We determined to make a push next morning for Badjghar, and started before day-break for the Dushti Suffaeed Pass, the crest of which we reached after travelling a distance of about nine miles over very bad ground.  We were now “en pays de connoissance,” but our cattle were so much weakened by the work and privations of the last three or four days, that we could not attempt the long and difficult descent into the valley beneath.  I therefore rode on alone and reached Badjghar in a few hours.  I immediately visited Capt.  Hay, and having procured a supply of food, returned with it the same night to the party, much exhausted with my trip, but satisfied now that there could be no further cause for grumbling on the part of our followers.

The state of our baggage-equipage next morning was so bad, that Sturt thought it advisable to give them another day’s rest, and he went on himself to Badjghar; but in the course of the day I received an express from him, stating that circumstances had occurred which made it absolutely necessary for me to bring in the whole party without delay.  I knew Sturt too well to doubt the urgency he represented, and in spite of lame legs, sore backs, &c.  I managed to bring all hands safe into Badjghar late on the evening of the 2d of August.  Our men were taken every care of, (which indeed they required, as fever and ague had weakened them much,) and in a few days all traces of their sufferings had disappeared; but poor Sturt, who had been complaining for some days before of great debility and headache, was seized on the morning of the 3d with a violent attack of Koondooz fever, which soon prostrated his strength and caused me some uneasiness.  He weathered the storm, however, and by the 11th was sufficiently recovered to enable him to resume his duties.

I have before mentioned, I think, that we had left some of our followers and a considerable portion of our baggage at Ghoree, intending to return to that fort after visiting the passes which I have alluded to; but on our reaching Badjghar we found that the clouds which had been gathering for some time past in the political horizon had assumed so threatening an appearance that it would be madness to attempt to prosecute our examination of the nature of the country, when its wild and lawless population were in such an excited state.  The intentions of the Koondooz ruler were not known, and we felt very anxious for the safety of the sick whom we had been necessitated to leave at Ghoree, as in addition to his natural sympathy for a fellow-creature’s sufferings, Sturt feared that if any misfortune befel them, he might, though unjustly, be accused of having deserted them.  His uneasiness was increased by receipt of a letter from Ghoree from one of our people, in which it was stated that the baggage we had left behind had been opened and some things abstracted, and that they themselves were in imminent danger of being seized and sold as slaves.