Kotrie, close under the Hala mountains, about five miles from the
Gundava Pass. Here we (i.e., our brigade and the 4th Light Dragoons)
halted for a week. Sir J. Keane pushed on a-head with two troops of
Light Cavalry and the left wing of the 19th Native Infantry, in order to
catch up Sir Willoughby Cotton, who was marching in command of the main
body of the Bengal division. General Willshire, with the staff,
artillery, and cavalry, was at Gundava, about eight miles from us. At
this place, Kotrie, which the inhabitants luckily had not deserted, we
were better off in point of supplies than we had been since we left
Larkhanu, and there was plenty of shooting and fishing; but it was
without exception the hottest place I ever was in. Being close under a
high range of mountains, we were perfectly screened from any cool
breezes that might take it into their heads to blow from that quarter;
add to this, the hills themselves, being composed of granite, or some
stone of that description, attracted the sun, and reflected the heat
back again on us, so that we were attacked from two sides at once. By
this time we had no stronger liquor with us than tea, so that we were
perfectly eligible to become members of the Tea-total Temperance
Society; our supplies in the liquor line, which we had sent on from
Hydrabad to Larkhanu by water, not having reached the latter place in
time for us to get them. In this respect the men were better off than
ourselves, they having their dram or two every day. Here the robbers
began to be more bold, and we did not lose sight of them until we
reached Candahar. Five mails (one of them an "overland," bringing,
perhaps, letters from you or some one at home) out of six were robbed
between this and Shikarpoor; and news was received from Sir J. Keane in
advance that at the entrance of the Bolan Pass several bodies of sepoys
of Shah Shooja's army were lying, there having been a grand skrimmage
there between the sepoys and Beloochees, in which the former, being
caught napping, were worsted. We stayed at this place, as I said before,
a week, and started again on the 31st.

On the morning of the 2nd of April, during a severe march of twenty-two
miles, one of our men, a straggler, who had fallen to the rear with
dysentery, was murdered by these robbers, and another man of the 17th
cruelly wounded, but he has since recovered. They were sitting together
by the side of the road, when of a sudden a party of Beloochees ru