The Hindus and Kizilbashes who relied upon us for protection may well revile us, since we have left them to their fate; while the Mahomedans who have looted their homes, insulted their women, and terrorized over them for ten days, are now laughing at our inability to follow them to their distant villages. The unlucky Hazaras, who have worked so well for us, were hunted down, beaten, and reviled wherever they showed their faces in the streets; and were told jeeringly to call for help upon the British locked up in Sherpur. Our humiliation is so great that to risk a repetition of it would be ruinous. We must show that the investment of Sherpur can never again occur, and to do this 10,000 troops must hold Cabul, and our line of communication with India be so permanently established that even 100,000 tribesmen cannot break it. An immediate declaration of policy should be made: to wait quietly for “events to develop” may be disastrous. We must create events, not allow others to turn the current of them in whichever direction they please. If we are to hold Cabul—and this is now ten times more imperious even than it was before, for to retire would be to acknowledge that we have failed in our occupation, and dare not risk another reverse—we must hold it by our bayonets and not by our rupees. Half-measures will only imperil our safety: to put trust in Afghan cunning and be guided by Afghan insincerity is only to risk the lives of our soldiers. Those soldiers have done all that soldiers can do, and they may well look to their commanders to make success once obtained sure and stable. We lost less than 100 men in capturing Cabul; we have lost nearly four times that number in fifteen days’ fighting, after we had occupied the place for two months. There must be no longer a state of false security; for it is not improbable that the _jehad_ will be revived before the winter is over, and the _moollahs_ may again influence the religious fanaticism of the people against us. To-day General Hills, our Governor of the City, once more visited the _kotwali_, guarded by the 5th P.I., while the sepoys were busy all day in searching the Mahomedan quarter, and in arresting such citizens as they could find remaining. One hundred Punjabees garrison the _kotwali_ for the night, and the Kizilbashes and Hindus are once more plucking up courage. The Bala Hissar has been examined, and not an Afghan found in it, and in two or three days the 9th Foot, and the 2nd and 4th Ghoorkas, which arrived at Sherpur this morning with General Charles Gough, will be quartered in the fortress. Butkhak is also to be re-garrisoned with 100 of the 9th and the whole of the 12th B.C., and in a short time we shall be once more holding a strong line of communication with Peshawur. Our most urgent want is ammunition. The reinforcements have only brought about 200 rounds per man, and our own supply cannot be much more than 250 rounds, taking the regiments all through.