minister--and lastly, the disastrous retreat and utter
destruction of a force consisting of 5000 fighting men and
upwards of 12,000 camp-followers,--are events which will
assuredly rouse the British Lion from his repose, and excite an
indignant spirit of enquiry in every breast. Men will not be
satisfied, in this case, with a bare statement of the facts,
but they will doubtless require to be made acquainted with the
causes which brought about such awful effects. We have lost six
entire regiments of infantry, three companies of sappers, a
troop of European horse-artillery, half the mountain-train
battery, nearly a whole regiment of regular cavalry, and four
squadrons of irregular horse, besides a well-stocked magazine,
which _alone_, taking into consideration the cost of transport
up to Cabul, may be estimated at nearly a million sterling.
From first to last, not less than 104 British officers have
fallen: their names will be found in the Appendix. I glance but
slightly at the _political_ events of this period, not having
been one of the initiated; and I do not pretend to enter into
_minute_ particulars with regard to even our _military_
transactions, more especially those not immediately connected
with the sad catastrophe which it has been my ill fortune to
witness, and whereof I now endeavour to portray the leading
features. In these notes I have been careful to state only what
I know to be undeniable facts. I have set down nothing on mere
hearsay evidence, nor any thing which cannot be attested by
living witnesses or by existing documentary evidence. In
treating of matters which occurred under my personal
observation, it has been difficult to avoid _altogether_ the
occasional expression of my own individual opinion: but I hope
it will be found that I have made no observations bearing hard
on men or measures, that are either uncalled for, or will not
stand the test of future investigation."

After the surrender of Dost Mahomed Khan, there remained in Affghanistan
no chief who possessed a dominant power or influence that made him
formidable to the government of Shah Shoojah, or to his English allies;
and the kingdom of Cabul seemed to be gradually, though slowly,
subsiding into comparative tranquillity. In the summer of the year 1841,
the authority of the sovereign a