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For there was good reason to believe that the Afghan commander and his force, whose strength was estimated at about 5000 men, were in the vicinity of Urgundeh, about midway between Macpherson at Karez and Baker in the Maidan valley.
General Biddulph examined this position carefully in 1879, and discovered a site for a work which would command the valley of the Argandab and sweep the elevated open plain toward the west and northwest. Abbaza is a village at the crossing of the Herat road over the Helmund, forty-six miles west of Atta Karez. On the west bank lies the ancient castle of Girishk.
Baker's brigade was on the right, camped in rear of Picquet hill, in the centre was Macpherson's brigade sheltered in its front by Karez hill, and on the left among orchards and enclosures was Macgregor's brigade, in rear of which was the cavalry.
The country being held unsuited for the action of wheeled artillery and cavalry, Macpherson left his details of those arms at Aushar, and marched on the morning of the 10th on Karez with his infantry and mountain guns. As his troops crowned the Surkh Kotul they saw before them an imposing spectacle.
The whole terrain around Karez swarmed with masses of armed tribesmen, whose banners were flying on every hillock. Down in the Pughman valley to the left rear, were discerned bodies of the hostile contingent from the west, between which and the Kohistanees no junction had fortunately as yet been made. Macpherson's dispositions were simple.
The country between Kandahar and the Helmund has the same general characteristics plains and mountain spurs alternately, and while generally fit for grazing is, except in a few spots, unfit for cultivation. According to the eminent authority just quoted, the great natural strategic feature of this route is the elevated position of Atta Karez, thirty-one miles from Kandahar.
His mountain guns shelled with effect the Kohistanee tribesmen, and then he moved forward from the Surkh Kotul in three columns. His skirmishers drove back the forward stragglers, and then the main columns advancing at the double swept the disordered masses before them, and forced them rearward into their intrenched position in front of the Karez village. There the resistance was half-hearted.
On that day a cavalry reconnaissance discovered that the Kohistanee levies in considerable strength had already gathered about Karez Meer, some ten miles north-west of Cabul, and that masses of Afghans presumably belonging to the force of Mahomed Jan were moving northward in the Kohistan direction, apparently with the object of joining Meer Butcha's gathering at Karez.
After a brief artillery preparation the columns carried the position with a rush, and the Kohistanees were routed with heavy loss. Meer Butcha and his Kohistanees well beaten, Macpherson camped for the night near Karez.
He might have accomplished that object equally well if, instead of the cavalry reconnaissance made by Lockhart, Macpherson himself had been instructed to devote the 9th to a reconnaissance in force in the direction of Karez Meer.
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