"By this time it was too evident that the whole of the Eastern Giljyes had risen in one common league against us." The treacherous proceedings of their chief or viceroy, Humza Khan, which had for some time been suspected, were now discovered, and he was arrested by order of Shah Shoojah.
"It must be remarked," says Lieutenant Eyre, "that for some time previous to these overt acts of rebellion, the always strong and ill-repressed personal dislike of the Affghans towards Europeans, had been manifested in a more than usually open manner in and about Cabul. Officers had been insulted and attempts made to assassinate them. Two Europeans had been murdered, as also several camp-followers; but these and other signs of the approaching storm had unfortunately been passed over as mere ebullitions of private angry feeling. This incredulity and apathy is the more to be lamented, as it was pretty well known that on the occasion of the _shub-khoon_, or first night attack on the 35th native infantry at Bootkhak, a large portion of our assailants consisted of the armed retainers of the different men of consequence in Cabul itself, large parties of whom had been seen proceeding from the city to the scene of action on the evening of the attack, and afterwards returning. Although these men had to pass either through the heart or round the skirts of our camp at Seeah Sung, it was not deemed expedient even to question them, far less to detain them.
"On the 26th October, General Sale started in the direction of Gundamuk, Captain Macgregor having half-frightened, half-cajoled the refractory Giljye chiefs into what proved to have been a most hollow truce."
On the same day, the 37th native infantry, three companies of the Shah's sappers under Captain Walsh, and three guns of the mountain train under Lieutenant Green, retraced their steps towards Cabul, where the sappers, pushing on, arrived unopposed; but the rest of the detachment was attacked on the 2d November--on the afternoon of which day, Major Griffiths, who commanded it, received orders to force his way to Cabul, where the insurrection had that morning broken out. His march through the pass, and from Bootkhak to Cabul, was one continued conflict; but the gallantry of his troops, and the excellence of his own dispositions, enabled him to carry the whole of his wounded and baggage safe to the cantonments at Cabul, where he arrived about three o'clock on the morning of the 3d November, followed almost to the gates by about 3000 Giljyes.