ABSTRACT
We must now return to the General and his party. At daybreak on the 13th the Sirdar had again changed his mind; an instead of following up the troops, he decided to move to the position they had vacated, and remained there during the day; and should the ladies and officers left at Khoord Cabul arrive in the evening, that all should start the next morning over the mountains to the valley of Lughman, north of Jellalabad. At 8 A.M., they mounted their horses; and with the Sirdar and his party rode down the pass, which bore fearful evidence to the last night’s struggle. They passed some 200 dead bodies, many of them Europeans; the whole naked, and covered with large, gaping wounds. As the day advanced, several poor wretches of Hindostanees (camp followers, who had escaped the massacre of the night before) made their appearance from behind rocks and within caves, where they had taken shelter from the murderous knives of the Affghans and the inclemency of the climate. They had been stripped of all they possessed; and few could crawl more than a few yards, being frostbitten in the feet. Here Johnson found two of his servants; the one had his hands and feet frostbitten, and had a fearful sword cut across one hand, and a musket ball in his stomach; the other had his right arm completely cut through the bone. Both were utterly destitute of covering, and had not tasted food for five days.
