JULY 27th.--I got information that some of the enemy were concealed in the hills above old Kandahar, so, obtaining permission from General Primrose to make a raid on them, I despatched parties of the 7th Fusiliers and 4th N.I. to see if the report was correct, and if so to attack and defeat them. I rode out myself in the afternoon to see how the search through the very difficult ground was being carried on, and quite approved the arrangements made by Major Marshall who was in command. No one, however, was found, though there were evident signs that several places had been recently inhabited, and very hurriedly evacuated. [Sidenote: First alarming account of disaster.] JULY 28th.--I was woke at 1·30 a.m. by Colonel La Touche, of the Cavalry, who came to report to me that a small portion (a native officer and 30 men) of one of the Cavalry regiments with General Burrows' Force had just reached camp, having, they said, rode 60 miles without drawing rein to bring the information of the total annihilation, by Ayoob Khan's army, of the force under General Burrows. They declared that a great battle had been fought the previous day about noon; that after holding out for 5 hours under a terrible fire, that the whole force had been broken up and taken to flight, and been cut to pieces in detail. Both Generals, Burrows and Nuttall, were said to be dead, that no one, but these men themselves, was saved. The story was a terrible one, and enough to shock the stoutest heart and nerves. I could not, and would not, believe it in its entirety, and told Colonel La Touche that I felt sure things were not as black as they were painted, though I feared they were bad enough. The first thing, however, was to take the news to General Primrose, so, pulling on a few clothes, I ran over to his house with Colonel La Touche and told him the bad news, at the same time recommending caution in accepting, without some reserve, the story of the native officer and men of the Sind Horse. A disaster had, without doubt, occurred, and the only question was whether or not a remnant had escaped, and if so of what strength. A hurried consultation was held, and it was unanimously agreed that, with the certainty of the whole country rising like one man against us, it would be worse than madness for our small force to attempt to hold the altogether indefensible military position which the parsimony and want of military forethought on the part of Sir Donald Stewart had bequeathed to us. As I have often remarked hitherto on the hopeless position, from a military point of view, of the Kandahar Cantonments, it is useless repeating all the objections to them again. Suffice it to say, that they have no independant water supply; that they are commanded on one side by two low hills, and that they are straggling, and entirely without military defences of any kind, and that no amount of labor or money could have made them tenable in [Sidenote: City to be occupied versus cantonments.]