In the meanwhile, the Army of the Indus remained inactive at Candahar. The halt was a long and a weary one. Provisions were miserably scarce. It was necessary to remain under the city walls until a sufficiency could be obtained, and to obtain this sufficiency it was necessary to await the ripening of the crops. Every one was impatient to advance. The delay was painful and disheartening. There were no compensating advantages to be obtained from a halt under the walls of Candahar. Save a few who had the real artist’s eye to appreciate the picturesque, the officers of the force were disappointed with the place. They had believed that they were advancing upon a splendid city; but they now found themselves before a walled town, presenting so few objects of interest that it was scarcely worth exploring. After the desolate tracts over which they had passed, the valley of Candahar appeared to the eye of our officers to be a pleasant and a favoured spot. There were green fields, and shady orchards, and running streams, to vary the surrounding landscape. But they found the city itself to be little better than a collection of mud-houses, forming very unimposing streets.[322] The city was in ruins. “The interior consisted only of the relics of houses of forgotten Princes.”[323] There was altogether an air of dreariness and desolation about the place. Many of the houses had been thrown down by repeated shocks of earthquake, and had not been rebuilt. The public buildings were few; but conspicuous among them was the tomb of Ahmed Shah, whose white dome, seen from a distance, stood up above the houses of the city, whilst a spacious mosque, with its domes and minarets, seen also from afar, enshrined a relict of extraordinary sanctity—the shirt of the Prophet Mahomed. When the British arrived before Candahar in April, 1839, it was said that the principal inhabitants had forsaken the place. But enough remained to give an animated and picturesque aspect to the city. The streets and bazaars were crowded with people of different castes and different costumes—Afghans, Persians, Oosbegs, Beloochees, Armenians, and Hindoos; whilst strings of laden camels everywhere passing and repassing, enhanced the picturesque liveliness of the scene.