Campaign of the Indus / In a Series of Letters from an Officer of the Bombay Division

by T. W. E. Holdsworth

We reached Candahar on the 4th, and on the 8th his Majesty Shah Shooja-ool-Moolk was crowned, after which there was a review of all the troops that were here by his Majesty, a grand "tomasha;" but such, I am told, was the unpopularity of the Shah that out of the whole population of Candahar very few persons were looking on, though the Easterns are devoted sight-hunters. On the — he held a levee, where every officer had the honour of making his leg to his Majesty. I was not present at either of these grand occasions, being at the time still on the sick-list. I, however, had a glimpse of his Majesty the other morning as he was taking his airing. He is a fine-looking man, with a splendid black beard. I am told that he is a very accomplished man, but an exceedingly bad ruler. He has written his own life, which is said to be very interesting: I should think it must be so, as few men have experienced so many changes of fortune as he has. You will find a very good description of him, as well as of Cabool and Sinde, in "Burnes' Travels in Bokhara," the present Sir Alexander Burnes, who is second in command to Macnaghten, and a great deal with the Shah. I read also an excellent article on this country &c. in the last December or January number of "Blackwood's Magazine."

Another horrible murder, somewhat similar to that of Capt. Hand, occurred here about the middle of last month. Two officers of the 16th Lancers, Inverarity and Wilmer, went one day on a fishing excursion to a small river about seven miles from this; several parties had been there before on pic-nic excursions, as it was much cooler, and there were some beautiful gardens, with lots of fruit, on the banks of the stream. There is a slight hill to be crossed in getting to it, at the top of which is a cut-throat narrow pass, formed out of the rock; you must pass through it in single file, and the bottom being of rock is so slippery and rough that it is with difficulty a horse can keep his footing on it. They were returning home about half-past eight o'clock, when Wilmer, being rather wrong in his stomach, got off his horse for a short time, and Inverarity said he would walk to the top of the hill to look at the view by moonlight; Wilmer followed in a few minutes on foot, his ghorewalla following with his horse. On coming near the top of the hill before mentioned, he was somewhat astonished at a large stone whizzing by his head, and immediately afterwards about six or seven men jumped on him out of the rocks. He had time to draw back, and received two different cuts on his walking stick, which cut it through, and slightly wounded him on the forehead. He managed to draw back from another, which was made at him with such strength that the fellow fell with the force of his own blow. Wilmer then thought it as time to cut and run, and bolted as fast as he could with these chaps after him. They luckily, however, stopped to rob his and Inverarity's bangies, containing their kit, which they met his servant carrying, &c. Wilmer did not stop till he reached a detachment of the Shah's force which is stationed there, he returned with a party from them, and on reaching the other side of the hill found poor Inverarity lying on the ground dreadfully mutilated; he was not quite dead when they came up, and Wilmer says he can never forget the convulsive shudder he gave on their arrival, taking them for the murderers returning to finish him. He died, however, almost immediately, merely saying, "For God's sake, look at my hands! I am afraid I am very badly wounded." Thus fell another victim, as we all feel, to the conciliation principle! Neither Inverarity's horse nor anything of then kit has been since seen, though Wilmer has recovered his horse. This will give you a pretty idea of the country we are living in. The next day there was an order out from Sir J. Keane, in which, after giving an account of the murder, he begged all officers never to go out into the country on sporting expeditions unless in large parties and well armed. The Shah and Sir John were also on the point of burning down the village near which the murder occurred, but the political department would not allow it. Seven or eight men were, however, taken up, though nothing certain has been proved. They are still in chains in the town; what will be done with them I don't know. I always have my holster pipes, and pistols loaded, whenever I ride out, as there is nothing like being prepared.

I have little to say of Candahar, which appears to me to be just the same as every other town I have seen in the East, very dirty, &c. It stands in a tolerably fertile plain, with hills scattered all round it. It is a perfect square, each side of which is nearly a mile in length; two streets, one from north to south, the other from east to west, run through it, and bisect each other in the centre: in these are the different bazaars. The rest of the town, as it appeared to me as I rode round the walls the other day, is perfectly deserted. There are double walls to the town, entire all the way round, but I should think it could be easily taken. A great number of the inhabitants have left it on account of the dearness of provisions, occasioned by the hungry mouths of so large a force as ours, and also because, on his first arrival, the Shah wished to play some of his old arbitrary acts over again.

The Ghiljees have been at their old tricks lately, robbing some supplies for the army, which came up by the Bolan Pass about a week ago, and which they followed nearly into our camp. The caravan, however, was under the charge of a right sort of fellow, the Rajah of Buhawulpoor, who was bringing up a contingent to the Shah's force, and if any of his camels were taken away he took two for one from the first village he arrived at. The Ghiljees got more bold afterwards, and actually endeavoured to walk off with the camels of the Bengal army, and five or six were taken prisoners by some Sepoys, and one blown from a gun in the town. They, however, killed one, and severely wounded two other unarmed soldiers of H.M. 13th Light Infantry, who were out with the camels of their regiment, the guard for the camels having very quietly gone to sleep in a house. The poor fellows made a desperate fight, defending themselves with their shoes; and one of them pulled a mounted Ghiljee off his horse, but had his arm cut through before he could get the fellow's sword from him: they lost a great many camels.

