CHAPTER XIX.
The Re-Occupation of Cabul—Signs of Mahomed Jan’s Occupation—Complete Dispersion of Mahomed Jan’s Army—General Hill’s Return to the City—Christmas in Sherpur—Universal Character of the late Jehad—Necessity for reinforcing the Army of Occupation—General Baker’s Expedition to Baba Kuch Kar—Examination of the Bala Hissar—Demolition of Forts and Villages about Sherpur—Cabul Revisited—A New Military Road—The Destruction of Shops by Mahomed Jan’s Force—Despondency of the Hindus and Kizilbashes—State of the Char Chowk Bazaar—A Picture of Desolation—The Kotwali—Wali Mahomed’s Losses—Ill-treatment of Women.
24th December.
Our expectations have been fully realized; the enemy which held us in check since December 14th has disappeared, and our troops are once more in Cabul, which shows terrible marks of Mahomed Jan’s occupation. Every house belonging to Sirdars known to favour the British has been looted, and in the bazaars all the shops are gutted except those of the Mahomedans. Doors and windows broken in, walls knocked down, all woodwork destroyed, floors dug up, and property carried off: these are the signs of the Reign of Terror lately instituted among the Kizilbashes and Hindus. The search for treasure was carried out in a systematic way, and the loot now in possession of Kohistanis, Ghilzais, and other tribesmen must be worth many lakhs. Two lakhs of treasure belonging to Hashim Khan alone, are said to have been seized, while the Hindus complain of being utterly ruined. We shall have to inquire further into this when things are once more firmly settled, but at present we have enough to do in pursuing the enemy, and arresting such local Afghans as joined their ranks. These men now hide their arms, and appear in all the beautiful simplicity of peaceful citizens, but the subterfuge is too easily detected for them to escape punishment. We were not sure early this morning that Mahomed Jan’s host had vanished, although, as the night had passed quietly, there was every reason to believe the siege was at an end. Our first movement was to occupy Kila Mahomed Shariff, and Colonel Brownlow sent out a party of the 72nd Highlanders to the fort at dawn. They found it quite deserted, and the other forts and villages near were also without occupants. Two or three wounded men were lying within the walls, and the bodies of some thirty Afghans were scattered about near the loop-holes, or in the open where our bullets had struck them down. This was on the southern face, near the 72nd and Commissariat gateways, so that the false attack in this direction must have cost the enemy many lives. Afghans do not, as a rule, leave their dead behind, and doubtless there were carried away double the number found. Scaling-ladders covered with blood were lying in the fields and forts, and heaps of powder and some hundreds of ball-cartridges were discovered. Unlimited ammunition must have been served out to each man, and as an examination shows that all the powder and caps in the Bala Hissar have been carried off, or destroyed, it is clear that every tribesman filled his pouch with an ample supply before making the attack. Those who have got safely away will have powder enough to last them for two or three years, as many tons were left by us in the magazine. But for their losses, which are calculated at 2,000 or 3,000 killed and wounded since December 10th, the army of Mahomed Jan may consider their sojourn in Cabul during the Mohurrum a grand success, temporary though it was. They blockaded the British army, caused it a loss of between 300 and 400, and proclaimed a new Amir, whom they have still with them. Young Musa Jan has been carried off by Mushk-i-Alam, who may, if he chooses, establish the new sovereign at Ghazni, and invite all Afghanistan to rally about him. The old moollah is reported to have fled with the lad last night, while Mahomed Jan remained in Cabul until eight o’clock this morning. He then saw that his army had deserted him, and he followed the example of Mushk-i-Alam, and took to the hills. Strong parties of cavalry have been out all day in the Chardeh Valley and round by Charasia, but beyond a few men on the snow-covered hills no one was met with. It was difficult work pursuing, as snow was falling steadily. The 30,000 men have dissolved, and, with their loot, are taking mountain roads, where they are safe from pursuit. The villages contain many men who fought against us, and hereafter we shall visit them with our flying column. On the 11th, 12th, and 13th every fortified enclosure our men passed was barred against them, and the occupants fired at stragglers and turned out to harass rear-guards. The Mahomedan population of Cabul joined Mahomed Jan almost to a man, thinking the British rule was at an end, and now these citizens, whose homes we spared when we came among them in the flush of success, are hurrying away in anticipation of the reprisals we shall inflict. The time has gone by for weak sentimentality: military law alone should now guide Sir F. Roberts in his dealings with the people, for it has been proved beyond question that to act humanely is merely to encourage the Afghans in their belief that we are unequal to controlling them. Instead of leaving an indelible mark upon Cabul, we have enriched it by our purchases of winter supplies, and have poured lakhs of rupees into the purses of the very men who had nothing to expect but the fate of a conquered race.
