appointed to the Goorkha corps he was a non-commissioned officer in the Bengal European regiment.  He was one of the many victims, I fear, of the year 1841, as I have been unable to trace his career.  Hundreds of brave European non-commissioned officers met a similar fate, and are merely noticed as having perished in the retreat from Cabul.  The many acts of coldblooded treachery which disgraced the Affghans, and which ought to have opened the eyes of those in power to the absurdity in trusting to their faith, were merged in the wholesale murders of Khoord Cabul, Jugdulluk, and Gundummuk.

I have before described the narrowness of the valley up to Kammurd and the lofty ranges of precipitous hills by which it is flanked; and the reader will perhaps recollect my noticing two forts on either side of the river a little above Piedb[=a]gh.  It was here that the Serjeant halted his party after the first day’s march, intending to proceed the next morning to the Dundun Shikkun pass to meet the convoy.  At day-light he was informed that the expected convoy had not crossed the pass, and while forming his men to proceed and ascertain whether the report was correct or otherwise, he was suddenly attacked by large bodies of horse and foot:  the serjeant immediately took advantage of the ground to protect his party from the heavy fire which was poured in from all sides, and having observed that the enemy, whoever they were, were in too great a force to leave him a chance of successfully maintaining his position, which was commanded from several points, he determined on retreating to Badjghar, a distance of about nine miles.  The valley was full of orchards divided by low walls, and perhaps to a well-disciplined company of steady old soldiers with plenty of officers, a retreat, even in the face of several hundred Uzbegs, might have been effected without loss, by forming the whole body into two lines of skirmishers, and retiring alternately; but the serjeant knew too well the temper of his gallant little mountaineers, who are more famous for bravery than judgment, to trust the safety of his party to the success of a manoeuvre, the chief point in which was to know when to retreat.  His first line of skirmishers would never have retired in order, taking advantage of every natural obstacle of the ground for concealment, but would have boldly confronted the cavalry and probably been destroyed to a man.  He therefore moved his Goorkhas in quarter distance column steadily along the road, which luckily hugged the precipitous hills on one side, so that the enemy could only avail themselves of the valley on the other side of the road to attack him, the mountains being so impracticable that while they attempted to climb them to turn his flank he had already gained so much ground as to be out of reach of even a “plunging” fire.  In ordinary quick time did this little band retire under a heavy though straggling fire from a force many times more numerous than themselves.