Elphinstone, as has been said, was now in command of the British forces. Next in rank to him were Sir Robert Sale, of the 13th Light Infantry, and Brigadier Shelton, who had come up in the spring of the year with his regiment, the 44th of the Line. Soojah's own troops were under Brigadier Anquetil, who had superseded Roberts, much to Macnaghten's satisfaction, for Roberts was too much of an "alarmist" to please the sanguine Envoy. The main body of the garrison lay in the new cantonments. These remarkable works had been erected in the previous year. Situated in low, swampy ground about two miles from the citadel, they were defended only by a low mud rampart and ditch, over which a pony had been ridden for a wager by one of our own officers; they were commanded on every side by hills and villages, while, to make matters still worse, the Commissariat supplies were stored in a small fort without the wall. The authority for this unfortunate arrangement has been the subject of much discussion, into which it would be neither profitable nor pleasant to enter here; but it should not, at least, be forgotten that our engineer officers had always urged most strongly the expediency of posting the troops in the Bala Hissar, or citadel, a strong position on a hill commanding the entire city and suburbs. At first, indeed, this had been done, but the soldiers were soon required to give way to the ladies of Soojah's harem, and it was then deemed necessary, by some person or persons, to build what Kaye aptly calls "the sheep-folds on the plain." Elphinstone, at any rate, was not to blame, whoever was, for the folly had been committed before Elphinstone had assumed the command. But familiarity, as usual, soon begot security, and in this dangerous position our officers and men soon learned to live as tranquilly and easily as in the strongest fortress in the world, or as in the luxurious quarters they had left in peaceful Hindostan. The time passed pleasantly enough. Lady Macnaghten and Lady Sale had joined their husbands, and nearly all the married officers had followed the example of their chiefs. The climate was fine and bracing, nor was there any lack either of amusement or society. Englishmen carry their sports with them into every quarter of the globe, and the stolid Afghans looked in amazement and admiration on the races, the cricket, and the skating with which the white-faced infidels beguiled the idle days. But there were unfortunately other habits in which some of the English chose to indulge which stirred up in the native heart feelings of a very different nature, habits which have already been briefly touched upon, and which were growing fast into an open and notorious scandal. "There are many," wrote Kaye in 1851, "who can fill in with vivid personality all the melancholy details of this chapter of human weakness, and supply a catalogue of the wrongs which were soon to be so fearfully redressed."