Elphinstone

complied with the request. A party of Afghan horse were in readiness

to conduct them to the presence of the Sirdar; and so Lady Macnaghten,

Lady Sale, and the other widows and wives of the British officers,

became the “guests” of the son of Dost Mahomed Khan.

They did not go alone. The married men went with them. The propriety

of this step has been questioned. It has been even said that they were

not demanded at all by Akbar Khan, but that they threw themselves

spontaneously upon the mercy of the chief. It is right, therefore,

that so grave a question should not be slurred over. There were three

unprejudiced witnesses, whose statements, on such a point, would be

worthy of acceptation, as the statements of honourable and unprejudiced

men, familiar with all the circumstances of the case. Major Pottinger,

Captain Skinner, and General Elphinstone knew all those circumstances,

and had no reason to misrepresent them. Major Pottinger says that, “on

Sirdar Mahomed Akbar Khan offering to take charge of the ladies and

protect them to Peshawur, I considered it advisable to recommend that

they should come over, as the Sirdar’s family being in our hands was

a sufficient guarantee for their good treatment, and it was evident

that our own people were too much diminished to protect them. Captain

Skinner accordingly went over and mentioned the offer to General

Elphinstone, who approved of it, and sent over the ladies, children,

and married officers.” Captain Skinner has left upon record no

narrative of these proceedings. But General Elphinstone has distinctly

stated that Captain Skinner was sent to him with a proposal “that

the married people and their families should be made over to him,

promising honourable treatment to the ladies.” Whatever may have been

the proposition, as it originally emanated from the Sirdar, there is no

room to doubt that General Elphinstone shaped it into a recommendation

that the husbands should accompany their wives, and that the former

went over to Akbar Khan with the entire sanction of their military

chief.[243]

That the safety of the women and children was secured by their removal

from General Elphinstone’s disorganised camp to the custody of Akbar

Khan, is now a fact which stands out distinctly in the broad light of

historical truth. But writing now after the event, it becomes one to

consider rather the wisdom of the experiment than the success of the

result. I believe that Pottinger and Elphinstone judged wisely. There

was a choice of evils, and it appears to me that they chose the least.

The women and the children could not long have survived the horrors of

that perilous march. They had hitherto escaped, almost by a miracle,

the assaults of the cruel climate and the inexorable foe. They were

insufficiently clad. They had no servants to attend upon them. They

had scarcely tasted food since they left Caubul. They had no shelter

during the frosty night-season. Some had just become, or were about

soon to become, mothers; and yet they had been compelled to ride in

jolting camel-panniers, or on the backs of stumbling baggage-ponies.

It was plain that Akbar Khan had no power to restrain the tribes who

were butchering our helpless people. The army was fast melting away. It

was doubtful whether a man would reach Jellalabad in safety. To have

left the women and children to pursue their march would have been to

have left them to inevitable destruction. Akbar Khan might be a man

of violent and ferocious temper, and no very scrupulous good faith;

but because he had slain the Envoy in a gust of passion, it did not

necessarily follow that he would betray the widow of his victim and the

other English ladies who were now to be entrusted to his safe keeping.

Moreover, if no sentiments of honour and no feelings of compassion were

within him, he might still be swayed by motives of self-interest; and

it was not forgotten that his father, his brothers, and the ladies of

his family were prisoners in the hands of the British Government, in

the provinces of Hindostan.

The married officers and their families having gone over to the

Sirdar, the remnant of the doomed force on the following morning (the

10th of January) resumed its march towards Jellalabad. There was the

same miserable confusion as on the preceding morning. Soldiers and

camp-followers rushed promiscuously to the front. The Native regiments

were fast melting into nothing. Throwing down their arms and crowding

in among the mass of camp-followers, the Sepoys were rapidly swelling

the disorganised rabble in front. Their hands were frost-bitten; they

could not pull a trigger; they were paralysed, panic-struck; they

rushed forward in aimless desperation, scarcely knowing what they did

or where they went; whilst the Afghans, watching the cruel opportunity,

came down, with their long knives, amidst their unresisting victims,

and slaughtered them like sheep. “A narrow gorge between the

precipitous spurs of two hills” was the appointed shambles. There the

dead and the dying soon choked up the defile. There was not now a

single Sepoy left. Every particle of baggage was gone. About fifty

horse-artillerymen, with one howitzer gun; some 250[244] men of the

44th; and 150 cavalry troopers, now constituted the entire force. Of

the 16,000 men—soldiers and camp-followers—who had left Caubul, not

more than a quarter survived.

Still hovering on the flanks of our retreating force, Akbar Khan,

attended by a party of horsemen, watched the butchery that was going

on below; and when Elphinstone sent Skinner to remonstrate with him,

declared that he was powerless to restrain the savage impetuosity of

the Ghilzyes, whom even their own immediate chiefs could not control.

But he had a proposal to make. Those were not times when any very

nice regard for the national honour prompted the rejection of even

humiliating terms offered by our Afghan enemies; but when the Sirdar

proposed that the remnant of the British army should lay down their

arms, and place themselves entirely under his protection, Elphinstone

at once refused his consent. The march was therefore resumed. The wreck

of the British force made its desperate way down the steep descents of

the Haft-Kotul, into a narrow defile, strewn with the ghastly remains

of the camp-followers and soldiers, who had pushed on in advance of the

column. As they passed down the defile, the enemy opened a destructive

fire on their rear. The rear was then commanded by Shelton. With a

handful of Europeans he repulsed their attacks, “though obliged to

nurse their ammunition by a watchful check on its expenditure.” “Nobly

and heroically,” says Shelton, in his rapid narrative of the march,

“these fine fellows stood by me.”[245] The gallantry of these few men

was, for a time, the salvation of the whole.

After another attempt at negotiation, resulting only in the same demand

for the disarming of the remnant of the force, it was determined, at

Shelton’s suggestion, that a desperate effort should be made to reach

Jugdulluck by a rapid night-march. Enfeebled by starvation, the troops

were little able to struggle forward, on their perilous march, over a

difficult country, and in the face of an active enemy. But despair had

given them strength; and when the order was given, having spiked their

last remaining gun, they moved off lightly and quietly in the hope of

shaking off, under cover of the night, the curse of camp-followers,

which had sate upon them with such destructive tenacity from the first.