The Hindus and Kizilbashes who relied upon us for protection may well revile us, since we have left them to their fate; while the Mahomedans who have looted their homes, insulted their women, and terrorized over them for ten days, are now laughing at our inability to follow them to their distant villages. The unlucky Hazaras, who have worked so well for us, were hunted down, beaten, and reviled wherever they showed their faces in the streets; and were told jeeringly to call for help upon the British locked up in Sherpur. Our humiliation is so great that to risk a repetition of it would be ruinous. We must show that the investment of Sherpur can never again occur, and to do this 10,000 troops must hold Cabul, and our line of communication with India be so permanently established that even 100,000 tribesmen cannot break it. An immediate declaration of policy should be made: to wait quietly for “events to develop” may be disastrous. We must create events, not allow others to turn the current of them in whichever direction they please. If we are to hold Cabul—and this is now ten times more imperious even than it was before, for to retire would be to acknowledge that we have failed in our occupation, and dare not risk another reverse—we must hold it by our bayonets and not by our rupees. Half-measures will only imperil our safety: to put trust in Afghan cunning and be guided by Afghan insincerity is only to risk the lives of our soldiers. Those soldiers have done all that soldiers can do, and they may well look to their commanders to make success once obtained sure and stable. We lost less than 100 men in capturing Cabul; we have lost nearly four times that number in fifteen days’ fighting, after we had occupied the place for two months. There must be no longer a state of false security; for it is not improbable that the jehad will be revived before the winter is over, and the moollahs may again influence the religious fanaticism of the people against us.
To-day General Hills, our Governor of the City, once more visited the kotwali, guarded by the 5th P.I., while the sepoys were busy all day in searching the Mahomedan quarter, and in arresting such citizens as they could find remaining. One hundred Punjabees garrison the kotwali for the night, and the Kizilbashes and Hindus are once more plucking up courage. The Bala Hissar has been examined, and not an Afghan found in it, and in two or three days the 9th Foot, and the 2nd and 4th Ghoorkas, which arrived at Sherpur this morning with General Charles Gough, will be quartered in the fortress. Butkhak is also to be re-garrisoned with 100 of the 9th and the whole of the 12th B.C., and in a short time we shall be once more holding a strong line of communication with Peshawur. Our most urgent want is ammunition. The reinforcements have only brought about 200 rounds per man, and our own supply cannot be much more than 250 rounds, taking the regiments all through.
Among our political prisoners now is Yakub Khan’s mother, who was chiefly instrumental in raising the jehad. She will be closely watched for the future, and as she is a woman of great resource, it may be advisable to deport her to India. The camp has also received with due hospitality forty or fifty ladies, the wives and other relatives of Sirdars among us, as guests.
27th December.
