his Kohistanis; and he had first to deal with them before turning his attention to the Ardal Pultan and their friends from Wardak and Ghazni. His defeat of Mir Butcha, on December 10th, was of great value, as preventing the Kohistanis from joining the other force; but on the 11th there followed the defeat of our cavalry and the temporary loss of two guns. That afternoon was really most pregnant with danger to the cantonment. Two brigades were miles away from the walls, and between the nearest men of General Macpherson’s brigade and Sherpur were 10,000 of the enemy. If they had streamed over the Nanuchi Kotal, near where the action of the 14th was fought, and had shown the same determination in assaulting our lines as they had done in resisting the cavalry and guns, we must have lost Sherpur long before help could have come from the two Brigadiers. That the enemy streamed off to the Cabul gorge, with the intention of seizing the Bala Hissar and the city, was the saving of our cantonments. Two hundred rifles of the 72nd checked them at Dehmazung, and they contented themselves with occupying the hills to the south of the Bala Hissar Heights, and waiting for reinforcements. We kept them in play, on the 12th, with 600 men, who partly captured their position; and by that time General Baker had reached Sherpur. On the 13th our success was unqualified; we stormed and occupied the enemy’s position, and our cavalry in the Cabul plain cut to pieces such fugitives as left the hills. That evening we believed we had seen the enemy’s full strength and had broken it; but after the action on the Asmai Heights, and the retreat of our troops to cantonments, we were undeceived. It became apparent that there were between 30,000 and 40,000 men, quite sufficient to keep us within our walls, as with such numbers many points could be threatened at the same time. It came to this: that we must he content to let them occupy Cabul, the Bala Hissar, and whatever other points they chose, while we watched them carefully from Sherpur, ready to repel attack, or to clear them out of forts and villages dangerously near our walls. _They_ have liberty to roam whithersoever they will; while _we_ are so numerically weak, except for cavalry reconnaissances, that we must accept the usual conditions of a beleaguered garrison. We have accepted it, cheerfully enough, I venture to say; and when we again go out to clear Cabul and the Bala Hissar, we shall do it with all the more zest after being penned up in Sherpur by sheer weight of numbers.