In this terrible Jugdulluck Pass many brave officers fell with their swords in their hands. Up to this time death had not been very busy among the commissioned ranks of our ill-fated army. The number of officers that survived, when the column left Jugdulluck, was large in proportion to the number of soldiers who remained to follow them. Though they had ever been in the midst of danger, and had been especially marked by the Afghan jezailchees, they had hitherto escaped with an impunity which had not been the lot of the common soldiers. This is to be attributed partly to external and partly to internal advantages. They had enjoyed no better covering and no better food than their comrades; but they had ridden good horses; and though, outwardly, means of keeping off the cruel cold had not been enjoyed by them less scantily than by the European soldiers, they had brought to their aid all the advantages of superior mental resource. They had been more cautious and more provident, and had been greatly upheld by the knowledge of the responsibility which in such a fearful conjuncture devolved upon them. There is a sustaining power, under severe physical trial, in the sense of moral responsibility; the feeling that others are dependent upon one’s exertions has a bracing and invigorating effect; and whatever excites mental activity is favourable to physical endurance. Many, in the course of that terrible retreat from Caubul, had perished under the influence of mental despondency; many had been destroyed by their own incaution. The officers had fallen only under the fire of the enemy. Thousands of the soldiers and camp-followers had been destroyed by the cruel cold.