After all the excitement of our ten days’ siege it is a great relief now to pass beyond the walls of Sherpur, even though the roads and fields about are ankle-deep in mud and half-melted snow. Not a shot now disturbs our peaceful quiet, and the only unusual sound is the dull report of a mine exploding where our engineers are busy demolishing forts and walls which only four days ago sheltered our enemy. Our Christmas has been of the sober, thoughtful kind. We have so lately been released from the painful constraint of constant vigilance and hard fighting, that our spirits could not rise very high in the scale of festivity; and our losses have so sobered us that it would seem almost sacrilegious to “feast and make merry” with the death of so many comrades still fresh in our memory and with the hospitals full of wounded men, sufferers in the actions fought since the 10th. Besides, every one is worn out with watching, and it will be some time before officers and men can once more take life placidly, and enjoy heartily such little pleasures as are forthcoming. Christmas day was one of rest for all of us, for our cavalry reconnaissances had shown that the enemy had dispersed far out of our reach; and as the snow lay six inches deep on the ground, there was little chance of our troopers overtaking even such small bands as might have followed the main roads to Logar, Ghazni, or Kohistan. On the 24th the horses had to be led back by the troopers from Charasia, the snow having “balled” their feet and made riding dangerous, and there was nothing to be gained by sending them out again on a similar errand. We were not all convinced that none of Mahomed Jan’s followers were lurking about, and strong guards were still held ready at night, to repel any sudden attack. But the precaution might have been neglected; for never before has an “army” 30,000 strong melted so rapidly away. The tribesmen must have travelled quickly during the night of the 23rd after we had beaten them from our walls, and now the country about for miles seems deserted of its inhabitants. Such villages as are passed have their doors barred and bolted, and not even a ghazi turns out to throw away his life. The snow-covered hills, which now shut us in on all sides, stand out in pure whiteness and make no sign. They have seen the scattered thousands who held high revel in Cabul pass away in hot haste; but the snow has blotted out their footprints, and the trail is lost. By-and-by we shall take it up anew, and search out our enemy in his secluded villages and forts, for a force is even now toiling over the snow in Kohistan, and will in a few days be at Mir Butcha’s gates. Logar also may see another column marching upon its villages, but more distant Wardak and Ghazni are probably safe until the spring; that is, if Mahomed Jan and his powerful friend, the moollah Mushk-i-Alam, do not keep their promise of returning to Cabul at the festival of Nauroz, March 21st. They have had such an unexpected success, and have secured such valuable loot, that, in spite of their losses, they may be tempted again to repeat the experiment of coming boldly to meet our army, instead of waiting in their homes for an attack.
The fuller we examine into the jehad, the more clear it becomes that the late combination more nearly approached a general movement among all sections than any that has yet been attempted. In the short period during which it existed, nearly every available fighting man in North-Eastern Afghanistan flocked to the banners consecrated by Mushk-i-Alam; and if the success of the jehad had been a little longer-lived—say by the interception of our reinforcements—there would have been streams of men setting in for Cabul from Turkistan, Badakshan, and the Shutargardan district, which would have made Mahomed Jan the leader of that “lakh of men” of which he boasted. Every chief of importance among the wide-spread Ghilzais and the more compact Kohistanis and Safis was up in arms, and the fighting at Jugdulluck showed that Asmatullah Khan and his Lughmanis were at one with their friends besieging Sherpur. Even Padshah Khan, whose virtues short-sighted politicians have extolled, brought a contingent to Cabul, and fought against us with desperate hatred, although he had greatly smoothed our path during the first march from Ali Khel. With Mahomed Jan were also Mir Butcha and several other Kohistani chiefs—Usman Khan, the Safi leader of Tagao; Gholam Hyder Khan (Logari), and Aslam Khan, Colonel of Artillery, both of whom fought at Charasia; and several minor Ghilzai leaders, who had each brought their following of 500 or 1,000 men. The countenance Mahomed Jan and Mushk-i-Alam received from Yakub Khan’s mother and wife gave them a status which they did not fail to use to the best of their advantage; and while, perhaps, half their followers were freebooters, intent upon looting Hindus and Kizilbashes, they made it appear in their attempt to negotiate with Sir Frederick Roberts that they were the patriotic