But no sooner had the soldiers began to move, than the camp-followers

started up to accompany them; and throughout that fearful night-march

clustered around the few good fighting men and paralysed the movements

of the force.

It was a bright, frosty night. The snow was lying only partially

on the ground. For some miles they proceeded unmolested. But when,

at Seh-Baba, the enemy again opened a fire upon their rear, the

camp-followers rushed to the front; and when firing was heard ahead of

the column, again fell back on the rear. Thus surging backwards and

forwards—the ebb and flow of a great tide of people—these miserable

camp-followers, in the wildness of their fear, overwhelmed the handful

of soldiers who were still able and willing to show a front to the

enemy, blocked up the road, and presented to the eyes of the Afghan

marksmen a dark mass of humanity, which could not escape their fire

even under cover of the night.

Soon after daybreak the advance reached Kutter-Sung. They were still

ten miles from Jugdulluck. Halting only till the rear-guard had come

up, they pushed on with an energy, which at the commencement of the

retreat might have saved the force from destruction. But it was now too

late. The enemy were crowning the heights; there was no possibility

of escape. Shelton, with a few brave men of the rear-guard, faced the

overwhelming crowd of Afghans with a determined courage worthy of

British soldiers; and fought his way to Jugdulluck. Almost every inch

of ground was contested. Gallantly did this little band hold the enemy

in check. Keeping the fierce crowd from closing in upon the column, but

suffering terribly under the fire of their jezails, they made their way

at last to the ground where the advance had halted, behind some ruined

walls on a height by the road-side. Their comrades received them with

a cheer. The cheer came from a party of officers, who had extended

themselves in line on the height to show an imposing front to their

assailants.[246] The enemy seemed to increase in number and in daring.

They had followed the rear-guard to Jugdulluck, and they now took

possession of the heights commanding the position of their victims.

The hot fire of the enemy’s jezails drove the survivors of the Caubul

army to seek safety behind the ruined walls, near which they had posted

themselves. Withdrawn from the excitement of the actual conflict, these

wretched men now began to suffer in all their unendurable extremes

the agonies of hunger and thirst. They scooped up the snow in their

hands and greedily devoured it. But it only increased their torments.

There was a stream of pure water near at hand, but they could not

approach it without being struck down by the fire of the enemy. Behind

the walls they had a brief respite; and they tried to snatch a hasty

meal. The ever active Commissariat officer, Johnson, found among the

camp-followers three bullocks, which were instantly killed and served

out to the famishing European soldiers, who devoured, with savage

voracity, the raw and reeking flesh.

The respite was but of brief duration. A party of the enemy’s horsemen

was observed, and one of the number, having approached our people,

said that the chief who commanded them was Akbar Khan. Skinner, who

had acted throughout as the negotiator, now went to remonstrate with

the Sirdar against the continued attacks of his countrymen. He had

scarcely set out, when the firing was resumed. The men had lain down

in the snow, to snatch a little brief repose after a long vigil of

thirty hours, when the enemy poured in volley after volley upon their

resting-place, and compelled them, in wild confusion—soldiers and

camp-followers again huddled together—to quit the walled enclosure in

which they had bivouacked. Individual acts of heroism were not wanting

at this time to give something of dignity even to this melancholy

retreat. A handful of the 44th Regiment here made a gallant rush at the

enemy and cleared all the ground before them. Bygrave, the paymaster of

the Caubul army, was at their head. Thinking that our whole force would

follow them, the Afghans fled in dismay. But the little party was soon

recalled to the main body, which again retired behind the ruined walls;

and again the enemy returned to pour upon them the destructive fire of

their terrible jezails.

All night long and throughout the next day the force halted at

Jugdulluck. In the mean while Akbar Khan was in communication with

the British chiefs. Skinner had returned with a message from the

Sirdar, inviting the General, Brigadier Shelton, and Captain Johnson

to a conference. They went, and were received with every possible

demonstration of kindness and hospitality. A cloth was spread on the

ground. Food was placed before them, and draughts of tea satisfied

their thirst. The meal completed, the Afghan chiefs and the English

officers sate round a blazing fire and conversed. Captain Johnson was

the spokesman on the part of the latter; for he understood the language

employed. Through him the wishes of the General were now conveyed to

Akbar Khan. The Sirdar promised to send provisions and water to the

famishing troops,[247] but insisted on retaining the General, Shelton,

and Johnson as hostages for the evacuation of Jellalabad. Elphinstone

earnestly entreated permission to return to his troops—urged that,

as commanding officer of the force, his desertion would appear

dishonourable in the eyes of his countrymen, and promised, on returning

to camp, to send Brigadier Anquetil in his place. But the Sirdar was

inexorable; and so General Elphinstone, Brigadier Shelton, and Captain

Johnson remained as hostages in the hands of Akbar Khan. That night,

under a tent provided for them by the Sirdar, they laid themselves

down in their cloaks, and enjoyed such sleep as they only can know who

have spent such nights of horror as closed upon the sufferers in this

miserable retreat.

Next morning the conference was resumed. The English officers earnestly

implored the Sirdar to save the remnant of the unhappy force; and

he promised to exert all the authority he possessed to restrain the

tribes from their unholy work of massacre and plunder. But the

petty chiefs of the country between Jugdulluck and Jellalabad came

flocking in; and it seemed impossible to control the savage impulses

of hatred and vindictiveness which broke out even in the presence of

the English officers, and seemed to shut out all hope for the future.

They had trampled down every feeling of mercy and compassion. Even

avarice had ceased to be a moving principle; offers of money were

disregarded, and they loudly declared that they wanted only the blood

of the Feringhees. In vain Akbar Khan tried to dissuade them from their

horrid purpose—in vain he urged that his father and his family were

prisoners in the hands of the British Government; in vain the offer of

large sums of money for a safe conduct to Jellalabad was made to these

unrelenting chiefs. Johnson, who understood the language well, heard

them conversing in Persian; and it was plain that they revelled in the

thought of cutting the throats of the Feringhees even more than of

growing rich on their plunder. They were not to be conciliated. Akbar

Khan made an effort to pacify them, and they said in reply that they

had recommended his father to kill Burnes, lest he should return and

bring an army with him.

