Yesterday Sir Frederick Roberts and Brigadier-General Baker rode over to Butkhak, where Brigadier-General Macpherson is encamped after his late excursion in the Tagao country. There have been so many movements of troops in the Cabul plain lately, that the only escort the General thought it necessary to take with him was six sowars of the 5th Punjab Cavalry. Since the first brigade marched to Butkhak on the 1st instant, the villagers in the plain and in the lower Logar Valley, which runs down from the Sang-i-Nawishta defile, have seen small parties of cavalry constantly on the move backwards and forwards, and within the last few days have watched the 23rd Pioneers encamped on the banks of the Logar and the long convoy of sick and wounded march along on the way to India. There have been so many evidences of our presence, that any unruly tribesmen or disbanded sepoys have wisely kept very quiet. The road may be considered safe, even for a solitary traveller; the telegraph wire has hitherto been scrupulously respected; and our foraging parties have never been molested. We were, of course, anxious to learn some particulars of the late skirmish, in which a company of the 67th had come to close quarters with the Safis; and, leaving the invalid camp, we passed up to the head-quarters of the 1st Brigade near the village walls. Sir Frederick Roberts heard the details of the affair from General Macpherson as well as an account of the work done by the Brigade in opening up communication with the Khyber Force. I may here incidentally state that Sir F. Roberts has now received the local rank of Lieutenant-General, and commands all the troops in Eastern Afghanistan, Jumrood being the point in the Peshawur direction to which his power of control extends. Some severe strictures have been passed upon those who have hitherto had the supreme control of the force operating from Peshawur, and the answer given to these is that General Bright’s advanced Brigade was a “flying column.” If that were so, how was it that it took twenty-four days to “fly” from Jellalabad to Kata Sung, a distance of about sixty miles? Surely its wings must have been clipped by Transport or Commissariat scissors, in which case it would cease to be a flying column at all, and would drop down to the lower level of a sedate brigade moving two and a half miles a day, sleeping comfortably in tents, and living on the fat of the land. But in that case there should have been supplies sufficient to have justified the stay of the troops at Kata Sung, and so to have secured the road. General Macpherson had of course no supplies with _his_ force, as everything is being gathered into Sherpur for the winter; and he could not stay at Kata Sung, but had to try and find food north of the Cabul river. Here accordingly came in the story of the reconnaissance northward into Tagao and of the collision with the Safis. The bed of the Cabul river lies about ten miles north of Kata Sung, Sei