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Reaching Habib Killa on the morning of the 28th, he received a report that the Afghan force which he knew to be opposed to him had abandoned its guns on the hither side of the Peiwar Kotul, and was retreating in confusion over that summit. Roberts promptly pushed forward in two columns.
It was necessary, however, that letters should be sent asking permission for him to take this step, and during the delay which ensued the Ameer was seized by fever, and expired. General Roberts determined to leave a force to garrison the Peiwar, and to take up his headquarters in the lower valley, there to winter.
Defeated by the English at Ali Musjid and Peiwar, and believing his cause lost, he fled, no one knew whither; though there is reason to think that he might have returned to power and popularity among the Afghan tribes if he had presented himself after the murder of Cavagnari.
Colonel H. Gough pursued with his cavalry, and possessed himself of several more guns which the Afghans had relinquished in their precipitate flight. The decisive success of the Peiwar Kotul combat had not cost heavily; the British losses were twenty-one killed and seventy-two wounded.
The devotion of the Kurram column to its chief was soon put to the test. After advancing up that valley, girt on both sides with lofty mountains and scored with numerous gulleys, the force descried the Peiwar Kotal Pass at its head a precipitous slope furrowed only in one place where a narrow zigzag path ran upwards through pines and giant boulders.
Further reconnaissances proved that the Afghan line of defence extended along the crest of a lofty and broken mountainous range from the Spingawai summit on the left to the Peiwar Kotul on the right centre, the right itself resting on commanding elevations a mile further south. The position had a front in all of about four miles.
The road, thickly bordered with cedar and pine trees, is covered with boulders and is very difficult, and from the village of Peiwar one of many en route, of the usual Afghan fortified type it leads through a winding defile to the top of the pass. Here the road is confined by perpendicular chalk rocks, the summits of which are covered with scrub timber and a luxurious growth of laurel.
The tribes here greeted our advance with pleasure, for they were tributary to Cabul, and viewed the Afghan rule with aversion. It was upon the Peiwar Khotal, a steep and extremely strong position, that the Afghans determined to take their stand. On the 30th of November the forces approached this position.
At length General Roberts was able to advance up the Kurram Valley and carry the Shutargardan Pass by storm, an exploit fully equal to his former capture of the Peiwar Kotal in the same mountain range.
He led the 72d wing, three native regiments, and ten guns, in a direction which should enable him to threaten the line of the Afghan retreat. Brigadier Cobbe since morning had been steadily although slowly climbing toward the front of the Peiwar Kotul position.
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