Private Journal of Henry Francis Brooke. Brooke Henry Francis

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СКАЧАТЬ side, led by Sir Richard Temple, have advocated the line by Nari (I see these places are not marked on my map, but a place called Baghao is in much the same line), Harnai, and Gwal, in preference to the one through the Bolan Pass. The former is shorter and easier in an engineering point of view, but it is through a country which, if not actually hostile, which many say it is, is certainly unfriendly. The latter, on the contrary, has many engineering difficulties, but is through a comparatively safe country. The advocates of the former route have carried the day, and I fear poor Showers' death goes some way to prove that those who thought the other route would be the best in the end were not very far wrong. I am now sorry that I am not to take General Burrows' place here, as I think there will be a good deal to interest one in these parts for some time. We have settled to march very early to-morrow morning, and hope to get away from this so as to be on our new ground and tents pitched before the sun can make itself felt. The first four days after leaving Sibi will be hot, but after that we shall get into a more reasonable temperature. Our route from here lies through Kirta, Beebee-Nani, and Sir-i-Bolan, all of which are shown on the map I sent two mails ago. (The figures on that map, under the names of places, show their heights above the sea level in feet).

Sibi – End of the railway

       Friday, 2nd April.– At Sibi there are enormous depots of all sorts of commissariat stores, provisions, and clothing, both for Native and English troops, all of which have had to be transported great distances, especially the grain and the clothing, as most of the former comes from Bengal, and nearly all the latter from England, or at nearest from Bombay. Thousands of pounds of grain is daily used to feed the transport animals who are in thousands – camels, horses, bullocks (both for carts and packs), ponies and donkeys. Besides these there are some 2,500 to 3,000 cavalry and artillery horses, and about 1,000 horses, the property of officers, to be fed every day, and as there is little or no cultivation in Afghanistan, some idea may be formed of the arrangements, the labor, and the expense which are required to keep this one matter of the forage supply in working order. Armies fighting in Europe can expect to draw a good proportion of their supplies from the country in which they are operating, but the fact that almost nothing required by European troops, and very few of the articles required by native soldiers are to be got in Afghanistan, renders a war such as that we are now engaged in, a fearfully difficult and expensive matter. We dined at the rough camp mess at Sibi at which 15 officers were present, and went to bed (in the open air) at 9 p.m., as we had to be up at 1 o'clock to pack our camels for a start at 2 a.m., as we proposed to march 14 miles to Muskaff.