If there was any hope at this time it lay in an appeal to the cupidity

of their chiefs, but their hatred seemed to overlay their avarice.

Mahomed Shah Khan,[248] however, had undertaken to work upon their

known love of money, and asked whether the British were prepared to pay

two lakhs of rupees for safe conduct to Jellalabad. The General had

assented to this, and Mahomed Shah Khan had undertaken the office of

mediator; but it was long before he could bring about any satisfactory

arrangement. At length, as the shades of evening were thickening

around them, he brought intelligence to the effect that everything had

been peaceably settled, and that the remnant of the British army would

be allowed to proceed unmolested to Jellalabad.

But scarcely had he announced this consoling intelligence, when the

sound of firing was heard to issue from the direction in which the

British troops were bivouacked. By the order of the General, Captain

Johnson had written to Brigadier Anquetil, upon whom now, as senior

officer, the command of the force had devolved, directing him to have

the troops in readiness to march at eight o’clock on the following

morning. But the letter had not been despatched when the firing was

heard, and it became evident that the British troops were again on

the move. It was about eight o’clock, on the evening of the 12th,

that the few remaining men—now reduced to about a hundred and twenty

of the 44th, and twenty-five artillerymen—prepared to resume their

perilous march. The curse of camp-followers clung to them still. The

teeming rabble again came huddling against the fighting men; and the

Afghans, taking advantage of the confusion, stole in, knife in hand,

amongst them, destroying all the unarmed men in their way, and glutting

themselves with plunder.

They did not, this time, escape. The soldiers turned and bayoneted the

plunderers; and fought their way bravely on. But there was a terrible

fate awaiting them as they advanced. The Jugdulluck Pass was before

them. The road ascends between the steep walls of this dark precipitous

defile, and our wretched men struggled onward, exposed to the fire

of the enemy, till on nearing the summit they came suddenly upon a

barricade, and were thrown back in surprise and dismay. The enemy had

blocked up the mouth of the pass. Barriers, made of bushes and the

branches of trees, opposed the progress of the column, and threw the

whole into inextricable confusion. The camp-followers crowded upon the

soldiers, who, in spite of the overwhelming superiority of the enemy,

fought with a desperate valour worthy of a better fate. The Afghans had

been lying in wait for the miserable remnant of the British army, and

were now busy with their cruel knives and their unerring jezails. The

massacre was something terrible to contemplate. Officers, soldiers,

and camp-followers were stricken down at the foot of the barricade. A

few, strong in the energy of desperation, managed to struggle through

it. But from that time all hope was at an end. There had ceased to be a

British army.

In this terrible Jugdulluck Pass many brave officers fell with their

swords in their hands. Up to this time death had not been very busy

among the commissioned ranks of our ill-fated army. The number of

officers that survived, when the column left Jugdulluck, was large

in proportion to the number of soldiers who remained to follow them.

Though they had ever been in the midst of danger, and had been

especially marked by the Afghan jezailchees, they had hitherto escaped

with an impunity which had not been the lot of the common soldiers.

This is to be attributed partly to external and partly to internal

advantages. They had enjoyed no better covering and no better food

than their comrades; but they had ridden good horses; and though,

outwardly, means of keeping off the cruel cold had not been enjoyed

by them less scantily than by the European soldiers, they had brought

to their aid all the advantages of superior mental resource. They had

been more cautious and more provident, and had been greatly upheld by

the knowledge of the responsibility which in such a fearful conjuncture

devolved upon them. There is a sustaining power, under severe physical

trial, in the sense of moral responsibility; the feeling that others

are dependent upon one’s exertions has a bracing and invigorating

effect; and whatever excites mental activity is favourable to physical

endurance. Many, in the course of that terrible retreat from Caubul,

had perished under the influence of mental despondency; many had been

destroyed by their own incaution. The officers had fallen only under

the fire of the enemy. Thousands of the soldiers and camp-followers had

been destroyed by the cruel cold.

But here, at this fearful Jugdulluck barrier, death struck at the

officers of the wretched force. Twelve of the best and bravest here

found their last resting-place.[249] Here fell Brigadier Anquetil, upon

whom, after the departure of Elphinstone and Shelton, had devolved the

command of the column. He had been the chief of Shah Soojah’s force;

was held in esteem as a good officer; but during almost the entire

period of the siege had been incapacitated by sickness from taking a

prominent part in the military operations which had ended in so much

disaster and disgrace. Here, too, fell Major Thain, who had gone out

to India as the friend and aid-de-camp of General Elphinstone, and in

that capacity had followed his chief to Caubul; but throughout the time

of their beleaguerment, and all through the retreat, had been forward

in the hour of active danger, and had gallantly served as a regimental

officer whenever one was wanted to lead a charge. Here, too, fell

Colonel Chambers, who had commanded the cavalry at Caubul, and who

now, with other officers of his regiment, perished in the attempt to

clear the destroying barriers. And here, too, fell Captain Nicholl,

of the Horse Artillery, who with his men, all through the dangers of

the investment and the horrors of the retreat, had borne themselves as

gallantly as the best of English soldiers in any place and at any time.

Ever in the midst of danger, now charging on horse and now on foot,

were those few resolute artillerymen. With mingled admiration and awe

the enemy marked the desperate courage of the “red men,” and shrunk

from a close conflict with what seemed to be superhuman strength and

endurance. There is not much in the events of the outbreak at Caubul

and the retreat to Jellalabad to be looked back upon with national

pride; but the monumental column, on which is inscribed the names of

the brave men of Nicholl’s troops, who then fell in action with the

enemy, only displays the language of simple, unostentatious truth when

it records that on “occasions of unprecedented trial, officers and

men upheld, in the most noble manner, the character of the regiment

to which they belonged;” and years hence, when it has become a mere

tradition that Dum-Dum was once the head-quarters’ station of that

distinguished corps, the young artilleryman, standing in the shadow of

the column, will read how Nicholl’s troop, the oldest in the regiment,

was annihilated in the fearful passes of Afghanistan, will dwell on the

heroic conduct which preceded their fall, and glow with pride at the

recollection that those brave men were a portion of the regiment which

now bears his name on its rolls.[250]

