To say that Peshawur was swept clean of all transport animals for Kurram, is begging the question. The Kurram Valley Force was only half-equipped when it began the advance upon Cabul, and Northern India still held many thousands of mules, donkeys, camels, and their kind. We hoped that some of the energy our own Commander had shown would have been displayed in the "Army of the Indus," and that a few troops at least would have kept pace with us, or, say, have moved on a parallel line five marches in rear. If this had been done, and a well-equipped brigade of 2,500 men had been pushed forward to Jugdulluck, the massing of 12,000 men in rear might have been postponed-for a few months, say, and some of the transport (swallowed up by regiments who will never be wanted west of Peshawur) then liberated. But to look to the Khyber for supplies was soon found to be an expensive amusement. The troops would starve before a seer of atta or grain passed Jumrood. We could live from handto-mouth for a week or two; but there were the four months of winter to be thought of; and it became merely a question of arithmetic whether a brigade strong enough to march to Ghazni could be spared, with all its equipment of baggage animals and followers, and at the same time four months' supplies could be bought up and swept into our Camp by those left behind at Cabul. There seemed just a chance of this being done, if our broken reed in the Jellalabad Valley could be propped fairly straight for a few weeks. The work of collecting grain, forage, and all other supplies, was begun in earnest; and we resigned ourselves to hard labour until the troops from the Shutargardan should come in, and our communications via Jugdulluck be well established. Expeditions to Kohistan and Ghazni were looked upon as certain of accomplishment in the near future. We knew that Jellalabad had been occupied by the advance brigade of General Bright's force on October 12th, and it was only sixty miles from that post to the point beyond Jugdulluck, where they would join hands with the Cabul Army. The end of October would surely see them within a few marches of us. But it had been apparent from the first that the drag-ropes were upon the "Army of the Indus," and that every tug forward made by Brigadier Charles Gough was responded to by a double tug behind. The end of the month

Supplies the Chief Difficulty.

159 came; the convoys from the Shutargardan were well on their way, the troops under Brigadier Hugh Gough had also started; and the Jugdulluck route seemed about to be opened. On 1st November Brigadier Macpherson was at Butkhak, and four days later he shook hands with General Bright at Kata Sung. Then it was decided at head-quarters here that a force should visit Ghazni. The mass of our supplies were being stored away in Sherpur; General Macpherson could march his brigade back after garrisoning Luttabund and Butkhak; Cabul would not be denuded of troops; and from Sherpur to Peshawur the road would be guarded by an overwhelming force. But the programme went all wrong: the broken reed, after being straightened for twenty-four hours, failed us. The Khyber advanced brigade had no supplies; General Macpherson had to cross into Tagao to feed his force; and we, in Sherpur, saw the 15th November-the day fixed for our departure for Ghazni-come and go, and still the army remained stationary. The weather, too-an element that can never be despised in our calculations in a semi-barren country like Afghanistanhad punished our delay by declaring against us. Snow and sleet fell in and around Cabul, and no man knew when the next storm might come. So the Ghazni expedition fell through; and if the ruffians who are now trying to make capital out of our failure to visit the place, succeed in their efforts to cry a jehad, the blame for any mischief that may ensue cannot be thrown upon the Cabul Army, but upon the short-sighted policy which could leave it to its own resources, while nominally moving a supporting force in a parallel line, in order to secure its alternative communications. Foreign military critics have reflected severely upon the want of skill shown in the plan of the campaign, and have condemned the rashness of the Shutargardan-Cabul advance, without support from the Khyber. But the supports were said to be there, and General Roberts could not know that they would be steadily kept back, and would be unable to take up their share of the alternative road a month after he had captured the position they were both supposed to be converging upon. Supports which travel at the rate of two or three miles a day are worse than useless.

When it is considered what the numerical strength of the Khyber supporting column is, one cannot understand the timidity

