had been occupied by the advanced brigade of General Bright’s force on October 12th, and it was only sixty miles from that post to the point beyond Jugdulluck, where they would join hands with the Cabul Army. The end of October would surely see them within a few marches of us. But it had been apparent from the first that drag-ropes were upon the “Army of the Indus,” and that every tug forward made by Brigadier Charles Gough was responded to by a double tug behind. The end of the month came; the convoys from the Shutargardan were well on their way, the troops under Brigadier Hugh Gough had also started; and the Jugdulluck route seemed about to be opened. On 1st November Brigadier Macpherson was at Butkhak, and four days later he shook hands with General Bright at Kata Sung. Then it was decided at head-quarters here that a force should visit Ghazni. The mass of our supplies were being stored away in Sherpur; General Macpherson could march his brigade back after garrisoning Luttabund and Butkhak; Cabul would not be denuded of troops; and from Sherpur to Peshawur the road would be guarded by an overwhelming force. But the programme went all wrong: the broken reed, after being straightened for twenty-four hours, failed us. The Khyber advanced brigade had no supplies; General Macpherson had to cross into Tagao to feed his force; and we, in Sherpur, saw the 15th November—the day fixed for our departure for Ghazni—come and go, and still the army remained stationary. The weather, too—an element that can never be despised in our calculations in a semi-barren country like Afghanistan—had punished our delay by declaring against us. Snow and sleet fell in and around Cabul, and no man knew when the next storm might come. So the Ghazni expedition fell through; and if the ruffians who are now trying to make capital out of our failure to visit the place, succeed in their efforts to cry a _jehad_, the blame for any mischief that may ensue cannot be thrown upon the Cabul Army, but upon the short-sighted policy which could leave it to its own resources, while nominally moving a supporting force in a parallel line in order to secure its alternative communications. Foreign military critics have reflected severely upon the want of skill shown in the plan of the campaign, and have condemned the rashness of the Shutargardan-Cabul advance, without support from the Khyber. But the supports were said to be there, and General Roberts could not know that they would be steadily kept back, and would be unable to take up their share of the alternative road a month after he had captured the position they were both supposed to be converging upon. Supports which travel at the rate of two or three miles a day are worse than useless.