[Illustration: THE AFGHANISTAN, EGYPT (1882) AND NILE CROSS AT CLONMEL.] Although the first battalion was not actively engaged in the Afghan war, the officers and men who served in the Khyber Pass received the medal, and the regiment was permitted to add the words “Afghanistan 1879-80” to its battle honours. At the end of the campaign in 1881 the Royal Irish returned to India, and for the next two years and a half oscillated between the great cantonment of Rawal Pindi and the hill station of Kuldurrah. On May 23, 1882, when Lieutenant-Colonel M. MacGregor’s term of command expired, he was succeeded by Lieutenant-Colonel H. Shaw, V.C., and in July of the same year the death of Lieutenant-General Edwards broke one of the few links still connecting the XVIIIth with its campaigns in the middle of the nineteenth century. He died full of years and honours, respected and admired not only by the regiment with which he had passed the best years of his life, but by every officer and man with whom he had served during his long career.[231] Lieutenant-General and Honorary General Sir Alexander Macdonnell, K.C.B., was appointed to replace him as Colonel.[232] A few weeks after the Royal Irish lost their Colonel, the second battalion sailed from England for Egypt to take part in the campaign described in the next chapter. The first battalion continued to serve in India until August, 1884, when in its turn it was summoned to Egypt as one of the corps selected for the attempt to rescue General Gordon from the dangers besetting him at Khartoum. The account of the doings of the first battalion in the Nile Expedition will be found in chapter xii. CHAPTER XI. THE SECOND BATTALION. 1882-1883. THE WAR IN EGYPT.