At this Jugdulluck barrier it may be said that the Caubul force

ceased to be. A few officers and a few men cleared the barricade;

and struggled on towards Gundamuck. About daybreak they reached

that place; and the sun rose upon a party of some twenty officers

and forty-five European soldiers. The enemy were mustering around

them. “Every hut had poured forth its inhabitants to murder and to

plunder.”[251] There were not more than two rounds of ammunition

remaining in the pouches of our men. But they had not lost all

heart. “Their numbers were as one to a hundred—most of them already

wounded,”[252] but they were resolute not to lay down their arms whilst

a spark of life remained. A messenger came from the chief of the

district with overtures to the senior officer present. Major Griffiths,

of the 37th Native Infantry, was then the chief of that little band;

but whilst he was on his way to the Sirdar, the enemy mustering around

them called upon them to give up their arms. The refusal of the brave

men, followed by a violent attempt to disarm them, brought on a hand

to hand contest. The infuriated mob overwhelmed the little party of

Englishmen, and cut them up almost to a man. Captain Souter, of the

44th Regiment, who had wrapped the regimental colour round his waist,

and a few privates were taken prisoners. The rest were all massacred at

Gundamuck.[253]

A few, however, had pushed on from Soorkhab, which lies between

Jugdulluck and Gundamuck, in advance of the column. One by one they

fell by the way, until the number was reduced to six. Captains Bellew,

Collyer, and Hopkins, Lieutenant Bird, and Drs. Harpur and Brydon,

reached Futtehabad alive. They were then only sixteen miles from

Jellalabad. A prospect of salvation opened out before them all; but

only one was suffered to escape. Some peasants in the vicinity of

Futtehabad came out, spoke to the fugitives, and offered them bread to

eat. They thought that a little food would strengthen them to toil on

to the end of their painful journey; and the agonies of hunger were

hard to endure. But again was there death in delay. Whilst our officers

tarried for a few minutes to satisfy the cravings of nature, some of

the armed inhabitants of the place sallied out and attacked them.

Bellew and Bird were cut down. The others rode off; but were pursued

and overtaken; and three of the remaining number were slain. Dr. Brydon

alone escaped to Jellalabad. Wounded, and worn out by famine and

fatigue, he had struggled onward, borne by a jaded pony, till the walls

of the fort appeared in sight; and a party came out to succour him.

So perished the last remnant of a force which had left Caubul numbering

4,500 fighting men and 12,000 camp-followers. The frost and the snow

had destroyed more than the jezails and the knives of the Afghans.

It was not a human enemy alone with which those miserable men had to

contend. It was theirs to war against a climate more perilous in its

hostility than the inexorable foe. But neither the cruel cold nor the

malignant Afghans would have consigned the British army to destruction,

if the curse which had so long brooded over the councils of our

military chiefs, and turned everything into folly and imbecility,

had not followed them on their exode from the Caubul cantonments,

and crowned the catalogue of disaster and disgrace. It is probable

that, if greater energy had been exhibited at the commencement of

the retreat—if nothing had been thought of but the best means of

accomplishing the march through the snow with the utmost possible

rapidity—a large portion of the force would have been saved. But the

delays which were suffered to arise at the commencement of the retreat

sealed the fate of the army. They threw the game into the hands of the

enemy. We waited, indeed, whilst the gates were being closed upon us,

and then there was no outlet of escape. Whilst our wretched people were

halting and perishing in the snow, the enemy were gathering in advance

of them and lining the passes, intent on their destruction. The events

of that miserable week in January afforded a fitting climax to the

series of disasters which had darkened the two preceding months. There

is nothing, indeed, more remarkable in the history of the world than

the awful completeness—the sublime unity—of this Caubul tragedy.

It would be unprofitable to enter into an inquiry regarding all the

minute details of misdirection and mismanagement, making up the great

sum of human folly, which was the permitted means of our overthrow. In

the pages of a heathen writer over such a story as this would be cast

the shadow of a tremendous Nemesis. The Christian historian uses other

words, but the same prevailing idea runs, like a great river, through

his narrative; and the reader recognises the one great truth, that the

wisdom of our statesmen is but foolishness, and the might of our armies

is but weakness, when the curse of God is sitting heavily upon an

unholy cause. “For the Lord God of recompenses shall surely requite.”

APPENDIX.

[Many of the notes and illustrative documents which encumbered

the text of the original edition of this work are now, after much

consideration, removed to the end of the volume. Their omission would

have detracted from the authenticity of the history, which their

transfer, whilst it increases the fluency of the narrative, leaves

unimpaired. I think, therefore, that the change will be regarded as an

improvement.]

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE MACADAMISATION OF THE PUNJAB.

[_Book IV., chapter 2, page 48._]

“The plot is thickening,” wrote Macnaghten, on the 10th of April,

“and I have no hesitation in asserting my belief that we shall find

ourselves in a very awkward predicament, unless we adopt measures

for macadamising the road through the Punjab.” On the 15th of the

same month he wrote: “It may not be the interest of our neighbours

to give us offence; but it is their interest to do us injury, and

in attempts to effect this, a certain good neighbour has certainly

been most active and persevering. We have fresh instances and clear

proof of this spirit daily. Nothing would give us a greater name in

Central Asia than success in such a cause; but I need not dilate on the

ten thousand advantages that would attend a vigorous policy in this

direction.”—[_MS. Correspondence._] Avitabile’s proceedings at this

time were a source of extreme annoyance to Macnaghten. The General was

interfering with the Khyburees. The Koochlee-Khail tribe of Afreedis,

from whom he demanded revenue, went to Mackeson for protection, and

said: “Formerly the Sikhs used to pay us 13,000 rupees a year to get

water at Jumrood; and now, on the strength of their alliance with you,

they ask us for revenue.”—[_Lieutenant Mackeson: April 12, 1840.

