were ladies, including Lady Macnaghten and Lady Sale, and three the wives of non-commissioned officers or privates, twenty-two children, and thirty-four officers, including Major-General Shelton, General Elphinstone having died in captivity: the rest, with the exception of two or three regimental clerks, were British non-commissioned officers or privates.
Some of the first sad occupations of our troops on reaching Cabul had been to collect the bones of their slaughtered countrymen and fellow-soldiers, and to give them interment. In some places the skeletons lay in heaps. They were nearly all headless, the Affghans having carried off most of the skulls as trophies. Horrible, agonising efforts were made by some of our officers and men to recognise, in shattered bones and skulls, the mortal remains of some dear friend and comrade. On the spot where her Majesty's 44th regiment made their last heroic stand more than 200 skeletons were found lying close together.
No further operations were undertaken against the enemy. Akbar, and other chiefs whom it might have been desirable to punish for their perfidy, had fled beyond the frontier, and sought refuge in Turkistan. It was, however, considered indispensable that, before departing, a severe lesson should be given to the Affghans, as to the hazards which must always attend a war with Britain. The great bazaar, erected under Aurungzebe, by the celebrated architect Ali Murdan Khan, was esteemed the most spacious edifice, and the chief seat of trade in Central Asia. It was 600 feet long, and contained 2,000 shops; and here had been exposed to public insult the remains of the late Envoy. It was, therefore, determined to reduce it to ashes; and Colonel Richmond, with a party of Sappers and Miners and a detachment of troops, were employed two days in completing its destruction.
The speedy approach of winter now gave warning to lose no time in evacuating a country which had been the scene of so much glory and disaster. Accordingly, on the
