ADVANCE FROM SHIKARPORE—PASSAGE THROUGH THE BOLAN PASS INTO AFGHANISTAN—ADVANCE FROM QUETTA.
Sir John Keane's force was advancing by another route, nearer the foot of the mountains of Beloochistan, towards the Bolan pass; and Sir Willoughby Cotton, thinking it prudent to secure that defile with the least possible delay, pushed on after one day's halt at Shikarpore. The commissariat subsequently urged this rapid advance as the cause of many difficulties, alleging that they had no time given them to make arrangements for the conveyance of supplies.
To enhance these difficulties, an order arrived from Sir John Keane, directing a large number of camels to be furnished by the Bengal commissariat for the supply of the Bombay troops, who were almost at a stand-still for want of carriage.[21] We had now scarcely a month's supplies for the army, and were about to enter a country of which little was known beyond native reports of its remarkable barrenness. Mehrab Khan of Kebat, the most influential chief of this portion of Beloochistan, had given the British agent assurances of furnishing the army with supplies, and, relying on his assistance, the forces advanced towards those sterile regions.
Mr. M'Naghten (the envoy to Cabul) received intelligence of the pass being occupied by the enemy, but he did not deem the source a creditable one; however, military precautions were properly taken, supposing the information correct.
The first march from Shikarpore was partly through a low jungle, which yielded, as we advanced, to a barren plain, that had lain apparently under water, and been recently dried by the powerful effects of the sun, which had cracked the surface with innumerable fissures. Not a shrub nor a blade of grass was visible, as far as the eye could reach, around this desert, which was bounded on our front by a lofty barrier of mountains, at about a hundred miles' distance. We had become nearly reconciled to barren views when they caused us no inconvenience beyond unsightliness; but when, after a wearisome night-march of twenty-eight miles over the desert, we reached our halting-place, where only two or three wells of muddy and brackish water (and these nearly exhausted) were found, matters began to look serious for man and quadrupeds.
Orders were sent to the rear to stop the progress of the army, whilst a wing of the 16th Lancers were detached, as a reconnoitring party, in advance. We started in the evening, and marched, till the following morning was well advanced, over precisely the same picturesque country, as far as the imperfect light showed us, for about thirty miles, when our eyes were rejoiced by the sight of a clear, rippling stream in the desert, near whose banks patches of grass and small fields of young wheat were growing, announcing the grateful intelligence of the desert being passed. Those who have suffered the pangs of thirst in a hot climate will estimate the feelings of the cavalcade as they hastened to avail themselves of the watery blessing.
Over the blighted waste we had crossed, (the Putt,) the deadly simoom occasionally blows in the hot season. Fortunately for us, we made the transit when the climate was moderate; but four months afterwards, two melancholy tragedies occurred to detachments marching to join the army in Afghanistan.
A portion of a native infantry regiment, escorting treasure from Shikarpore, were passing the desert in the night, when they mistook the way, and wandered the greater part of the next day in search of the track without meeting with any water to moisten their parched throats. One after another, they dropped, until two officers and twenty-one sepoys were lost. The remainder, many of them delirious, found the track and a stream of water in the evening.