that object equally well if, instead of the cavalry reconnaissance made by Lockhart, Macpherson himself had been instructed to devote the 9th to a reconnaissance in force in the direction of Karez Meer. [Illustration: Map of Cabul and surroundings.] The country being held unsuited for the action of wheeled artillery and cavalry, Macpherson left his details of those arms at Aushar, and marched on the morning of the 10th on Karez with his infantry and mountain guns. As his troops crowned the Surkh Kotul they saw before them an imposing spectacle. The whole terrain around Karez swarmed with masses of armed tribesmen, whose banners were flying on every hillock. Down in the Pughman valley to the left rear, were discerned bodies of the hostile contingent from the west, between which and the Kohistanees no junction had fortunately as yet been made. Macpherson's dispositions were simple. His mountain guns shelled with effect the Kohistanee tribesmen, and then he moved forward from the Surkh Kotul in three columns. His skirmishers drove back the forward stragglers, and then the main columns advancing at the double swept the disordered masses before them, and forced them rearward into their entrenched position in front of the Karez village. There the resistance was half-hearted. After a brief artillery preparation the columns carried the position with a rush, and the Kohistanees were routed with heavy loss. Meer Butcha and his Kohistanees well beaten, Macpherson camped for the night near Karez. Baker had reached his assigned position in the Maidan valley, and there seemed a fair prospect that the operation against Mahomed Jan as originally designed might be carried out notwithstanding the interruption to its prosecution which had been found necessary. For there was good reason to believe that the Afghan commander and his force, whose strength was estimated at about 5000 men, were in the vicinity of Urgundeh, about midway between Macpherson at Karez and Baker in the Maidan valley. If Mahomed Jan would be so complaisant as to remain where he was until Macpherson could reach him, then Roberts' strategy would have a triumphant issue, and the Warduk general and his followers might be relegated to the category of negligable quantities.