MS. Correspondence._] The chief of the tribe said to Mackeson: “Why

do you stay at Peshawur? You are powerless there, and you prevent us

from injuring the Sikhs in return for the injuries they inflict upon

us. Come and tarry with us.” Avitabile threatened to carry fire and

sword among the Koochlee-Khail people; and Mackeson, to prevent the

employment of force, went security for them. Besides this, he laid

an embargo on all merchants and travellers, subjects of Shah Soojah,

passing through Peshawur, and declared that not one of them should

proceed until the Shah had given ample security against the commission

of robberies in the pass.—[_Lieutenant Mackeson to Mr. Maddock:

April 26. MS. Correspondence._] These things greatly embarrassed our

position, at a time when we especially desired to tranquillise the

Khyburees. Macnaghten wrote urgently to government on the subject: “By

this day’s dawk I am sending to the Supreme Government,” he wrote,

in a private letter, on the 23rd of April, “a budget containing the

proceedings of General Avitabile. These are calculated to do infinite

mischief—so much so, indeed, that unless redress is afforded, I do

not see how it is possible that a rupture with the Sikh Government

can be avoided; it’s a necessary consequence of such proceedings; all

our ties must be renewed in the pass, and commerce by this route may

be extinguished. Can the _Volpe_ be acting without instructions? Why

should he seek to exasperate us? But our convoy has got safely through,

and we are on the best possible terms with the Khyburees, who detest

our allies.”

THE MISSION TO KOKUND.

[_Book IV., chapter 2, page 70._]

The grounds upon which Macnaghten proceeded in this matter, as well

as the recognised objects of the Mission, may be gathered from the

following passages of a letter to the Supreme Government: “Referring,

therefore, to the general permission accorded in the Secretary’s

letter of the 11th of May last, on the point of Captain Conolly’s

mission to Kokund, I have come to the determination of at once sending

off that officer to the Court in question by the route of Khiva, and

in company with Yakoob Bai, the Khan Huzzrut’s envoy here, who is

anxious to return home. Yakoob Bai will be a good escort for Captain

Conolly through the whole of the desert country extending from the

Hindoo-Koosh to Khiva, and thence, as shown by the memorandum of the

envoy’s conversation with me on the 13th of June last, his way will be

safe and easy on to Kokund, the ruler of which place can be directly

advised of his approach. His Lordship in Council has himself been

pleased to express his sense of Captain Conolly’s qualifications for

the duty proposed to be entrusted to him, and I venture to hope that

this Mission will give great support to our position in Afghanistan,

besides being the means of obtaining other important advantages. I have

so repeatedly had the honour of laying before the Right Honourable the

Governor-General my opinions as to the affairs of Toorkistan, that I

need not repeat them. I will do myself the honour of forwarding on

another occasion my specific instructions to Captain Conolly for his

journey, which will have for its chief object the establishment of a

correct impression, at every place which he visits, of British policy

and strength, as it bears upon Asia and on Europe, with reference

especially to the late interference in Afghanistan—the strengthening

of amicable relations with the chief Oosbeg powers, which have shown a

friendly disposition towards us, and endeavouring to persuade them to

help themselves, and enable us to help them, by doing present justice

to their enemies, and forming an agreement with each other to prevent

or to redress future injury done by any one party among them to Russia,

so as to deprive the latter power of pretexts for interference with

their independence. Captain Conolly will either at Khiva or Kokund

learn the result of the endeavour committed to the two deputies of

Shah Soojah, mentioned in my letter of yesterday, to bring the Ameer

of Bokhara to reason. If by this influence, or by other means, the

Ameer should promptly exhibit a decided disposition to atone for his

past, and to be friends with us and the Afghan King, Captain Conolly

can return to Afghanistan _viâ_ Bokhara, otherwise his course must be

regulated by circumstances.”—[_Sir W. H. Macnaghten to Government:

Caubul, August 2, 1842. MS. Correspondence._] I have taken this from a

copy in Arthur Conolly’s hand-writing.

SOURCES OF DOURANEE DISCONTENT.

[_Book III., chapter 3, page 105._]

“It is curious to observe the manner in which the Douranees have

reasoned upon the liberality of his Majesty’s Government, and the

gradual modifications which we may suppose their feelings to have

undergone, from the evidence of alterations in their tone and conduct.

During the first year of his Majesty’s restored government, they

exhibited outwardly but little change from the same passive demeanour

which had characterised their submission to the Sirdars under the

later periods of the Barukzye administration. No sooner, however, had

the new order been issued for the remission of the land-tax, than,

with resuscitated hopes, they began to remonstrate, to agitate, and

ultimately to take up arms, when other means of intimidation failed

them. I bring forward, by way of illustration, the example of the

tribes in Zemindawer. They had been subjected, during the preceding

year, to some severity of treatment by the financial arrangements of

Wullee Mahomed Khan; but they had endured the yoke almost without a

murmur. Since the arrival of the Wukeel at Candahar they had been,

on the contrary, entirely free from interference. Not a government

agent of any class had appeared in Zemindawer, nor had a khurwar of

grain been realised, yet the tribes of that district, on the first

demand of revenue, took up arms to withstand, as they said, oppressive

exactions; and whilst a party of horse were encamped upon this side

of the Helmund, appointed to support the government officer in his

collections, they crossed the river, and attacked them without the

semblance of an excuse on the score of provocation or actual rapacity.

The unpopularity of the agent deputed to realise the revenues, and

the apprehension of a repetition of the exactions of the previous

year, may have been instrumental in assembling the tribes in arms as

a measure of defence; but surely such motives are insufficient to

justify or explain a gratuitous attack before the collections of the

present year had commenced; or, if the motives which the Zemindawerees

assigned for their offensive hostility be admitted, surely some radical

change of character must have taken place, to have emboldened to

this act of aggressive rebellion tribes who had submitted passively

to the most galling tyranny on the part of the Sirdars, and who had

even yielded, since the accession of his Majesty, to the harshness

of the collections of the preceding year without betraying any open

signs of discontent. It appears to me that, had the land-tax on the

_Tajul Kulbas_ been continued, the tribes in Zemindawer, seeing no

indication of a change in the policy of the government, and conscious

that the power of coercion was stronger at the present than at any

previous time, would never have dreamed of assembling in arms to resist

the royal authority; and that we must consequently attribute to the

exercise of his Majesty’s clemency, and to the impression which had

arisen from it, that it was the aim of the government to manage the

Douranees through the agency of their hopes rather than of their fears,

and that rebellion might thus be attempted with impunity, so sudden and

unusual a display of boldness as could induce the tribes to rise in

arms and attack a government agent, however, and perhaps deservedly,

unpopular.”—[_Major Rawlinson’s Douranee Report. MS. Records._]

THE QUESTION OF AN ADVANCE UPON HERAT.

