Twenty guns
were captured, and the direct road cleared of the enemy.

Unfortunately, our cavalry was in the rear. The road through the
pass was difficult and, before they could get through into the
plain on the other side, the masses of Afghans had fallen back into
the strong villages scattered over it; and could not be attacked by
cavalry, alone. The enemy had from 9000 to 10,000 men upon the
ridge, including thirteen regiments of regular troops. They left
300 dead upon the field and, besides these, carried off large
numbers of killed and wounded, during the night. Upon our side only
20 were killed, and 67 wounded.

Had General Roberts had his whole force with him, he could--after
capturing the hills--have at once pushed forward, and have attacked
the enemy on the plain; and the Afghans, disheartened and panic
stricken, would have been completely crushed. With so small a force
in hand, and the possibility of a serious attack by the tribes on
his rear, General Roberts did not think it prudent to advance
farther; and the regiments which had taken the principal part in
the massacre of Cabul marched away, unmolested.

Enormously superior as they still were in numbers, they had no
thought of further resistance. The capture of positions which they
deemed impregnable, by a force so inferior in number to their own,
had utterly disheartened them; and the Heratee regiments which, but
the day before, had been so proudly confident of their ability to
exterminate the Kaffirs, were now utterly demoralized and panic
stricken. In the night the whole of the Afghan troops scattered,
and fled. Our cavalry--under General Massy--swept along the plain
of Cabul and, skirting the town, kept on as far as the Ameer's
great entrenched camp at Sherpur, three miles further along the
valley. Here 75 guns were captured.

In the morning, Macpherson arrived. General Roberts now advanced
with his whole force of infantry, and found that he had no longer a
foe before him. The Afghan army had disappeared.

There was no longer any occasion for haste, and the column halted
until all the baggage had been brought up through the difficult
defile. The total defeat of the Afghan army had overawed the
tribesmen, and these at once retired to their hills again. The
villagers, however, were bitterly hostile; and seized every
opportunity of firing at small bodies of troops, on cavalry
patrols. This continued for some time; and General Roberts, at
last, was ob