seemed to smell of the shambles—due, perhaps, to the bodies of men killed in action being buried in shallow graves. At the foot of the Asmai Heights, where the road turns off to the Cabul gorge, a company of the 3rd Sikhs was halted, while Captain Nicholson, R.E., was deciding the direction a new military road should take from Sherpur to Dehmazung. General Hills, Governor of the City, with a number of “friendly” Cabulis, explained to them what houses were to be pulled down, and in a few days we shall have some 500 or 600 men busy in demolishing the place. As yet we have not destroyed a house in Cabul, and our merciful policy has only encouraged its turbulent ruffians to turn and harass us at the first opportunity. Military considerations alone should be now allowed to prevail, and any course decided upon as contributing to the safety of Sherpur should be carried out unswervingly. We have seen how great was the protection afforded by Deh-i-Afghan to the enemy, as enabling them to collect beneath its walls in perfect security, in occupying or in retiring from the Asmai hill, and this protection should now be swept away, even if every wall and house between the foot of the hill and the Cabul river has to be pulled down. General Macpherson’s retirement from above the Bala Hissar on the evening of the 14th had to be made by way of Deh-i-Afghan, and his troops were under fire the whole time in getting from the Cabul gorge to the fields beyond, where our troops from Sherpur were waiting to cover their retirement. Our anxiety, so long as a man remained within the shadow of Deh-i-Afghan, was at the time very great.