leaders of a movement which had for its object not so much the ejectment of the British army, as the revival of the Amirship. Singularly enough, the removal of Yakub Khan was made a pretext for their occupation of Cabul, and this in the face of their callousness as to his fate when he was a prisoner in our camp. Yakub’s mother, working through Mushk-i-Alam and his moollahs, turned the full tide of religious enthusiasm aroused by the jehad into channels which should serve to place either her exiled son or her grandson on the throne, and the proclamation of Musa Jan as Amir was a bold step, which may yet give us much trouble to nullify. Musa Jan is in the hands of Mushk-i-Alam, who may renew his jehad. By setting up the child in state at Ghazni, and formulating decrees and proclamations in his name, he may give the people a pretext for denying the existence of British authority further than the few acres commanded by our guns about Cabul: and taking religion again as a rallying cry, he may by Nauroz be ready with another 30,000 men to try conclusions with us again. The late army which besieged us does not exist, save in scattered units. The feeling which drew it together is still alive; for fanaticism only slumbers in this country, and has sometimes so rapid an awakening that it must be constantly watched. The ten days’ success of Mahomed Jan will be quoted as proving that, under more favourable conditions, it might be extended indefinitely; and unless, by our preparations, we show that the conditions in future, instead of being more favourable, become steadily less and less attractive to men who may be called upon to join a new jehad, the British army of occupation may be again isolated. It is to be hoped that no false measure of economy will prevent the strength of the force here being so raised that from 3,000 to 4,000 men will always be available for outside work, after Sherpur or whatever lines we may occupy have been strongly garrisoned. Our reinforcements number only 1,400 men, and Luttabund is still left without a garrison; while 100 of the 9th Foot and the whole of the 12th Bengal Cavalry have been sent to Butkhak to hold that post. We may seem strong enough now when we have not an enemy within twenty miles; but so we seemed equally safe three weeks ago, when we disbelieved in the possibility of 30,000 Afghans ever collecting together. If our experience is to go for nothing we shall revert to the old order of things, perhaps allowing the other division to garrison Luttabund and Sei Baba; but if we are to convince the late leaders of the jehad that a second can only be a ridiculous failure, we shall have the whole of Generals Charles Gough and Arbuthnot’s brigades west of Jugdulluck.[[36]] There may arise some difficulty in regard to winter supplies; but if the policy, now begun, of requisitioning the villages belonging to hostile chiefs be carried out to its full extent, our reinforcements can live comfortably. Besides, the Kyber transport should at once be so remodelled that it will not be frittered away for want of due supervision, and then, surely, supplies can be sent from Peshawur as far as Jugdulluck, Luttabund, or even Cabul itself. If we have to face the possibility of a second siege of Sherpur, and of another blow at our prestige by tribes of Asiatics, we may as well face it with our eyes open and our powder dry. This same question of powder may involve us in difficulties yet, for we want ammunition badly; and if it has to be brought up from Peshawur, it will take three weeks to reach here. As we are sending flying columns out again, the troops comprising which may get rid of 100 rounds per man in a few days, the prospect does not seem so bright of our 250 rounds each lasting very long. If Mahomed Jan had persistently attacked our force in the manner he at last did on December 23rd, we should now be left with about seventy rounds in each man’s pouch. Fortunately for us, Mahomed Jan is not a military genius.
I have spoken of the flying columns we are sending out. The first of these left Sherpur this morning, bound for Baba Kuch Kar, where the villages belonging to Mir Butcha are said to lie. This is about twenty-four miles away on the Charikar Road, through the heart of the Koh-Daman, and it is not improbable that our force may meet with opposition. This is the first time we have interfered with the Kohistanis since 1841, and they have a belief in their own powers among their native hills, which may cause them to fight bravely in defence of their villages. They have an unlimited supply of ammunition taken from the Bala Hissar, and this to tribesmen is half the battle. The country is quite unknown to us, and, with the snow lying thick on the hills, our men are sure to suffer great hardships. General Baker’s column is made up as follows:—
Hazara Mountain Battery (four guns);
Guides’ Cavalry (200 sabres);
67th Foot (500 men);
Guides’ Infantry (400);
2nd Ghoorkas (400);
5th Punjabees (400);
Sappers and Miners (1½ company).
