Yesterday afternoon a small party of cavalry were fired upon in the Darra Narkh, a valley running in the Bamian direction, and to-day Bahadur Khan, who was responsible for the action, and who is known to be harbouring Afghan soldiers, has been visited and punished. He had already given much trouble. General Baker, since his arrival in Maidan, has found much difficulty in inducing the _maliks_ of the villages of the district to bring in corn and _bhoosa_. They have given the tribute grain and forage readily enough, but have evaded furnishing the amount we required in addition to this. Every maund was paid for at a forced rate, which, I may state, was far higher than the normal prices; but the village headmen hung back, and, though profuse in promises, made but little effort to meet our wants. Several of them were very insolent in their bearing, and no doubt thought to worry us out by their procrastination. But General Baker is not the stamp of man to have his orders disobeyed, and by confining some of the _maliks_ to the camp for a few days, he had gradually brought them to their senses. One _malik_, however, trusting to the obscure valley in which he lived, wherein Europeans had never been known to penetrate, was obstinate. This was Bahadur Khan, whose fort is about eight miles from the Maidan villages, along the branch road which leads to Bamian. He not only refused to sell any of his huge store of grain and forage, but insolently declined to come into camp. He was known to have great influence among the tribesmen in his neighbourhood, and it was reported that some sepoys of the Ardal regiments were living under his protection. When Sir F. Roberts heard of the contumacy of this _malik_, he agreed with General Baker that it would be well to fetch him in by force, and at the same time to arrest any sepoys found in his villages. To accomplish this double object the cavalry were sent out yesterday, with the result already stated, that they were fired upon by a large body of men, including some 200 sepoys armed with Sniders. It was necessary to make an example of Bahadur Khan, and at the same time to break up the tribal gathering, which, if left alone, might grow to serious proportions. Our foraging parties would probably have been roughly handled in scattered villages, all of which boast of towers and fortified enclosures, if the rumour had been allowed to circulate that our cavalry had been driven back.