The potatoes thrive well, and will be a very valuable addition to the cuisine. The cauliflowers, artichokes, and turnip radishes are very fine, and peculiarly mild in their flavour; they are all from seed we brought with us from our garden at Kurnaul. The Cabul lettuces are hairy and inferior to those cultivated by us; but the Cabul cabbages are superior, being milder, and the red cabbage from English seed grows well.
Regarding the fruits of Affghanistan, I should not be believed were I to state the truth. Selected grapes off a bunch of those in the Kohistan have been known to weigh 200 grains; the largest I ever weighed myself was 127 grains. It was the kind denominated the Bull's Eye by the English; I believe the natives call it the Hoosseinee-Angoor; its form is nearly round, and the taste very luscious; it is of a kind not generally purchaseable. At Kardunah they grow in great perfection. Those I ate were sent as a present from a native gentleman to Captain Sturt, as were also some very delicious pears from Turkistan. The largest peaches I have myself weighed turned the scale at fifteen rupees, and were fully equal in juiciness and flavour to those of the English hothouse. The finest sort are in the Kohistan, but are so delicate they will not bear carriage to Cabul. I have been assured by my friends who have been there in the peach season that the best fruit of the kind at my table was quite inferior to those above mentioned. The Orleans blue plum is excellent. There is a green one resembling in appearance a greengage, but very tasteless. There are also many other kinds, with a great variety of melons, Water, Musk, and Surda, which is accounted the best.
It is reported that Sale's brigade are very badly off for carriage and provisions, and we have here no camels to send to them. The 37th N. I. and the Shah's sappers and miners are ordered back to the Huft Kotul, to await the arrival of the invalids at that place. It is now said that, from the difficulty experienced in procuring carriage, the sick and wounded must be left here.
In the evening we heard that the Envoy had received a hurried note from Capt. Macgregor, by which it appears that between Jugdaluk and Soorkhab the troops were attacked by about 400 men; that ours were unable to force the hills. The enemy left the pass open, by which the brigade proceeded; but they came down in force on the rear-guard, who are stated to have been panic-struck. Our loss is stated at ninety killed and wounded. Capt. Wyndham of the 35th killed, and Lieut. Coombes severely wounded; Lieuts. Rattray and Halcombe of the 13th Light Infantry wounded. There has been great loss of baggage and camels; seventy of the latter carried off, which were returned to us on paying ten rupees each for the Hindostanees, and twenty each for the Affghan animals. This is instituting a premium for plunder, but it was caused by dire necessity.
There were no despatches for the General, nor letters for me, but we hope to receive further accounts to-morrow.
1st November.—No letters from camp, which has caused both surprise and anxiety.
2d.—Last night a party of Kohistanees entered the city; a large body of horsemen were also seen proceeding towards the city from the road that leads by the Shah's camp behind Siah Sung.
This morning, early, all was in commotion in Cabul; the shops were plundered, and the people were all fighting.
Our Affghan servant, Mahomed Ali, who used to sleep in the city, when he passed out to come to my house in the morning was threatened, and reviled as the chuprassy of the Feringhee General, who, they asserted, had been beaten at Tézeen, and that all his troops had run away, and he with them!
The Shah resides in the Bala Hissar, and his guns from that fortress were constantly firing; the Affghans in the city were doing the same from six in the morning. Capt. Sturt hearing that Capt. Johnson's (paymaster to the Shah's force) house and treasury in the city were attacked, as also Sir Alexander Burnes's, went to Gen. Elphinstone, who sent him with an important message, first to Brig. Shelton at Siah Sung, and afterwards to the King to concert with him measures for the defence of that fortress. Just as he entered the precincts of the palace, he was stabbed in three places by a young man well dressed, who escaped into a building close by, where he was protected by the gates being shut. Fortunately for my son-in-law, Capt. Lawrence had been sent to the King by the Envoy, and he kindly procured a palkee, and sent Sturt home with a strong guard of fifty lancers, but they were obliged to make a long detour by Siah Sung. In the mean time, Lawrence came to tell me all that had passed, and to break the bad news to my daughter, Mrs. Sturt.
Lawrence (military secretary to the Envoy) had had a very narrow escape himself. An Affghan, grinding his teeth, and grinning with rage and hatred of the Feringhees, aimed a blow at him with a sword, which Lawrence parried, and putting spurs to his horse he escaped: one of his suwars received a cut in the leg, which was revenged by another horseman shooting the fellow.
It was Lawrence who came to tell me of Sale's wound; he is always kind and friendly, though he has now been twice the herald of ill news. It struck me as probable that the suwars would take Sturt to his own house; and as he and my daughter were staying with me, there would not even be a bed to place him on there. I therefore determined not to lose time by waiting till the bearers could get my palkee ready, but took my chuttah and walked off as fast as I could towards Sturt's house. I fortunately met Major Thain (aide-de-camp to Gen. Elphinstone), for I soon saw a crowd of about fifty suwars in his compound. Thain ran on, and told the bearers to bring him on to my house. I cannot describe how shocked I felt when I saw poor Sturt; for Lawrence, fearing to alarm us, had said he was only slightly wounded. He had been stabbed deeply in the shoulder and side, and on the face (the latter wound striking on the bone just missed the temple): he was covered with blood issuing from his mouth, and was unable to articulate. From the wounds in the face and shoulder, the nerves were affected; the mouth would not open, the tongue was swollen and paralysed, and he was ghastly and faint from loss of blood. He could not lie down, from the blood choking him; and had to sit up in the palkee as best he might, without a pillow to lean against. With some difficulty and great pain he was supported up stairs, and laid on his bed, when Dr. Harcourt dressed his wounds, which having been inflicted about ten o'clock, now at one were cold and stiff with clotted blood. The tongue was paralysed, and the nerves of the throat affected, so that he could neither swallow nor articulate; and the choking sensation of the blood in his throat was most painful to witness. He was better towards evening; and by his wife's unremitting attention in assisting him to get rid of the clotted blood from his mouth by incessant applications of warm wet cloths, he was by eleven at night able to utter a tolerably articulate sound. With what joy did we hear him faintly utter bet-ter; and he really seemed to enjoy a tea-spoonful of water, which we got into his mouth by a drop or two at a time, painful as it was to him to swallow it.
It was most gratifying to see the attention and kind feeling manifested on the occasion by the sergeants of the engineer department, and their anxiety (particularly Sergeant Deane's) to