on half-rations before entering the mountain districts; yet they had scarcely left the territories of professing friends and allies, and had performed no more than one-half of the journey to Cabul. The Bombay column was at this time nine marches, or nearly one hundred miles behind.
Close by Dadur is the mouth of the Bolan Pass, a terrible chasm nearly seventy miles long, tortuous, deep, and flanked by lofty rocks, running through a range of mountains that stretch from north to south, which at the head of the pass are 5,793 feet above the level of the sea. This portion of the country is inhabited by the poorest and wildest of the Affghan tribes, and it is almost unparalleled in nakedness and desolation. The excessive barrenness and steepness of this line of march caused the destruction of a vast number of horses and camels; but, fortunately, the Affghan chiefs offered no opposition to the passage of our troops till they were on the point of quitting the defile, when some skirmishing took place, and a few of our people were wounded.
Even without such opposition, the army was not a little annoyed by desultory attacks from the Beloochees and the Kakurs – tribes inured to plunder, who not only carried away camels, provisions, and other property, but murdered all whom they found straggling, or could entice by false promises to quit the main body. The distress became extreme from the want of water; the enemy having filled up the wells and diverted the mountain streams. A pestilential air filled the close valleys, and a noisome stench arose from the numerous bodies of camels, and even men, that lay strewed upon the ground. But through all these obstacles they arrived on the 4th of May, without any serious loss, though in a very exhausted state, at the ancient city of Candahar. On the approach of our imposing force, the three brother Sirdars, who had held the city for about twelve years, fled with their families and some two hundred followers to Ghirisk, a small fortress eighty miles distant. They were pursued by Brigadier Sale, and con-
