The 19th of September saw our advanced parties reconnoitering close to Kushi, within thirty-five miles of Cabul, where twelve strong battalions with many guns were reported to be in garrison; and on that night the Duke of Albany's Highlanders were suddenly fired into, when all was supposed to be quiet in the vicinity, and a group of officers were chatting and smoking round a wood fire, which was instantly scattered and extinguished that the enemy might have nothing to aim by.
The Highland pickets stood to their arms, and by a few half-random volleys swept away the assailants, who proved to be Ghazis or religious fanatics, armed with juzails, or long matchlock guns, with a forked rest, which enables the marksman to take a steady aim. They are formidable weapons in mountainous districts, and, though their range exceeded that of old 'brown Bess,' it is far inferior to that of the rifles now in use.
Three days after, the Mongols attacked a convoy of provisions, borne on mules, in a solitary pass, and killed about twenty-three of the escort, chiefly by knives, and resistance proved useless, as the mountain band was so numerous that they next attempted to storm a tower at the summit of the Sirkai Kotal, or Red Pass, so named from the peculiar colour of the narrow path which led to it, but were repulsed and finally driven off by two companies of the Albany Highlanders. But skirmishes such as these were now of daily occurrence.
A few days after saw General Baker, C.B. and V.C., with the brigade of cavalry at Kushi (or 'the Village of Delights'), in a very barren district, whence, however, could be seen the lovely Logur Valley—fresh, green, and fertile; and then he pushed his patrols and reconnaisances along the Cabul Road towards Zargun Shahr.
The advanced camp at Kushi received some very unexpected guests on the 23rd of September, when, at the head of twenty-five splendidly clad and accoutred horsemen—including old Daud Shah—the Ameer Yakoub Khan rode in and surrendered himself!
'I have no longer any power left,' said he; 'I have been dethroned by my own mutinous troops; but Inshallah! it is the will of God!'
'What his true reason for this startling step may have been, we never knew,' wrote an officer, 'certainly not the one he gave, for no Afghan ever told the truth intentionally.'
Handsome tents were given to him and his suite, and a guard of honour, furnished by the Gordon Highlanders, was accorded him. Next day General Roberts and his staff rode in amid the cheers of the troops, and every face brightened, as all knew that the stern work of vengeance was soon to begin, and the pitiful slaughter of the gallant Cavagnari and his companions would be atoned for.
Stolidly proud or stupidly unimpassionable, the Ameer did not condescend to leave his tent, but lounged on a silken divan in the doorway of it, with a lorgnette in his hands, and evinced no excitement till he heard the pipes of the Gordon Highlanders, and saw the kilted sentinels around him.
'He is a man of about six or seven and thirty,' says Major Mitford, of the 14th Bengal Lancers, in his narrative, 'with a light almond complexion and a very long, hooked nose, the lower part of the face hidden by a black beard and a moustache, the eyes having a dazed expression like those of a freshly caught seal. This is said to have been caused by the five years' confinement in a dark cell to which his father, Shere Ali, subjected him, for conspiring against him.'