Snow began to fall at seven o’clock this evening, and it is still steadily snowing now (midnight). At ten o’clock I visited the bastions held by the 72nd Highlanders, and gained some idea of the work our men are called upon to do. The sentries in their greatcoats were simply white figures standing rigidly up like ghosts, the snow-flakes softly covering them from head to foot, and freezing as they fell. Men on guard in the bastions were walking briskly to and fro in their limited space to keep themselves warm, and at their feet were their sleeping comrades, covered with their waterproof sheets. A cold wind had been blowing in the early part of the evening, and this had driven the flakes into every crevice, and had caused several inches of snow to drift about the feet of the sentries in the parapet. In the ditch below our horses were tethered, and our syces and followers sleeping, the snow covering all alike, and whitening the ground as far as the eye could reach. Inside cantonments was one wide sheet of snowy brightness, the Bemaru Heights rising up in the background and looming through the snowflakes like a snowy barrier blocking us from the outer world. It was bitterly cold on these heights, over which a cold wind nearly always blows; and we knew that, hidden from our view, were 2,000 or 3,000 men sleeping at their posts, with snow about them, every man ready to answer the first call of his officer, stalking about among the sentries. Picquet duty under such conditions is a real hardship; but with Balaclava caps and warm gloves frost-bite is guarded against, and with the early morning comes hot soup and cocoa, which cheers the men, and gives them heart to face the cold. By order of the General, the Commissariat serve out, night and morning, tinned soups and cocoa to all European soldiers; and it is fortunate that a large supply of these stimulants—for such, indeed, they are in a climate like this—reached us a few weeks ago. The small tins are easily carried by the men, and all that is wanted is a cup of hot water to give a “drink” with which rum cannot hope to compete. The sepoys and sowars of the native regiments are not forgotten, additional comforts being served out to them; and they are cheery as their English comrades, though the snow is far more trying to men from a tropical climate. Our wounded generally are doing well, though one trooper of the 9th Lancers, who was injured by his horse being killed in a charge, has died. Colonel Cleland, the Colonel of the same regiment, who was wounded in the disastrous affair of the 11th, is pronounced out of danger; while Lieutenant Egerton, shot through the neck on the 14th, is walking about again, though still on the sick list. I am sorry to say that Major Cook, V.C., 5th Ghoorkas, is dying, mortification having set in from the wound he received below the knee on the Bala Hissar Heights. His brother, Lieutenant Cook, of the 3rd Sikhs, who was wounded in Chardeh, is rapidly recovering.