June 29th.—Well, to-morrow we are off for Cabool; I hope the country may improve as we advance. Everybody speaks very highly of Cabool itself—a fine climate, 6000 feet above the sea. It has been very hot the whole time we have been here. They say there is plenty of grain to be had on the road; I hope this may be true, and that we shall not have a repetition of what took place before in regard to expense. I was congratulating myself, a day or two since, on the prospect of getting my back pay, but now I hear that I shall not only be minus that, but that we are not to get any more pay for three months, owing to some mismanagement or other; consequently, we shall be obliged to get into debt, with a nice little interest to pay off. I wish, therefore, that next year you would give me credit for another 60l. I do not wish you to send it out to me, but that you would let me draw upon you as far as that sum, in case I should find it necessary, as this campaign has sadly crippled me. Your last 60l. is nearly gone, and yet I have not spent a farthing that I could help: this irregular way of paying troops is very disgusting to them.

The report is now that we are not likely to have any regular fighting, as it is pretty generally believed that Dost Mahomed has agreed to our terms; the "on dit" is, that he is at Peshawur, and awaits our arrival in Cabool, to give himself up to the British government. Colonel Wade, one of the political diplomatic line, is near Peshawur with a part of Runjet's army, but Dost Mahomed will not surrender himself to him, nor will Colonel Wade cross the Punjab frontiers, on account of the great enmity which exists between the Afghans and Sikhs: however, all this is to be proved. I wish we could have one good brush with them, as we should then have plain sailing; as it is, I suppose we shall be annoyed by these rascally Ghiljees all the way up: out-lying pickets to take care of camels, &c. With regard to the climate of this country I can say little, as we have only been here during the hot weather, and hot we have found it with a vengeance; but then we have been living in tents. One man of ours has died by a coup de soleil; he was one of the camel guard. I do not consider the climate an unhealthy one. It is a very lucky thing for us that we were not left in Sinde: the troops left there have suffered terribly. Sinde is one of the hottest places in the world, and very unhealthy; in fact, I consider it to be about one of the most disgusting countries in the world. The 17th regiment lost an officer there under very melancholy circumstances. He was coming up to join his regiment, having been only lately appointed to it, and lost his way in that dreadful desert I told you of, where he wandered in a wretched state for two days, during which time the simoom came on, and he died from its effects a short time after reaching his tent; the simoom was still so violent that his servants were obliged to dig his grave inside his tent: his body turned black immediately after death.

We have had excellent European fruit here, and the gardens about the place are very large and beautiful—peaches, apricots, cherries, apples, grapes, and mulberries. I never tasted anything more delicious than the melons here. You cannot imagine, in your temperate climate, how refreshing they are on a hot day; but, then, they are said to be very dangerous. The vegetables, too, are good, particularly to those who had been without them so long as we had. There are peas, beans, salad, cucumber, but, unfortunately, no potatoes; what would we not give for a nice mealy murphy! we have not tasted one for four months; however, in all these respects Cabool is much superior. What we shall do when we reach that place I cannot imagine,—one thing, the Hindoo Koosh, prevents our marching further. The report is, that if everything goes smooth we shall go back again this year; but this I do not believe, as I hardly think it probable that the government would be at such expense in marching us such a distance just to keep us at Cabool for a month, and if we overstay that it will be too late, and the snow and severity of the climate will hinder our returning. Moreover, Runjet Sing is very ill, and, they say, is likely to kick, in which case there will, I take it, be a regular shindy in the Punjab; and John Company, when he has once put his foot into a country, does not withdraw it very soon. Besides, there is Herat and Persia to be looked to. For my part, I have no objection to a winter in Cabool; and if we can only get up our supplies in the liquor line, we shall, I have no doubt, make ourselves very comfortable. The 16th Lancers have an excellent pack of foxhounds with them, and horses are very cheap. There are to be races &c. on a grand scale also when we get there; and if we can get our supplies up by that time, we may look forward to spending a merry Christmas even in such a distant country. How curious all this must sound to you in your quiet, lovely home of Brookhill. I have often thought of you all during this campaign, particularly the other day, when I had the fever; and I hope and trust my life maybe spared that I may see you all once more, particularly as I have never seen you at Brookhill.

With regard to myself, my health, with the exception of the fever, has been much better than I could have expected, considering what we have gone through. I have, however, been sadly bothered the whole time I have been in the country with rheumatism; at times, during the march, I was so bad with it that I could not walk ten minutes at a time. I have also had terrible pains in the joints of my arms, and have them still, and it is with difficulty I can get a gun to my shoulder. I can walk pretty well now, but running is totally out of the question; so that I am afraid I should come off poorly in a hand-to-hand encounter with these rascals. I applied to the doctor for some medicine, but he said "he could give me none;" in fact, they will not give an officer any medicine now unless he is very seriously ill, as they are very short of medical stores.

I hope you may be able to get through this letter; the blue paper I have been writing on is Russian, and bought in Candahar. I do not think I have anything more to say. I will write again when I reach Cabool. Tell Kate I will write to her too: I hope she got my letter which I wrote in January last under cover to you.