The 2nd Ghoorkas were too weak to muster 400 bayonets for service, so the 4th Ghoorkas were called upon to make up the number. The Sappers take with them materials for demolishing forts and villages; and it is intended to loot the place thoroughly, so 15 per cent. of the transport animals in Sherpur accompany the column in addition to their own complement of mules and yaboos. 200 rounds of ammunition per man and five days’ rations are carried for the men. Two survey officers accompany the column, and three parties of signallers under Captain Straton. The signalling branch of the service has come, deservedly, to be looked upon as playing a most important part in every operation undertaken. The column is strong enough both to punish Mir Butcha and to collect supplies; but there is a strong opinion in camp that before any reprisals were begun our communications with Jugdulluck should have been secured. We have had no news from Jugdulluck since the 20th, and we are in doubt as to the safety of our despatches. The news of Mahomed Jan’s flight should cause the local Ghilzais to settle down peacefully again; and as more troops move up from Gundamak and Jellalabad, the line will doubtless be re-opened in ten days. When General Baker returns from Kohistan, another column is to be sent to the Logar Valley, and more supplies collected; this time, perhaps, without the expenditure of two or three lakhs of rupees.
A report has been spread that the Bala Hissar has been mined, and for the present no garrison will be placed within its walls. The Engineers are busy examining the fortress, and when they have decided as to its safety, General Charles Gough’s brigade will be moved into it for the winter. Gangs of Hazara coolies are employed demolishing the walls of villages and forts about Sherpur, and also in clearing away detached walls in the fields, the remains of old fortified enclosures. One of the guns given by us to Wali Mahomed, when it was expected he would go to Turkistan as Governor, has been brought in; but the two guns of Swinley’s Battery, lost on the 14th, are still missing.
29th December.
I have visited the city of Cabul, which is now again in our hands, and have seen the havoc made in its bazaars by the army of Mahomed Jan and the fanatical followers of Mushk-i-Alam. The city is considered safe again for visitors, though officers visiting it have to go in pairs, and carry arms. This is a precaution against any stray ghazis who may still be in hiding within its walls. My guard was simply four Sikhs, and with this small escort I was able to examine the place thoroughly, without molestation. The Mussulman population still remaining is in a wholesome state of fear, and as our search-parties go from house to house seeking men who played us false, there is a tendency among the citizens to draw off to obscure nooks and corners. Passing out by the head-quarters’ gate in the western wall, I followed the muddy footpath across the fields to Deh-i-Afghan, the walls and ditches about which yet show signs of the late fighting, in the presence of cartridge-cases thrown away after being fired by the Afghans. In the gardens about the suburb the trees are cut and “blazed” where our shells exploded, but the damage really is very slight. We had not sufficient[sufficient] ammunition to waste shells on these enclosures, and two or three doses of shrapnel or common shell were generally enough to silence the fire of the enemy in any given orchard. Climbing up the path to Deh-i-Afghan, which stands on a low rounded hill at the foot of the Asmai Heights, and on the left bank of the Cabul river, I came across a few disconsolate-looking Hindus and Kizilbashes on their way to Sherpur, to relate their woes and file their bill of damages against “the great British Government,” which had promised to protect them. Besides these unlucky men were strings of Hazara coolies, staggering under their heavy loads of wood or bhoosa, and to all-seeming as happy as ever in their rags and wretchedness. All the doors and windows of the houses were barred and locked, and but few Mussulman faces could be seen. Here and there were knots of men discussing, with subdued looks, the late events. The gossipers were profuse in salaams, but moved off as our little party moved onwards. Deh-i-Afghan was shelled, on the 14th, by six guns for about an hour, and during the siege an 8-inch howitzer occasionally pitched a shell into the crowds which always gathered within and about it. I therefore expected to see some great damage done to the houses. But beyond a hole in a wall or roof, or the branches of trees cut off in the courtyards, there was nothing to show that our shells had fallen within its walls. Most of the houses are so strongly made, the walls being four or five feet thick at the