[_Chapter III., page 115._]

Sir Jasper Nicolls, as Commander-in-Chief, had always consistently

opposed the advance to Herat, on the grounds that we had not troops

for the purpose, and, as a Member of Council, on the grounds that we

had not money. On the 18th of August, 1840, on returning some papers

to Lord Auckland, he wrote to the Governor-General: “I am glad that

your Lordship has repressed the anxiety to annex Herat again to Caubul

in the way hinted at. Were Afghanistan ours, we should, perhaps, be

compelled to make Herat our advanced post! it is really the gate of

India. The problem is solved in a military sense; politically, it

remains with your Lordship and the authorities at home, acting on

your views. To show front at Herat, and at some selected point on or

near the Oxus, we should be very strong in Afghanistan. The elements

of stability are sadly deficient there, and two quicksands interpose

between Candahar and Caubul and our own provinces. I mean the Punjab

and the Ameers’ country. Being out of India, we cannot keep such

establishments as will be required there without a large augmentation

of our army, and this without any perceptible increase of revenue. I

very much doubt that Shah Soojah will ever be able to support himself.

With this opinion, and seeing here the relief is given up on account of

six regiments only, we may feel some apprehension that our numbers are

at this moment too low. Discontent may follow.” “I wanted him,” adds

Sir Jasper Nicolls, in his private journal, “to feel that we cannot go

further, or even retain seven regiments in Afghanistan without increase

of force. We shall maintain ourselves there with difficulty. Yet all

the young diplomatists want to aid Khiva—occupy Balkh—threaten

Bokhara—and, lastly seize Herat before its traitor Vizier may give

it up to Persia and Russia. We are beset with hollow friends in that

quarter.” “Lord Auckland said nothing of importance in reply, and did

not allude to it next day in Council.”

On the 15th of March (on which day intelligence of Todd’s departure was

received by the supreme Government), Sir Jasper Nicolls wrote, after

Council, in his journal: “Lord Auckland had prohibited any advance.

This accorded with my often-expressed opinion that we are too much

extended already; but when I signed my assent to-day in Council to his

letters, I whispered to him, that if Herat was to be occupied by us

against the will of the Vizier, the present circumstances were very

propitious. We had a large body of troops at hand, and probably their

plans were not matured.” On the 26th he wrote: “Lord Auckland sent home

a long minute regarding Herat, which he means to leave as it is, unless

the Persians should show that they were anxious to lay hands upon it.

He means to preserve our footing in Afghanistan.”

In what manner the home authorities regarded the Herat question may be

gathered from another passage in Sir Jasper Nicolls’ journal: “_August

19, 1841._—I wrote a hasty paper to-day, and a short one, against the

occupation of Herat, if it can possibly be avoided. It was no sooner

written than orders were received to seize it, if the Persians made any

preparations to attach any part of Kamran’s dominions to their own. I

wrote in the way of warning. Lord A. also advised the government not

to carry our arms further before this despatch was received. I only

fully expressed my opinion that we are not justified in risking the

revenues of India for anything external. As this subject may be brought

unpleasantly forward, I shall just note that, by the June mail, we

received a letter desiring us to take Herat. There was by the same mail

a later despatch, not so anxious about it, or more cautious. I thought

Lord Auckland’s minute alluded to the June letter, and very desirous to

damp our ardour in carrying on hostilities, and spending our money so

far out of India, I wrote as I did. Two hours after my paper was sent

in, I received for perusal the Secret Committee’s despatch of July,

enclosing Lord Palmerston’s directions to check Persia in this object.

They will not look for any difficulty to be started by me; but really I

am most deeply impressed by a conviction that a continuance of so large

a force, and of such expenditure beyond the Indus, will go far to

break us down. I have no desire to embarrass the question, or to take

a distorted view of it. We all concurred with Lord Auckland, except

Prinsep. He thinks that we must displace Yar Mahomed, and he apprehends

nothing from the distance or expenditure, in comparison with what must

follow from his keeping Afghanistan in revolt. My argument as to the

intolerable drain was taken from his minute of March.” Again, on the

31st of August, Sir Jasper wrote: “Weekly we expend large sums upon

the Shah and the country—not only in allowances, salaries, supplies,

stores, pensions, compensations, and numberless contingencies; but

barracks, stables, forts, magazines, and even a long causeway in

Cutchee. Yet no return can ever be made. _To crown all—the blister,

Herat!_”—[_MS. Journal of Sir Jasper Nicolls._]

THE CAUBUL CANTONMENTS.

[_Book IV., chapter 4, pp. 141—142._]

