ed
advance on Kabul presented themselves to me. My chief causes for
anxiety were the insufficiency of transport, and the great extent of
the lines of communication which would have to be guarded. It would
be necessary to hold the country in strength from Thal to the
Shutargardan, a distance of 115 miles, until such time as the Khyber
route could be opened, and I felt that the force at my disposal
(7,500 men and 22 guns) was none too large for the work before
it, considering that I should have to provide a garrison for the
Shutargardan, if not for other posts between that place and Kabul.

My Commissariat arrangements, too, caused me many misgivings,
increased by the fact that Major Badcock, my chief Commissariat
Officer, and Major Collett, my Assistant Quartermaster-General, who
had afforded such valuable aid in Kuram, thinking the war was at an
end, had taken leave to England. My doubts vanished, however, and my
spirits rose at the sight of my brave troops, and the enthusiastic
welcome they gave me as I rode through Kuram on the 12th September on
my way to Alikhel. A splendid spirit pervaded the whole force; the
men's hearts were on fire with eager desire to press on to Kabul, and
be led against the miscreants who had foully massacred our countrymen,
and I felt assured that whatever it was possible for dauntless
courage, unselfish devotion, and firm determination to achieve, would
be achieved by my gallant soldiers.

On reaching Alikhel, Captain Conolly handed to me the Amir's
letters,[11] to which I replied at once, and the next day, under
instructions from the Government of India, I wrote to His Highness
that, in conformity with his own special request that an English
officer should be deputed as Envoy to his Court, and on condition that
he would himself be responsible for the protection and honourable
treatment of such an Envoy, Major Cavagnari and three British officers
had been allowed to go to Kabul, all of whom within six weeks had been
ruthlessly murdered by his troops and subjects; that his inability to
carry out the treaty engagements, and his powerlessness to establish
his authority, even in his own capital, having thus become apparent,
an English army would now advance on Kabul with the double object of
consolidating his Government, should he himself loyally do his best to
fulfil the terms of the treaty, and of exacting retribution from the
murderers of the British Mission. But that, although His Highness