of the advance. There may have been tribes in front, in flank, and in rear; but so there were on the Shutargardan route, and tribes far more capable of mischief than Afridis and Shinwaris. Yet the menace at Budesh Kheyl, Ali Kheyl, the Shutargardan, and on either flank at Charasia, did not check the forward movement of an army half the strength of that supposed to have been put in motion from Peshawur simultaneously with the advance from the Kurram side. Looking at General Bright's force at the end of October, we find that, inclusive of troops at Nowshera and Peshawur, he had under his orders over 16,000 men, viz., British troops: 148 officers and 4,287 men; Native troops: 147 British officers and 11,795 men. These included five batteries of artillery and one mountain battery, and six cavalry regiments, three British and three Native. Out of the total, two batteries were in Peshawur; and there must also be subtracted the following regiments, which had not crossed the old frontier:-11th Bengal Lancers (356), part of the 17th Bengal Cavalry (338), 1-17th Foot (443), 1-25th (715), part of 51st (209), 1st Native Infantry (774), 22nd Native Infantry (638), and 39th Native Infantry (609). Deducting all these, there was left a force of 11,800 men actually moving on, or garrisoning the Peshawur-Gundamak line: supports equal, it might have been supposed, to any work required of them. That there were conflicting ideas as to the object with which such a body of troops had been sent from India, must have been apparent even to a superficial observer; but upon whom the responsibility of playing with such an army rests, no one here pretends to say. The local rank of Lieutenant-General which has at last been given to Sir F. Roberts, brings these 11,800 men under his command, and their future movements are likely to be directed in sympathy with the advanced army at Cabul. For the next few months they will probably be required to do little more than keep the road; but during the winter their transport equipment and commissariat arrangements-defects in which are said to have been the chief cause of their tardy movements-will have to be so far put on a footing of efficiency that, if the necessity arises in the spring for the Cabul Army continuing its march westwards, they will be able to keep pace with its movements. There are good men and tried soldiers enough in the Khyber Force to

Bringing in the Forage.

161

do all that is required, if they are allowed scope for their energies, and are not trammelled and crippled at every step by those influences in the background, which I have already described as being "drag-ropes upon their freedom of action. General Roberts has now in his command-that of Eastern Afghanistan -two divisions of 8,000, and 11,800 men, respectively: in all, nearly 20,000 troops, whose movements he controls from his headquarters at Sherpur. Matters of detail on the Khyber side are left, as before, to local commanders. I have dwelt at length upon the shortcomings of the Peshawur column, not so much because very serious results have followed its laggard advance, but as showing how helpless the small force here would have been if, in case of a check, it had looked for support to "the Army of the Indus."

General Macpherson's brigade returned to Sherpur cantonments yesterday, having left at Luttabund 300 of the 23rd Pioneers and half the 28th Punjab Native Infantry. Before the brigade marched in, a strong body of troops had been warned for service, their destination being the district of Maidan, twentyfive miles distant on the Ghazni Road, where large supplies. of grain and bhoosa are said to have been collected for us by the sirdars employed to purchase it on our account. Over 100,000 maunds of bhoosa are still wanted to complete our winter supply; and as the villagers have not sufficient carriage to bring in their supplies so long a distance, we must needs go out ourselves. Every available baggage animal will be employed for the next week or ten days in carrying in this forage; and as there are rumours innumerable of gatherings on the Ghazni Road further south, it has been determined to run no risk with reference to our valuable mules and yaboos. A string of between 2,000 and 3,000 animals needs to be well protected, and the brigade which marched out this morning under General Baker was therefore very strong. It was made up as follows:-500 of the 92nd Highlanders; 400 of the 3rd Sikhs; 400 of the 5th Punjab Infantry; two guns, G-3, Royal Artillery; four guns Kohat Mountain Battery; one squadron 9th Lancers, two squadrons 5th Punjab Cavalry, and two squadrons of the 14th Bengal Lancers. The display of so large a force half-way to

M

Ghazni is sure to have an excellent effect upon the surrounding country. Sir F. Roberts rides out to-morrow to join General Baker at Maidan.

A Divisional order was issued to-night, directing the public reading of an order of the Commander-in-Chief dismissing Subadar Mahomed Karim Khan, 1st Punjab Infantry, from the service for having failed in his duty to the Queen-Empress on the occasion of the attack upon the Residency. This man is a Logari, and was on furlough at Cabul in September. On the morning of the outbreak he was in the Residency, and after the lull following the first collision of the Herat troops with the Guides while the Afghans went for their arms-he was sent with a message to the Amir by Sir Louis Cavagnari. This he does not seem to have delivered with the spirit that might have been expected from a soldier in our service; and afterwards, when Gholam Nubbi, Cavagnari's chuprasse, found money and horses for him to carry the news of the disaster to the British Camp at Ali Kheyl, he behaved in a dastardly way. He changed clothes with Gholam Nubbi and started out, but only went as far as Beni Hissar. There he stayed for two days, and then returned to Cabul, where he hid himself for five days in the Kizilbash quarter. Afterwards he quietly made his way to his own village; and, upon our troops appearing at Kushi, came into camp and told some wonderful stories of what he had done. These were afterwards proved to be false, and the Military Commission when trying prisoners found that his conduct had been really that of a poltroon. They recommended his dismissal from the service, and he has now been summarily discharged, all arrears of pay being forfeited. This is another striking instance of the shifty and untrustworthy nature of our Pathan soldiers, for Karim Khan was an old native officer.

CAMP MAIDAN, GHAZNI ROAD, 24th November.

The Lieutenant-General Commanding is now out on a visit to the force under Brigadier-General Baker, which is collecting supplies of forage from the villages along the Ghazni Road. Leaving Brigadier-General Macpherson in command at Sherpur, Sir F.