“Occupied with the reception of Shah-zadah Timour, with the foregoing

expeditions and detachments, and with the establishment of the Shah’s

Court and of his civil administration, Macnaghten for some time

neglected to consider how the troops which he kept at Caubul, were to

be lodged. The question was one demanding instant decision, as the

winter of 1839 was rapidly approaching, and there was no suitable

cover for troops. Though pressed upon this subject, as soon as it was

decided that a portion of the British army was to remain, it was not

until the end of August that any steps were taken in this important

matter; and then they consented in sending an engineer officer,

Lieutenant Durand, accompanied by Mohun Lal, to examine three small

forts, which Burnes had reported as affording a suitable position

for the troops. These diminutive forts were west of Caubul several

miles; and having neither cover, space, water, nor in fact any other

requisite for the convenience of the troops, and being, in a military

point of view, ill-placed as a position for the force, were at once

rejected by the engineer, who considered that it was essential to

have military possession of the Balla Hissar; and that it was the

proper place, under every point of view, both with reference to the

present and the future, for lodging the troops. The Shah, upon various

pretences, opposed this measure of precaution, and Macnaghten yielded

to objections which he felt and acknowledged to be ridiculous. Sale

was to be left in command at Caubul; and he had therefore a voice in

the selection of the locality for the cantonment of his force. The

engineer, however, stated that it was impossible, before the winter set

in—that is, in the course of six weeks—to build barracks, hospitals,

sheds and stables for a brigade, and its attached cavalry and guns,

outside the Balla Hissar—building material having as yet to be made

and collected; whereas, inside the Balla Hissar, by taking advantage

of what already existed, it was possible to obtain good and sufficient

cover. Thus circumstanced, a reluctant consent was extracted from the

Shah, and the pioneers of the force were immediately set to work,

with the view of rendering the citadel a strong work, with cover for

its garrison, stores, and ammunition. The Shah no sooner learned that

the work was seriously commenced, than he renewed strenuously his

objections, urging that the citadel overlooked his own palace and the

city; that its occupation would make him unpopular, as the feelings of

the inhabitants would be hurt; and that he had already received strong

remonstrances against the measure. Macnaghten, with fatal weakness,

yielded; and peremptory orders were issued for the discontinuance of

the work. Foiled in his avowed purpose of rendering the citadel a

post, which, with a thousand men, a few guns, and proper provisions,

might be held against all that Afghanistan could bring before it, the

engineer was forced to content himself with keeping such hold of the

Balla Hissar as admitted of its citadel being occupied at any moment,

by lodging the troops in hastily-prepared accommodation at its base. It

seemed, indeed, that the troops, being once in military possession of

the Balla Hissar, the evacuation of that stronghold in future was an

event as improbable as it would be impolitic, and that the occupation

of the citadel and the repair of its works would in time inevitably

follow. Macnaghten could not but coincide with the engineer and those

who succeeded him and held similar views; and, as the cost would have

been trifling in comparison with the sums thrown away in Afghanistan

upon objects to which political importance was attached, the Envoy

for some time contemplated following up the project. But the Shah and

Kuzzilbash party, as well as the Afghans, were very averse to a measure

which, so long as the British troops remained in Afghanistan, would

keep Caubul subject to their effectual control; and Macnaghten, being

in the false position of having to reconcile the declared intention

of the government to withdraw the army from Afghanistan with its

present actual military occupation in force, wavered on the adoption of

necessary measures of precaution, which might countenance the suspicion

of a purpose on the part of the British Government permanently to hold

the country; and, ultimately, in an evil hour for himself and his

country’s arms, not only entirely neglected such salutary precaution,

but gave up the barracks constructed in the Balla Hissar to the Shah as

accommodation for his Harem, evacuated the fort, and thought no more,

until too late, of strengthening himself therein.”—[_Calcutta Review._]

* * * * *

To this, the authenticity of which is unquestionable, may be

advantageously appended the following

MEMORANDUM BY BRIGADIER A. ROBERTS, C.B.

“The king, with the envoy and staff, spent the winter of 1839 at

Jellalabad. I was one of the party, as I then commanded the Shah’s

troops. We all arrived at Caubul early in May of 1840. Sturt of the

Engineers, was stationed at Caubul to fit up buildings for the troops

and to construct new barracks. Soon after my arrival at Caubul, I

looked at the ground selected by the engineer for barracks; and

considering his plan most objectionable (which was long ranges of

buildings the same as at Caunpore or Meerutt), for a country where the

cold in winter was intense, and where no person considered life secure

outside of a fort, I wrote as follows:—

Caubul, 9th May, 1840.

MY DEAR STURT,

Is it decided for what troops you are building barracks? for if the

Shah’s force is to be accommodated, I should like to suggest some

alterations. Instead of having separate buildings for each company, I

would strongly recommend squares for wings or regiments; the latter I

would prefer, as I think they would possess many advantages for this

country:—

1. Much less ground would be necessary.

2. One fourth of the sentries would not be required.

3. For European regiments visiting officers would find them much more

convenient, and all bad characters could be prevented roving about the

country.

4. With a parapet wall they could be easily defended, and which would

be an object in the event of the troops being called away.

5. And I should think that the men being sheltered from the piercing

cold and winds in winter would render them much less liable to the

attacks in the lungs, which have proved so fatal.

6. Independent of the foregoing advantages, buildings so constructed

would be better adapted for stores or serais, and if built in

échêllon, could be easily defended.

I hope you will agree with me; however, I can have nothing to do with

the plan, unless the Shah’s troops are to be accommodated.

Yours sincerely,

A. ROBERTS.

“I was induced to write as above because many of the 13th Foot had died

at Caubul during the winter from complaints in the lungs. The snow

remains on the ground for a considerable time; the natives were expert

thieves and assassins, and ten ranges of barracks would require at

least sixty sentries. The Europeans would ramble, and no man was safe

beyond the limit of cantonments.

“Upon a further examination of the ground I saw the site chosen was

very objectionable, a small river running between it and the Balla

Hissar, and it was, besides, commanded in two places. I received the

following reply:—

Caubul, 10th May, 1840.

MY DEAR BRIGADIER,

I believe there is no chance at present of the Shah’s force occupying

the cantonments, as I am now portioning off the ground for the general

staff of Sir Willoughby Cotton. Your recommendation, however, has come

too late, for I have laid the foundation of one-half.

I know little about what is convenient or not. I submitted a plan to

Sir W. Macnaghten. Whether it went farther than his military councils,

I cannot say; but as I heard no more about it, I took silence for

consent, and worked away.

Now the most must be made of it; but the barracks of one regiment will

be of no great extent as it is, and will form a rectangle of 350 and

500 feet.

But it is useless questioning the expediency or otherwise now of any

plan.

Yours sincerely,

(Signed) J. STURT.

“I was not much pleased with the contents of this letter, more

especially from an officer who belonged to the force under my command;

and as I had been, for many years, at the head of the building

department in the upper provinces, and as the more I saw of the site

and plan selected the more objectionable both appeared, I wrote to

Captain Douglas, the Assistant Adjutant-General, whose reply was as

follows:—

May 11th.

MY DEAR BRIGADIER,

Sir Willoughby saw and approved the plan of the new cantonments; if,

therefore, you have any objection to the progress of the work, you

have only to state them to the Envoy,

Yours, very truly,

(Signed) J. DOUGLAS.

