It was upon arriving opposite Sherpur Cantonment that we sighted the enemy; the Asmai Heights to the left, overlooking the old Afghan quarter of Cabul, being crowded with men. We were 3,000 or 4,000 yards away, and at that distance they did not consider us worth a shot, though their guns could be distinctly seen. A halt was called, the cavalry forming up at the farther end of the cantonment; while General Massy heliographed back to Sir F. Roberts the news of the enemy having been found occupying a position of strength. We were told, in reply, that General Baker was leaving Beni Hissar with infantry to attack the heights, and we accordingly hurried on, skirting the hills and passing through grain-fields and meadows, with here and there a country villa in its fertile garden surrounded by huge walls. Our object was to reach a break in the hills and to pass over into the Chardeh Valley, so as to cut off the enemy from taking the road which leads to Ghazni, Bamian, and Turkistan. We worked round almost on the arc of a circle, of which Cabul might be the centre, keeping the ridge occupied by the enemy at first on our left rear, then on our left, and, finally, on our left front, when we galloped through the break we had been making for, near the village of Aoshahr, and faced round towards Cabul itself. The rich Chardeh Valley was all before us, and we passed down into it, and could then see the disposition of the men General Baker was to attack. We had learned that they numbered three regiments and had eleven guns in position, and this information was fairly accurate. They had 2,000 regulars, besides 700 or 800 untrained men who had joined them, and had twelve guns. Videttes were thrown out right across the plain, and a rapid reconnaissance made. An old ressaldar of Fane’s Horse, who was accompanying us as guide, stated that three roads led from the valley and united to form the chief road to Bamian. The 5th P.C. were accordingly sent well on to the right to block the road there; two squadrons were sent back into Sherpur plain to watch a path leading down from the hills in that direction; another squadron returned a mile and a half to Aoshahr, so as to prevent the fugitives escaping along the crest of the hills down the dip we had passed through; while the General and Staff remained in the open with the rest of the cavalry, including the 9th Lancers. We had mounted signallers with us, and heliographic communication was opened with the high Takht-i-Shah Peak overlooking the Bala Hissar Ridge. Captain Straton thence signalled down that the enemy’s working parties had been strengthening their _sungar_ on the Asmai Hill, and that some of General Baker’s troops were on the same side of the ridge as ourselves. We could see the enemy distinctly on the hillside, and at its foot was their camp, made up of forty or fifty tents. These were close to the village of Dehmazung, half-hidden by orchards, and a gun was slued round and pointed at us as soon as we appeared. The 9th Lancers withdrew 1,000 yards just as the enemy fired a few shells at our videttes. The shells buried themselves in the soft ground and never exploded. We could not push farther forward, as deep watercourses cut up the fields at every few score yards, and the rows of closely planted willow-trees along these would have broken any cavalry formation. In the various villages, too, large bodies of the enemy were gathered, who could have shot our horsemen down from the towers and walls without at all exposing themselves. A narrow road to the left led along the foot of the hills to the enemy’s camp, but only three men could have gone abreast, and it was commanded on the left and front by the guns, and on the right by the troops in Dehmazung, underneath the walls of which it passed. At a quarter to four we heard the first gun fired, and from that time to dark we watched for the infantry attack to develop. Some of the 92nd Highlanders were seen to our right centre among the trees of a village a mile from Dehmazung, and a small party of the 9th Lancers was sent by General Massy to open communication with them. These found the enemy swarming in the orchards they had to pass through, and after being fired upon from several walls they had to return. The mountain guns with General Baker, posted upon the high ridge commanding the Bala Hissar, were shelling the Asmai Heights lined by the enemy, whose guns returned the fire shot for shot. Having twelve guns to General Baker’s two mountain guns, they had much the best of it, though the range was so long that little real damage was done on either side. The ridges upon which this shell practice was going on form the defences of Cabul from attack from the Bamian direction.