ed--before we can understand how the political authorities came to
reject every evidence of approaching danger, and therefore to be quite
unprepared for it when it came. Why no effort was made on the first day
to put down the insurrection: Why, in the arrangements for the defence
of the cantonments, the commisariat fort was neglected, and the other
forts neither occupied nor destroyed: Why almost every detachment that
was sent out was too small to effect its object: Why, with a force of
nearly six thousand men, we should never on any one occasion have had
two thousand in the field, and, as in the action at Beymaroo, only one
gun: Why so many orders appear to have been disregarded; why so few were
punctually obeyed.

"At last the fatal morning dawned (the 6th January) which was
to witness the departure of the Cabul force from the
cantonments in which it had endured a two months' siege.

* * * * *

"Dreary indeed was the scene over which, with drooping spirits
and dismal forebodings, we had to bend our unwilling steps.
Deep snow covered every inch of mountain and plain with one
unspotted sheet of dazzling whiteness; and so intensely bitter
was the cold, as to penetrate and defy the defences of the
warmest clothing."

Encumbered with baggage, crowded with 12,000 camp-followers, and
accompanied by many helpless women and children, of all ranks and of all
ages--with misery before, and death behind, and treachery all around
them--with little hope of successful resistance if attacked, without
tents enough to cover them, and without food or fuel for the march, 4500
fighting men, with nine guns, set out on this march of death.

At 9 A.M. the advance moved out, but was delayed for upwards of an hour
at the river, having found the temporary bridge incomplete; and it was
noon ere the road was clear for the main column, which, with its long
train of loaded camels, continued to pour out of the gate until the
evening, by which time thousands of Affghans thronged the area of the
cantonment rending the air with exulting cries, and committing every
kind of atrocity. Before the rearguard commenced its march it was night;
but by the light of the burning buildings the Affghan marksmen laid
Lieut. Hardyman, and fifty rank and file, lifeless on the snow. The
order of march was soon lost; scores of sepoys and camp-followers sat
down in despair to perish, and it wa