Preparations for marching

       Saturday, 3rd April.– I was woke at 1 o'clock, and after dressing almost in the dark began to have the camels loaded, but everything was against us. First of all, for the 6 camels sent for mine and Wm. French's baggage, only one camel driver appeared, and he seemed perfectly ignorant of everything connected with camels, and more especially with that most delicate of arrangements, the loading of a camel; and to make matters worse he proved to be a wild villager from the neighbouring hills, whose language we could not understand, nor could he understand us. Then nearly all the ropes and harness required for the pack saddles were wanting, and the saddles themselves were of the most antiquated patterns. After many delays these minor difficulties were partially overcome, and after at least an hour spent in vain attempts to load the 6 camels, we had the proud satisfaction of seeing two of the lot ready for a start, when a demon entered into the two loaded animals, who rose from the ground (camels sit down to be loaded) and kicked the whole of their loads off. In the first instance this was rather ludicrous, and we laughed at it, and began again; but when 4 o'clock came, and daylight (which meant intense heat) began to appear, and yet not one camel could be induced to let the loads remain on their backs, things looked serious, and we despaired of getting off at all. However, we determined to make one final effort, and this time were so far successful that we made a start at 5 a.m., meeting the rest of our party about a mile out of Sibi, and heard to our distinct satisfaction that they had been equally unfortunate, and had only succeeded in getting off after many failures. The only wonder was that we got off at all, as it turned out that the camels had only been purchased two or three days, and were perfectly untrained. Our satisfaction at effecting a move was but of short duration, as we had not gone a mile before half the loads were on the ground, and had to be repacked again and again. The sun was by this time too high to allow us to think of our completing the distance originally intended, so at 8 o'clock we halted for the day on the banks of the Nari River, where there is a depot of transport animals to supply changes of bullocks for the cart train which passes daily each way between Sibi and Quetta. To carry this out there are reliefs of bullocks every 6 or 7 miles, and the arrangement works with wonderful regularity. We could not afford time to march only 6 or 7 miles a day, so could not avail ourselves of the cart train, but are condemned to the daily trial of loading camels, than which nothing is more trying to the temper, I am bound to say. The transport officer at the halting place was good enough to allow us to share his hut, and so saved us going into tents in which the thermometer during the day stood at 120 degrees, and even in our kind friend's hut was over 100 degrees, a heat which is required to be felt to be understood, as the entire absence of air, except now and then a hot blast, as if out of a furnace, made it most oppressive. Towards 6 o'clock it grew wonderfully |First halt on the march.| cooler, and at 6.30, when we sat down to dinner at a table placed in the open, it was quite delightful. This was the first of our mess, and, considering we were in the wilds, we did very well, having some preserved soup, a leg of mutton, and curry of sardines – I don't, however, recommend the latter to anyone who is not very hungry and hopeless of getting anything else – whiskey and water – very little of the former, and a very bad quality of the latter – completed the sumptuous repast. Just as dinner was over a noise was heard from the line of horses to which we all rushed to find that Mr. "Selim" (who is a pugnacious sort of gentleman) had drawn his picket pegs and was doing his best to completely destroy poor "Rufus," who being picketed was powerless to retaliate. For about ten minutes we were afraid we should lose "Selim" altogether, as the night was dark, and if he had rushed away into the open plain we should never have seen him again. Fortunately he was too anxious to return to finish his fight with Rufus, and we managed at last to catch him, neither horse being, wonderful to say, anything the worse. The fact is the horses are all quite wild after their long confinement and want of work, and this is a thing three or four heavy marches will all too quickly cure. To pay him out for his games, I decided to give "Selim" the pleasure of carrying me the first ten miles the following morning, "Akhbar" bringing me in the last five miles, and so giving "Rufus" an off day to allow him to recover the effects of his bites. We turned into bed at 8.30, sleeping, as usual in these parts, in the open air.

       April 4th.– After several false starts, and many difficulties in loading the camels, we started at 3.15 a.m. for a 15 miles march, and as I wanted to inspect the transport and commissariat depots at Muskaff, I rode on in front with a couple of the men of my escort (I have a native officer and 20 men of one of our native cavalry regiments, the Poona Horse, as an escort to Kandahar), and having a second horse for a change half way had a very pleasant canter on "Selim" (the first time I had ridden him), whom I like very much indeed. The two colonels followed at a quieter pace, leaving Captain Collis and Mr. Fox to bring up the rear. It was a lovely morning, and the road was very nice for cantering, and I enjoyed the ride and the attending circumstances very much. After inspecting at Muskaff, I got on my arab ("Akhbar") and had a good opportunity of trying his paces, which will be very good, but at present he is quite raw and untrained, and gives one plenty to do to watch his antics, which, however, are all of the purest kind of play, as, like all well-bred arabs, he is as gentle as possible. The latter part of the march into Pir-Chokey was very dusty and extremely uninteresting, and uncommonly hot. I picked up the colonels (who had passed while I was looking at the transport and commissariat depots at |March into Pir-Chokey.| Muskaff), about two miles from the end of the march, which we completed at a quarter to 8 o'clock, but it was past 10 when the baggage came up, the loads having frequently been thrown by the camels during the march, so our two young friends who were in charge arrived thoroughly tired and done up. A little tea and a rest, however, soon put them right; and when at 6 o'clock in the evening, when the sun was setting, we all got a plunge into the Bolan River, which is a clear and extremely rapid running stream, we found ourselves as fit as possible, notwithstanding that СКАЧАТЬ