base, and firmly built up of stone and mud cement, that to breach them would require a 40-pounder, and we have no guns here of this calibre. The streets of Deh-i-Afghan were so deserted that it was quite a relief to leave them behind, especially as the whole place seemed to smell of the shambles—due, perhaps, to the bodies of men killed in action being buried in shallow graves. At the foot of the Asmai Heights, where the road turns off to the Cabul gorge, a company of the 3rd Sikhs was halted, while Captain Nicholson, R.E., was deciding the direction a new military road should take from Sherpur to Dehmazung. General Hills, Governor of the City, with a number of “friendly” Cabulis, explained to them what houses were to be pulled down, and in a few days we shall have some 500 or 600 men busy in demolishing the place. As yet we have not destroyed a house in Cabul, and our merciful policy has only encouraged its turbulent ruffians to turn and harass us at the first opportunity. Military considerations alone should be now allowed to prevail, and any course decided upon as contributing to the safety of Sherpur should be carried out unswervingly. We have seen how great was the protection afforded by Deh-i-Afghan to the enemy, as enabling them to collect beneath its walls in perfect security, in occupying or in retiring from the Asmai hill, and this protection should now be swept away, even if every wall and house between the foot of the hill and the Cabul river has to be pulled down. General Macpherson’s retirement from above the Bala Hissar on the evening of the 14th had to be made by way of Deh-i-Afghan, and his troops were under fire the whole time in getting from the Cabul gorge to the fields beyond, where our troops from Sherpur were waiting to cover their retirement. Our anxiety, so long as a man remained within the shadow of Deh-i-Afghan, was at the time very great.
From Deh-i-Afghan across a bridge which spans the Cabul river, and thence by a winding path among high walls and sombre-looking dwellings, to the Chandaul quarter, is only a few minutes’ walk. The melting snow had made the narrow, ill-paved streets almost impassable in places, and we had to splash through mud and slush to make any progress at all. As this end of the city was entered there were a few more signs of life, and one or two shops were open, but few wares were displayed. All these shops belonged to Mahomedans; they had escaped looting, and their happy owners were now placidly returning to their every-day life, though, perchance, during the Mohurrum they ruffled it with the best, and swaggered about, threatening death to all Kafirs. They know our weakness for sparing a fallen foe, and they trade upon it systematically. They will take our rupees to-day, and be all subserviency or sullen independence—not so much the latter now—and will cut our throats and hack our bodies to pieces to-morrow as part of the beautiful programme drawn up by a far-seeing Providence. Passing by these few shops tenanted by Mahomedans, I soon came to those owned by Hindus, and here the wreck was great. Like all Eastern bazaars, those of Cabul consist of rows of little stalls raised three or four feet above the street level. The rear and side walls are built of mud and sun-dried bricks, while the front is all open, except where the rude wooden shutters are put up at nightfall, and the little door securely padlocked. But few of the shopkeepers live “on the premises;” they have houses in the back-streets, where their wives and families are secluded; so that, when the day’s work or trading is over, the bazaars are deserted, except by wanderers or strangers in search of their night’s resting-place. These little stalls have been gutted; nothing is left except the bare walls. Every scrap of woodwork has been carried away, and the floors have been dug up in search of hidden treasure. The walls in several places are broken down, and their ruins lie across the street; while in one or two instances the very poles of the roofs have been purloined, and the snow and mist have wantoned through the nice snug corners where Bokhara silks, Manchester cottons, or Sheffield cutlery lay stored away. A description of one stall will serve for all. Scarcely a Hindu shop has been left untouched, and Defilement has followed upon Devastation, until the twin-sisters have made the havoc complete. The wretched shopkeepers sit among the ruins in helpless misery, and are already debating whether it would not be better to pack up their household goods and move for Hindustan rather than wait for a second irruption of the hungry horde of tribesmen who are now hurrying away to their homes laden with the loot of Cabul. These Hindus make the most of their losses unquestionably, in the hope of obtaining compensation from the