Yesterday Sir Frederick Roberts and Brigadier-General Baker rode over to Butkhak, where Brigadier-General Macpherson is encamped after his late excursion in the Tagao country. There have been so many movements of troops in the Cabul plain lately, that the only escort the General thought it necessary to take with him was six sowars of the 5th Punjab Cavalry. Since the first brigade marched to Butkhak on the 1st instant, the villagers in the plain and in the lower Logar Valley, which runs down from the Sang-i-Nawishta defile, have seen small parties of cavalry constantly on the move backwards and forwards, and within the last few days have watched the 23rd Pioneers encamped on the banks of the Logar and the long convoy of sick and wounded march along on the way to India. There have been so many evidences of our presence, that any unruly tribesmen or disbanded sepoys have wisely kept very quiet. The road may be considered safe, even for a solitary traveller; the telegraph wire has hitherto been scrupulously respected; and our foraging parties have never been molested.
We were, of course, anxious to learn some particulars of the late skirmish, in which a company of the 67th had come to close quarters with the Safis; and, leaving the invalid camp, we passed up to the head-quarters of the 1st Brigade near the village walls. Sir Frederick Roberts heard the details of the affair from General Macpherson as well as an account of the work done by the Brigade in opening up communication with the Khyber Force. I may here incidentally state that Sir F. Roberts has now received the local rank of Lieutenant-General, and commands all the troops in Eastern Afghanistan, Jumrood being the point in the Peshawur direction to which his power of control extends. Some severe strictures have been passed upon those who have hitherto had the supreme control of the force operating from Peshawur, and the answer given to these is that General Bright’s advanced Brigade was a “flying column.” If that were so, how was it that it took twenty-four days to “fly” from Jellalabad to Kata Sung, a distance of about sixty miles? Surely its wings must have been clipped by Transport or Commissariat scissors, in which case it would cease to be a flying column at all, and would drop down to the lower level of a sedate brigade moving two and a half miles a day, sleeping comfortably in tents, and living on the fat of the land. But in that case there should have been supplies sufficient to have justified the stay of the troops at Kata Sung, and so to have secured the road. General Macpherson had of course no supplies with _his_ force, as everything is being gathered into Sherpur for the winter; and he could not stay at Kata Sung, but had to try and find food north of the Cabul river. Here accordingly came in the story of the reconnaissance northward into Tagao and of the collision with the Safis. The bed of the Cabul river lies about ten miles north of Kata Sung, Sei Baba, and the Luttabund Kotal, its direction being due east and west. From the vast pile of mountains which shut out the Cabul plain from Gundamak high spurs run down towards the river, and among these the Tezin stream, with two or three small tributaries, finds its way. When General Macpherson found that the force he had come to meet at Kata Sung had withdrawn, he turned off to the north, and proceeding down the bed of the Tezin stream for six or seven miles, reached the banks of the Cabul. He encamped at Sirobi, and on the 8th, resolved to cross the river to the village of Naghloo, on the opposite bank, two miles higher up. The natives had reported that a good road was in existence on the northern side of the Cabul from that point, and that it had been regularly used as the military convoy route between Cabul and Jellalabad. General Macpherson found, without much difficulty, a ford over the Cabul, which is here a stream with a strong current travelling very rapidly on account of the descent of 4,000 feet, which the river makes from Cabul to Jellalabad. Like all fords, however, in the Cabul river, this crossing-place was found to have its dangers, the least divergence from the narrow roadway—if the word can be used where there is no dry land—plunging men and horses into deep water. The fatal experience of the 10th Hussars at Jellalabad last spring was remembered, and ropes were stretched across the stream by which the men were guided. This marked the road to be taken and minimized the danger. On the evening of the 8th half the force had crossed to Naghloo without any accident, except that Lieutenants Forbes and Macgregor, of the 92nd Highlanders, acting as orderly officers to the General, were swept away by the current. By a little hard swimming they managed to reach the bank again.