The place looks filthy and uncared for, and the doorways leading to the courts of the tumble-down houses give a view of squalor and dilapidation suggestive of worse to follow. The few shops are miserable specimens of their kind, and their owners are in keeping with the general associations of the place. There is nothing better to describe than dust, dirt, and dreariness, on every hand; and even the small square, where a few guns were standing in front of a dozen dirty tents used by the gunners, gave as little idea of the interior of a fortress as a few grains of sand would of a desert. Six field-pieces and as many mountain guns were parked in the square. This was part of the artillery-quarters, and a few gunners with a trumpeter were standing near the guns. The men wore no uniform and looked like unwashed coolies. They saluted as Sir Frederick Roberts rode up, and the trumpeter welcomed us by blowing monotonously for several minutes upon his instrument. It must be more than thirty-five years since British infantry marched through the filthy streets of this much-vaunted citadel; and our only regret was that they had now entered it so peacefully. Sir Frederick Roberts was accompanied by the Mustaufi, the Wazir, and Daoud Shah, the Commander-in-Chief. After a few minutes’ stay in this square, we retraced our steps and entered a narrow lane with a high wall on the right, shutting in the Amir’s garden. On the left were the stables in which the horses of the Royal household were tethered in the open air, rude bins being made in the mud walls on a pattern which is common where Afghan cavalry are quartered. The lane led to the high ground on which the buildings assigned to Sir Louis Cavagnari and his companions stood. From this the city could be seen lying at our feet, to the north. Our first view of the Residency was of the rear wall, still intact, but blackened on the top where the smoke from the burning ruins had swept across. At each angle where the side walls joined were seen the loop-holes from which the fire of the little force on the roof had been directed against the overwhelming numbers attacking them. Every square foot round these loop-holes was pitted with bullet-marks, the balls having cut deeply into the hard mud plaster. The western wall, which faced towards the Upper Bala Hissar, commanding it, was scarred with these marks, proving only too well how severe had been the fire from the higher level occupied by the mutineers in the Arsenal. At this end the Residency was of three stories, but the present wall does not indicate the height of more than two, the upper part having collapsed when the fire obtained a mastery over the building. A lane six or eight feet wide runs between this wall and the buildings on the right in which the Guides were quartered. Plans hitherto published have made the Residency and these quarters one block; but this is a mistake; they were quite distinct.