British; yet there can be no doubt they have been robbed of a large amount of property. The Shore Bazaar is nearly all wrecked, and one part of the Char Chowk, the large covered-in bazaar of Cabul, has been cleared out even to the nails in the walls. The practice of burying articles of value is so common among Cabulis, and indeed among Asiatics generally, that part of the strong masonry of which the main walls of the Char Chowk are built up has been broken down, and huge holes and gaps left to show the earnestness of the search. Such shops as have been spared in the heart of the city are still closed, for their owners do not care to display their goods too soon, as they have to bear the inquisitorial questions of their less fortunate neighbours. A more wretched picture of desolation than Cabul presented as I rode through it cannot be imagined. All the life and turmoil had died out of it, and the only persons who seemed to take advantage of the general stagnation were the women, many of whom were flitting about in their long white robes as if free from all restraint. The kotwali had been made the temporary head-quarters of Mahomed Jan, who had garrisoned it with a few hundred resolute men. Their first act had been to destroy and defile the room where General Hills sat as Governor of the City; and they had done this very completely, even the roof and floor being torn up. Loop-holes had been knocked into the walls of every room, both above and below, as if in anticipation of a stand being made if it came to street-fighting. The kotwali is a high square building; an open courtyard, with two tiers of rooms round it, and a parapet above all whence the neighbouring roofs and streets can he commanded by musketry fire. It is so closely hemmed in by buildings, however, that it would not be a good position to defend. The entrance is from the middle of the Char Chowk Bazaar, and it is the centre round which all Cabul circulates when any excitement arouses the people. When I visited it in my ramble through the city I found 100 Sikhs and Ghoorkas garrisoning it, and ready to turn out at a moment’s notice if an alarm of “ghazis” were raised. Speaking to a friendly Cabuli, he assured me that lakhs of property had been looted; he himself had had five houses cleared out, while sirdars in our camp had been treated in a similar way. Wali Mahomed especially had been a sufferer, and the ladies of his zenana had been subjected to great indignities. Believing that they had ornaments of value hidden upon their persons, they were stripped of every stitch of clothing, and turned out in all the shame of nakedness into the streets. Questioned as to the number of Mahomed Jan’s followers, the Cabuli said there were fully 30,000 men, and this coincided with estimates given by our spies and others who have been examined since. Padshah Khan, the man whom we trusted so implicitly on our march from the Shutargardan, was among the leaders, and brought a small contingent to swell the army of fanatics. The systematic way in which the looting was carried on will appear from the statement that, when a man defended his house against a small band of marauders, they retired for the time, and then returned, as a Hindu put it, “10,000 strong.” It was useless to offer opposition to such numbers, though I believe many of the Kizilbashes, by professing to be good Mahomedans, saved their property. There were not many inoffensive shopkeepers killed, eight or ten at the highest estimate: but the fear and terror in which they lived hidden away in cellars and holes made their life during the Mohurrum scarcely worth the living. I left Cabul, feeling that it was, indeed, a hapless city. The industrious classes, who had been our friends and had rejoiced at our coming, had been despoiled under our eyes; while those who had cursed us in their hearts, and longed to drive us out, were once more cowed after a short triumph, and were calculating how many of their number would shortly grace the gallows. The Military Commission under the presidency of Brigadier-General Massy has again been ordered to assemble. This time, it is to be hoped a few men of importance may be executed—always provided that we can find them. The members of the Commission are General Massy, Major Morgan, (of the 9th Foot), and Major Stewart (of the 5th Punjab Cavalry).
The remains of Captain Spens were found to-day by Dr. Duke, about ten yards from the spot where he was cut down. General Roberts, with a small force, visited Chardeh Valley to-day, to examine the ground where the cavalry and guns came to grief on the 11th. One mountain gun of Swinley’s Battery, lost on the 14th, has been found. It was lying in a jheel (a shallow pool) a few miles up Chardeh Valley, where it had been abandoned by the enemy in their flight.