gave rise to the suspicion that the wretched
perpetrator of it intended to have preluded it by the crime of murder. A
trooper belonging to the Horse Artillery was placed under arrest for
some trifling neglect of duty, and as soon as he was liberated he took a
loaded pistol and went directly to the tent of the adjutant of his corps
who had fortunately quitted it a few minutes before. The disappointed
trooper returned to his lines and immediately blew his own brains out.

We left Quettah on the 1st of November, about nine o'clock at night,
taking with us the sick who had been left behind on our way to Cabul,
and who were now sufficiently restored to proceed homeward. In
consequence of the scarcity of water on the route we were obliged to
make a forced march of eight and twenty miles, and reached the entrance
to the Bholun Pass at six o'clock the next morning. We entertained a
lively recollection of the reception we had met with on our former
passage through this defile, and now felt some misgivings that we should
not be allowed to retrace our steps without a repetition of the favours
which were then so liberally showered upon us. To our great
gratification and contentment, however, the Belochees offered us no sort
of obstruction, and could they have facilitated our progress through
their country, would, I have little doubt, been well inclined to do so.
We occasionally caught glimpses of them watching our movements at a
respectful distance, but they never ventured within musket shot during
the whole of our passage. We lost two or three men from sickness before
we cleared the defile, and found it almost impossible to inter them from
the stony nature of the strata with which the whole of this district is
covered.

Quitting the Bholun we proceeded to Dadur, and thence to Bagh, through a
jungle abounding with every sort of game, but more particularly deer and
wild boar. The troops made their way with considerable difficulty
through the intricacies of this entangled route, the pioneers being in
constant requisition to clear a passage for them.

On the 24th of November we arrived at Bagh, a village situated at the
Cabul side of the desert, elsewhere described. The place consists of a
few miserable huts, surrounded by fields of joharra, and containing only
one tank of stagnant water. Doctor Forbes, of the 1st Light Cavalry, an
officer universally esteemed for his benevolence, hearing that the
Natives were dying in numbers of t