arrived again here last night, but no letters or anything for me.  I see, by the English papers, that there was a report at home that we had lost 3000 men already—­the greatest lie possible.  If we had lost that, we should have lost more than half the Bombay army.  We have not lost more than we generally do in quarters, though the men have been, terribly knocked up, and well they may be, with the horrible marches they have made.  I was very much amused by the debates in Parliament, with regard to our “military promenade,” as some of the papers call it.  I wish I could see some of their writers on an out-lying picket, with a prospect of a twenty miles’ march, I rather think they would not talk so much of “promenading.”  The Bengal army, with our cavalry, and most of the artillery, marched this morning for Cabool.  Shah Shooja goes to-morrow or next day, and we bring up the rear, as I said before, on Sunday.  However, we will talk of that anon, or I shall forget where I left off.  On looking back, I find that I have brought the force up as far as Dadur.  Well; we halted there till the 12th.  The 17th, artillery and Irregular Horse, however, marched before us, on the 9th.  While there, the rascally Beloochees and Kaukers kept hovering about us, and walked off with some camels and a horse or two.  They generally, however, paid very dearly for them, as the cavalry that were sent after them on these occasions made a terrible example of them.

While here we heard of a shocking murder at Curachee.  A Captain Hand, of the 1st Bombay Grenadier Regiment, was taking his morning’s ride, when, on turning a corner on the top of a hill, he unexpectedly found himself in the midst of about thirty Beloochees.  They talked to him very civilly, and he allowed them to get round his horse, not suspecting anything, when one rascal behind him gave him a terrible wipe on the back of his head with his sword, which knocked him off his horse, and the others rushed in, and cut him to pieces.  A Lieut.  Clarke, of the same corps, happened to be riding this way, and seeing these Beloochees, asked them if they had seen a Latich pass that way, meaning Hand; to which they replied by a volley from their matchlocks, a ball from one of which struck Clarke on the leg, and he galloped for camp as fast as he could, and fell off his horse exhausted before the quarter-guard of H.M. 40th regiment.  A party was immediately sent out, and they found the body of poor Hand horribly mutilated.  A good number of these rascals have been since taken, and, I suppose, hanged; unless the conciliation principle lets these rascals off also.  They belong to different bands, under different robber-chiefs, among the hills.  These robber Khans have strongholds on the almost inaccessible mountains that run up the whole west frontier of Sinde, and divide it from Beloochistan.  All merchandize and travellers passing through Sinde to the west of the Indus are obliged to pay a sort of black mail to these Khans to be allowed to pass through; but so bad is their name for treachery, ferocity, &c., that few, if any, of the traders between India and Central Asia go this route.  They do not care a farthing for the Ameers, who also secretly connive at their proceedings, in order to draw recruits from them on any emergency.