On approaching one of these mountain streams, which had been greatly swelled by the recent rains, the commander of the kafilah escort, who was accompanied by one of his favourite women, placed her on a powerful horse, and, that she might not be incommoded by the crowd, attempted to convey her over first; but she had no sooner entered the water than she was carried off among the black whirling eddies of the current, and drowned. The Mohammedan, thus suddenly deprived of his mistress, at once forgot all thoughts of resignation to the decrees of fate, and, throwing himself upon the ground in the bitterness of his affliction, lamented his loss like a giaour. This melancholy event occasioned the immediate halt of the whole kafilah, the tragical fate of the lady having impressed their minds with a salutary terror. Next morning, on searching along the margin of the torrent, the body was found covered with mud, and was interred upon the spot with such ceremonies as time and place permitted. The kafilah then crossed the stream, and continued its march.
The road now lay through a black and desolate track, scooped into hollows by torrents, or yawning with natural chasms. It next entered a wide plain well watered and interspersed with walled villages, in the midst of which stands Kabul, the capital of the Afghan empire, where they arrived safely on the evening of the 2d of August. Here Forster took up his abode with a Georgian named Bagdasir, to whom he had brought a letter of introduction from his countryman in Kashmere. To this man, as to the person most likely to render him aid in such an affair, he showed his bill for five hundred rupees; but when it was found that not one single letter in it was legible, the man shook his head, as well he might, and predicted that no one would be found to discount it. However, after application had in vain been made in every other quarter, Bagdasir himself purchased the bill for half its real amount, which, its extraordinary condition being considered, was fully as much as it was worth.
Not many days after his arrival at Kabul our traveller was seized by a malignant fever, which for several days menaced him with a much longer journey than the one he had undertaken. Hot and cold fits succeeded each other with singular violence; he was tormented by insatiable thirst, and, as he endeavoured to quench this by the constant drinking of cold water, a most profuse perspiration was maintained, which probably saved his life. His whole body was covered with spots of a very bright colour, shaded between purple and crimson, which he should have beheld, he says, with pleasure, supposing that such an eruption would diminish the force of the disease, but that some of his neighbours regarded them as signs of the plague. This created a general alarm, and they were about to exclude him from their quarter, when he confidently asserted that the fever of the plague always produced its crisis in three days, whereas his had now continued seven; which, together with the conduct of Bagdasir, who never deserted him, somewhat assuaged their terrors, and induced them to suffer his presence. His disorder continued three weeks, and at length, when it disappeared, left him so weak that he could with difficulty crawl about the streets.