friendly power in Afghanistan, the British authorities might be induced to enter into a convention with him before their final departure from the country. Even now was Futteh Jung himself beginning to acknowledge his utter inability to maintain himself in the Balla Hissar after the striking of Pollock’s camp. Pollock had refused to supply him with troops, money, or arms; and the Prince himself had closed the door of reconciliation with his old Barukzye enemies by destroying their houses and property. Among the houses thus destroyed, it is deplorable to state, was the house of Mahomed Zemaun Khan—the very house in which the good old man, with real parental kindness, had so long and so faithfully protected the British hostages. The houses of Oosman Khan, Jubbar Khan, and others fell also. It was the policy of the Prince thus to compromise his supporters, and to prevent an alliance between them and the Barukzye party; but having done this, he felt that it was only by destroying the hostile chiefs that he could, in any way, maintain his position. He watched, therefore, with anxiety the issue of the expedition into the Kohistan, and deferred his ultimate decision until the return of M’Caskill’s force. Aided by and relying on the wise counsels of Havelock, M’Caskill made a rapid march upon Istaliff, and took the enemy by surprise. The town is built, terrace above terrace, upon two ridges of the spur of the Hindoo-Koosh, which forms the western boundary of the beautiful valley of Kohistan. It was held in high repute as a maiden fortress by the Afghans, who had now collected, in its fortified streets and squares, their treasure and their women. Looking to it as to a place of refuge, secure from the assaults of the invading Feringhees, they had scarcely made any military dispositions. M’Caskill’s first intention had been to attack the left face of the city; but the intelligence brought in by a reconnoitering party, on the evening of his arrival, caused him to change his plan of operations, and to conduct the assault on the right. Soon after daybreak, therefore, on the following morning (the 29th of September), the camp was in motion towards the right of the city. The enemy soon marked the movement; and, believing that our columns were in retreat, poured in a sharp fire upon them. Growing more and more audacious in this belief, the foremost Afghans pressed closely upon our covering party, which, composed of Broadfoot’s sappers under their intrepid chief, soon found themselves in fierce collision with a large body of the enemy posted in a walled garden. There was a sturdy hand-to-hand conflict. The little band of sappers pushed on, and the Afghans retreated before them up the slopes in the direction of the city, where they would have been overwhelmed. But the time had now come for operations on a larger scale. Havelock and Mayne, who had observed the dangerous position of the sappers, galloped to the