[116] Captain Neill’s Recollections of Service in the East.
[117] “The plan of enticing the General to Telookham, delaying him there by keeping a body of horse in his vicinity, and then doubling back on the town, was all preconcerted by Meerza Ahmed; and on the night of the attack every chief in the country was present except the Noorzyes.”—[Major Rawlinson’s MS. Journal.]
[118] The gate had been closed for the night. Lieutenant Cooke was on guard, and was endeavouring to trace the movements of the enemy in the distance, when a villager drove his donkey, loaded with brushwood, over the bridge and demanded admission. He was told the gate would be opened for no one; upon which he growled out a malediction, and tossing the brushwood on the ground, said he would leave it there for the night, and take it into the town in the morning. The villager, having recrossed the bridge with his donkey, dived among the ruined huts opposite the Herat gate, and was out of shot in a moment. At the same instant flames burst forth from the brushwood, and the gate was fired.
[119] See the letter-press to Lieut. Rattray’s admirable drawings of the Scenery and Costumes of Afghanistan.
[120] The Ghazees had so damaged the canal banks, that the irrigation was destroyed, and there was every prospect of a failure of the crops; but through Rawlinson’s agency the people of the Urghundab were induced to labour at their repair, and in a short time the waters began again to flow in their accustomed course.
[121] General Nott to Major Rawlinson: March 25, 1842. [MS. Correspondence.]
[122] “In the charge of the horse under Saloo Khan, when after driving back our cavalry they were stopped by the fire of the guns and the light company of the 38th, which had been thrown out in advance, Yar Mahomed of Dehrawat, who was Saloo’s nephew, fell, and in another part of the field, Hubeeboollah, Akhondzadeh, and Mahomed Raheen, Noorzye, were wounded. The total loss of the enemy in killed and wounded I estimate, from all I could learn on the field and from the villagers, at about 150. We had a few men killed and some forty wounded. Amongst the latter are two cavalry officers, Chamberlaine, and Travers of the 2nd. The Douranee horse came on more boldly on this occasion than they had ever been seen to do before. Some of the 38th Sepoys, indeed, received sabre-cuts from our horsemen; but they cannot stand our artillery or musketry fire. They had been so taunted with cowardice, that they resolved to have one conflict with us before they quitted the vicinity of Candahar, and had not reinforcements gone out, they would have sustained, I doubt not, a much heavier loss, by making repeated charges on different parts of the camp during the afternoon.”—[Major Rawlinson’s MS. Journal.]
[123] Captain Neill’s Recollections of Service.
[124] Captain Neill.
[125] “A few squadrons of dragoons,” wrote Rawlinson in his journal, “would have swept the Douranee horse from the field; as it was, they were permitted to re-cross the river almost unmolested.”