half-past eight o’clock, when Wilmer, being rather wrong in his stomach, got off his horse for a short time, and Inverarity said he would walk to the top of the hill to look at the view by moonlight; Wilmer followed in a few minutes on foot, his ghorewalla following with his horse.  On coming near the top of the hill before mentioned, he was somewhat astonished at a large stone whizzing by his head, and immediately afterwards about six or seven men jumped on him out of the rocks.  He had time to draw back, and received two different cuts on his walking stick, which cut it through, and slightly wounded him on the forehead.  He managed to draw back from another, which was made at him with such strength that the fellow fell with the force of his own blow.  Wilmer then thought it as time to cut and run, and bolted as fast as he could with these chaps after him.  They luckily, however, stopped to rob his and Inverarity’s bangies, containing their kit, which they met his servant carrying, &c.  Wilmer did not stop till he reached a detachment of the Shah’s force which is stationed there, he returned with a party from them, and on reaching the other side of the hill found poor Inverarity lying on the ground dreadfully mutilated; he was not quite dead when they came up, and Wilmer says he can never forget the convulsive shudder he gave on their arrival, taking them for the murderers returning to finish him.  He died, however, almost immediately, merely saying, “For God’s sake, look at my hands!  I am afraid I am very badly wounded.”  Thus fell another victim, as we all feel, to the conciliation principle!  Neither Inverarity’s horse nor anything of then kit has been since seen, though Wilmer has recovered his horse.  This will give you a pretty idea of the country we are living in.  The next day there was an order out from Sir J. Keane, in which, after giving an account of the murder, he begged all officers never to go out into the country on sporting expeditions unless in large parties and well armed.  The Shah and Sir John were also on the point of burning down the village near which the murder occurred, but the political department would not allow it.  Seven or eight men were, however, taken up, though nothing certain has been proved.  They are still in chains in the town; what will be done with them I don’t know.  I always have my holster pipes, and pistols loaded, whenever I ride out, as there is nothing like being prepared.

I have little to say of Candahar, which appears to me to be just the same as every other town I have seen in the East, very dirty, &c.  It stands in a tolerably fertile plain, with hills scattered all round it.  It is a perfect square, each side of which is nearly a mile in length; two streets, one from north to south, the other from east to west, run through it, and bisect each other in the centre:  in these are the different bazaars.  The rest of the town, as it appeared to me as I rode round the walls the other day, is perfectly deserted.  There are double walls to the town, entire all the way round, but I should think it could be easily taken.  A great number of the inhabitants have left it on account of the dearness of provisions, occasioned by the hungry mouths of so large a force as ours, and also because, on his first arrival, the Shah wished to play some of his old arbitrary acts over again.