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).