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You know those overtones of a bell that go fading away into the infinite, in touch, somehow, with thoughts that haven't reached any of us yet except the man who made the bell. "Ah! Afghans are all alike!" Sikhs say that of Afghans too, and Afghans say the same thing of the Sikhs. "You would say anything for me; but as for cutting throats and laying waste, I myself would be the very first victim.
And was it not made more and yet more unlikely when on the afternoon of the 13th Macpherson, acting on orders, moved his camp to the Balla Hissar heights, evacuating Deh Mazung and leaving open to the enemy the road into the city through the Cabul gorge? The following morning was to show how promptly and how freely the Afghans had taken advantage of the access to the capital thus afforded them.
They did not suffer any decisive defeat in battle, but a general insurrection of the Afghans drove them from their positions and entirely wiped out their force." "I admire your memory, Prince!" "Oh! all this we are obliged to have off by heart in the General Staff College, if we are not to be miserably ploughed in examination.
The Great Mogul had been little better than a mummy for more than half a century; and Bahadur Shah was a mere tool and puppet in the hands of rebel sepoys; nevertheless the British Government had to deal with the astounding fact that the rebels were fighting under his name and standard, just as Afghans and Mahrattas had done in the days of Ahmed Shah Durani and Mahadaji Sindhia.
In this manner some English officer has probably been the undesigning medium of giving these Afghans a peep into the configuration of the earth they live on, and their first lesson in geography. I reward the young man by asking him whether he too is a "kiftan." He acknowledges the compliment by a broad grin and two salaams made in rapid succession.
So after a trial of Roberts' mettle at Charasiah, and finding the testing sample not quite to their taste, the Afghans fell into an attitude of expectancy, and were mightily relieved by his proclamation read at the Balla Hissar durbar of October 12th.
As Baker was returning to Sherpur in the evening he had been fired upon from the Balla Hissar, and his flanking parties had found ambushes of armed Afghans among the willows between the city and the cantonment. But for the skill and courage of the non-commissioned officer in charge a convoy of wounded on its way to Sherpur would certainly have been destroyed.
Their fire swept the defences, and their braves capered derisively to the strains of a bagpipe on the adjacent rocky elevation, which thenceforth went by the name of 'Piper's Hill. A sortie on the 15th cleared the environs of the troublesome Afghans, supplies began to come in, and Broad-foot was free to set his sappers to the task of repairing the fortifications, in which work the entrenching tools he had wrenched from the Cabul stores proved invaluable.
Gladstone has 'insanely' continued war, if moderately successful, may make even yet new 'vengeance' of Afghans seem 'necessary to our prestige' such are the immoral principles dominant among Whigs as well as Tories; any such embroilments may animate Ireland to insurrectionary defiance; further Afghan fighting may lead to Indian revolt.... The nation has found that no possible Ministry will make common justice its rule.
The 17th Regiment and the 27th Punjaub Infantry were ordered to advance, and they were met by a determined resistance, the flags of the Afghans keeping well to the front in spite of the heavy fire of our infantry.
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