“I accordingly stated my opinion to the Envoy; and as he appeared to

agree with me, I was in hope that something would be done, but I was

disappointed. By some it was considered that I was interfering with

what did not concern me; but it was afterwards proved, to a sad degree,

how badly the plan was suited to the country.

“I was afterwards anxious to place my men in a fort that was contiguous

to the Balla Hissar, and which had become the property of the king from

the traitorous conduct of the owner. To this the Envoy consented but

afterwards changed his mind, and I was unable to get anything settled

before I left the force.

“The engineer stated, that he ‘had laid the foundation of one-half;’

but this was of very little consequence, as the excavations for them

were, in a great measure, filled up with the fruit trees cut into

blocks, that had been cut down to make room for the barracks.

“It was afterwards found necessary (at a great expense) to excavate a

ditch, to construct a strong wall, a banquet and parapets, but all were

insufficient to keep out the Afghans.

“As the country became in a very unsettled state, and the town of

Caubul full of armed men ripe for mischief, I waited on the Envoy and

told him that I considered the treasure was very unsafe, as it was

then lodged in the house occupied by Sir Alexander Burnes, and Captain

Johnson, the paymaster of the force that I commanded, and which was

in the heart of the city. At the time there was a very small force at

Caubul. The Envoy agreeing with me, I ordered the treasure in to the

Balla Hissar, where it was perfectly safe. Being, however, distant from

the paymaster’s quarters, it gave him and his clerks some additional

trouble, and he wrote as follows to the Military Secretary:—

MY DEAR LAWRENCE,

Burnes is of opinion I might bring the treasure into the town, where

it was before—that is to say at my house. This would be a very great

convenience to me, for I am now considerably bothered, having to send

up to the Balla Hissar for coin required. Kindly mention this to the

Envoy, and if possible get it done,

Yours sincerely,

H. JOHNSON.

The guard would also strengthen our position here, two such valuable

people.

H. J.

_Memo by Sir W. H. Macnaghten._

Johnson may, of course, put his treasure wherever he deems it most

safe and convenient.

W. M.

_From Capt. Johnson to Brigadier Roberts._

MY DEAR BRIGADIER,

Macnaghten has allowed me to have the whole of the treasure at my

house in the town. It amounts to close upon seven lacs. Will you

kindly allow me whatever you may consider a sufficient guard to come

to-morrow. I send for your perusal my note on the subject, and the

Envoy’s reply.

Yours sincerely,

H. JOHNSON.

“This correspondence surprised and annoyed me, situated as I was; but

as I had differed so often with the Envoy regarding precautionary and

other matters, the treasure was sent to the town. The disposable force

at the time was very small; but a guard, of the strength for which

there was accommodation, was furnished as before; at the same time I

stated that there was great risk, and that the treasure was removed

from the Balla Hissar entirely against the opinion of Brigade-Major

Troup and myself; but I was considered an alarmist, and my opinion had

no weight with the Envoy, who could not be persuaded that there was any

necessity for precaution.” _M. S._

[_Book IV., chapter 4, page 153._]

_Copy of a Memorandum by the Duke of Wellington, on Sir W. H.

Macnaghten’s Letter of October 26, 1841._

January 29th, 1842. At night.

It is impossible to read the letter from Mr. Macnaghten to the

Secretary to the Government in India, without being sensible of the

precarious and dangerous position of our affairs in Central Asia.

Mr. Macnaghten complains of reports against the King, Shah Soojah Khan,

and his government, as libels.

Of these we can know nothing; but I am convinced that no complaints or

libels can be so strong as the facts stated by Mr. Macnaghten in this

letter.

It appears that when Mr. Macnaghten heard of the first symptoms and

first acts of this rebellion, he prevailed upon the King to send a

message to the rebels, inviting them to return to their allegiance.

The selection of the person sent is curious—Humza Khan, the Governor

of Caubul. His mission failed, of course, says Mr. Macnaghten, because

Humza Khan was the chief instigator of the rebellion!

We know in this country something of the customs of those countries—of

the meaning of some of the native expressions in this letter. It

appears that there are four thanahs, or posts, between Caubul and

Gundamuck. A thanah is either a permanent or a temporary post, to

guard a road or district of importance. We have seen who the person

was, selected to induce the rebels to submit; let us now see who were

the persons appointed to take charge of those thanahs or posts in the

disturbed country—those named in the subsequent part of the despatch

as the very men who were the leaders in the rebellion, in the attack,

and destruction, and murder, of the East India Company’s officers and

troops!

No libels can state facts against the Afghan Government stronger than

these.

But Mr. Macnaghten has discovered that the Company’s troops are not

sufficiently active personally, nor are they sufficiently well armed

for the warfare in Afghanistan. Very possibly an Afghan will run over

his native hills faster than an Englishman or a Hindoo. But we have

carried on war in hill countries, as well in Hindostan and the Deccan

as in the Spanish Peninsula; and I never heard that our troops were

not equal, as well in personal activity as by their arms, to contend

with and overcome any natives of hills whatever. Mr. Macnaghten ought

to have learnt by this time that hill countries are not conquered, and

their inhabitants kept in subjection, solely by running up the hills

and firing at long distances. The whole of a hill country of which it

is necessary to keep possession, particularly for the communications

of the army, should be occupied by sufficient bodies of troops, well

supplied, and capable of maintaining themselves; and not only not a

Ghilzye or insurgent should be able to run up and down hills, but not a

cat or a goat, except under the fire of those occupying the hills. This

is the mode of carrying on the war, and not by hiring Afghans with

long matchlocks to protect and defend the communications of the British

army.

Shah Soojah Khan may have in his service any troops that he and Mr.

Macnaghten please.

But if the troops in the service of the East India Company are

not able, armed and equipped as they are, to perform the service

required of them in Central Asia, I protest against their being

left in Afghanistan. It will not do to raise, pay, and discipline

matchlock-men, in order to protect the British troops and their

communications, discovered by Mr. Macnaghten to be no longer able to

protect themselves.

WELLINGTON.

[_MS. Records._]

CAUSES OF THE KOHISTAN REVOLT.

[_Book IV., chapter 4, page 157._]