AUGUST 13th.--Quiet night and morning. Not a soul to be seen all round. After breakfast went on the Signal Tower to watch the effect of a few 40-pounder shells, which we were going to throw into the enemy's new camp, at 5,000 yards' range. The shots were excellent, and evidently created much consternation, but the enemy had evidently seen our group on the Signal Tower, and at once sent a 12-pounder shell at us, which went beyond the Tower, his second trial was short and went into the City, but his third shot was so far successful that he hit the lower part of the Tower. At 6 p.m. we shelled a Battery in Deh Khoja. The enemy replied briskly for ½ an hour, and then finding it too hot, shut up. On this occasion we used 7-pounder shells in the 9-pounder guns, to which they had been adapted by an ingenious contrivance of Major Caldecott. They proved a great success, and are a grand addition to our firing powers, as we have 1,100 of them in the Arsenal. On coming back to the walls after dinner I found a telegram from the Herat Gate, to say that large bodies of men were advancing with music, &c. Knowing the anxious nature of my friend in command there the information did not much excite me, and I waited till I could get down to the S.W. Bastion before deciding if any special measures were necessary. Getting there I heard the music (most discordant), and concluded it was in the Engineer Garden in our old Cantonments, and was merely the enemy having a musical evening. The fact that there was music was rather a proof that the enemy did not contemplate an attack. There were, no doubt, many people about, but on the whole I decided there was nothing at the moment worth turning out the Garrison for, so sent a re-assuring telegram to Head Quarters, which was justified by a quiet night. [Sidenote: Further attacks on the Shikapore Gate.] AUGUST 14th.--At 6·30 the enemy opened a Battery on the Shikarpore Gate, to which we quickly replied, shutting him and his guns up in ½ an hour. A spy came in who reports our shells have created much damage among the enemy; also that they lost 60 men in the little affair of the 12th, among them Mahomed Azim Khan, Governor of Furrah, a very great man indeed. The spy says there is an Artillery Officer prisoner with Ayoub Khan, and that he is very well treated in every way; he also says that the enemy have 1,500 wounded now lying at Maiwand. Here the Diary ends! APPENDIX. From Rt. Hon. Hugh Childers, M.P., War Office. To Mrs. Brooke, Ashbrooke, Brookeboro'. I deeply regret to have to announce to you that General BROOKE fell in a sortie from Kandahar on the Sixteenth of August. Pray accept my most sincere condolences on the terrible loss to yourself and to the country. * * * * * From Her Majesty the Queen. Balmoral Castle, August 27th, 1880. Lt.-General Sir Henry Ponsonby presents his compliments to Mrs. Brooke.