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of the King's Majesty. The tomb of Mahmoud Shah, situated in the beautiful garden and village of Roza to the north, also merits notice. It is, however, in sad disrepair, and appears to have no endowment for its maintenance. It is still regarded with great veneration, and is the resort of numerous pilgrims, its undoubted antiquity investing it with a peculiar claim to sanctity in the eyes of Mohammedans. The Somnath gates are indeed no longer there; but they have been replaced by a very good imitation, executed, as we were told, by the voluntary efforts of all the skilled artificers in wood and iron who could be found, after the famous originals had been carried off to Hindustan. The wood used is stained to resemble sandal wood, and is probably either fir or some equally soft wood. workmanship is very creditable, and the imitation is said to be fairly carried out.

The

The English force remained at Ghazni for four days, during which they had another engagement with the enemy, who however fought with far less courage and dash than they had shown in the previous battle.

On the 22nd April news was brought to Sir Donald Stewart that a considerable body of Ghazis had assembled in the villages of Orzoo and Shalez, eight miles to the southeast, and on the next day a body of cavalry were sent out to reconnoitre their position. They brought back a confirmation of the report, estimating the Ghazis at from six to eight thousand men. Sir Donald Stewart then ordered out two brigades under, the command of BrigadierGeneral Palliser, to dislodge them the next morning, and our troops starting at a very early hour succeeded in taking them completely by surprise. The two villages which formed the right and left of their position were vigorously shelled by our artillery, without, however, causing the enemy to disperse; and General Palliser consider ing the position too strong to be carried by the infantry at his command, made

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a feigned retreat in the hope of enticing the enemy out into the open. This stratagem, however, failed, and he then sent back for more definite orders. Sir Donald Stewart at once went himself to the scene of action, and ordered an immediate assault of the position, which was completely successful. might have been expected, the enemy would not go into the neighbouring villages, where on the advance of our troops they would have been caught like rats in a trap, but fled in confusion over the plain, having sustained a loss of 400 killed and wounded. loss was happily only two killed and twelve wounded.

Our

The effect of this affair was more important than we could have hoped for. By the statements of the prisoners brought in-statements that were afterwards confirmed from other sources we learnt that the body of 6,000 or 8,000 men we had just routed, was but the advanced guard of a gathering of from 20,000 to 30,000 men who had assembled in the Shilgir valley near the Fort of Mushki Alum, and, under the impression that we intended to remain at Ghazni, were preparing for a desperate attack on our position. Their defeat on the 19th had somewhat shaken their courage, and the subsequent surprise and rout of their advanced guard on the 23rd fairly broke up the gathering, its dispersion being accelerated by the news that we had no intention of holding Ghazni, and by the contradiction thus given to the assertion of their leaders, that we meant to keep the country. As we left Ghazni we heard that the assemblage had entirely melted away.

In all these events we had positive proof that the chief instigator was the old Mullah Mushki Alum, who is apparently irreconcilable. His two sons are the principal instruments of mischief, for he himself is over ninety years of age, and can only travel recumbent on a litter carried on men's shoulders. He is held in extraordinary veneration by the tribes, and though it is asserted that his sons do not particularly care about their

work, still they are compelled to execute their father's behests, as they dare not disobey him. Our last success had the further advantage of greatly diminishing our difficulty in obtaining supplies. During the first two days of our halt at Ghazni, a very small amount was brought in, the villages promising much but doing little, not daring to give us assistance until the Ghazis were dispersed. This done, we had no further difficulty on the head of supplies.

The feelings of the Ghazni inhabitants and of the Tajik villagers were at best very uncertain, and so little could they be trusted that, when our troops left camp for the action at Orzoo, the chief Political Officer was directed to take stringent measures to prevent any disturbances in Ghazni itself, and Major Clifford was accordingly sent down to the city at daybreak with four companies of the 19th P. N. I., and kept the gates closed and the town under observation till the return of our troops to camp at 4 P.M.

In this action at Orzoo the utility of the heliograph was strikingly shown. Lieutenant Dickie, R.E., was in charge of the signalling operations, and arranged for five stations-one with the advanced body of our troops-one under cover half way between them and the camp, a third with General Stewart and the head-quarters, and a fourth at the citadel of Ghazni, which communicated with the fifth station in camp. In this way, at each moment of the day, the General-in-Chief was kept informed of all that was going on in every direction, and at the close of the engagement he expressed his high ap probation of the manner in which this department had been managed.

The following day Lieutenant Dickie succeeded in opening communication, from the summit of the Shir Dana Pass, with General Ross's division forty miles distant at Sheikabad, and through them sent messages to Kabul, receiving in return the first intelligence of the disastrous collapse of the Conservatives, who, when the army left Kandahar, seemed in a fair way

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Before marching from Ghazni, Sir Donald Stewart had to consider and provide for the necessity (which undoubtedly existed) of establishing some sort of provisonal government, which pending the final settlement of affairs at Kabul should tend to restore confidence and security to the town and villages, the people having suffered severely during the late period of anarchy. Had it been decided to maintain a British force at Ghazni this would have been easy enough, for any governor appointed by the English would have had the power, as long as he was supported by British troops, to rule and collect revenue, even if he disappeared altogether on the withdrawal of the British forces. Such a measure would, however, have entailed upon the English General the obligation of upholding any nominee of the English, and guaranteeing his position, and this, as may be presumed, he was unwilling to do. The difficulty was temporarily solved by Sirdar Mahomed Alum Khan, who came to solicit our aid, stating that with the concurrence only of Sir Donald Stewart he was ready to undertake the government of the province, provided that Moosa Khan (the so-called heir apparent) were permitted to return and reside under his charge.

Sir Donald Stewart received many petitions in support of this request, and, after due consideration, he notified his consent to the Sirdar's proposal, and addressed to him a special proclamation for public information. This arrangement gave general satisfaction at the time, for the Sirdar possessed the goodwill of the people around Ghazni, and had also great influence amongst the Hazaras; and it also quieted the people, for they saw that the victorious English general was willing to make over a city and district which were absolutely at his mercy, to be administered by one of their own Sirdars, and the oftrepeated statement that the English

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wished for no undue influence the affairs of Afghanistan thus received striking confirmation. It must further be remembered that no British troops were to be maintained at Ghazni, and therefore there was nothing whatever to prevent the Sirdar and his adherents from adopting for themselves the same measures which had now been put in force with the sanction of the English general. In the former case however the British Government would not have gained the credit of what was done.

Whilst at Ghazni many letters and messages were sent in by the insurgent chiefs, expressing their willingness to make their submission. To all such the invariable reply was sent, that should they do so they had nothing to fear for past misdeeds, the intention of the Government being to effect a speedy and satisfactory settlement for the future, without any reference to the occurrences of the past. At the same time no temptation was held out to them to come into the British camp, as it was considered that submission tendered under such influences was worse than valueless.

The British army finally quitted Ghazni on the 25th April, and marching slowly, on account of the wounded, through the Wardak valley, effected a junction with General Ross's division, with which heliographic communication had been opened from Ghazni, on the 29th of the same month.

The Shir Dána Pass to the north of Ghazni, sufficiently formidable in winter, now presented no difficulties to the passage of our artillery; our march through the Wardak valley was uneventful, and the people being friendly, we had no lack of supplies. On the 27th General Hills, C.B., V.C., who had accompanied General Ross's Brigade from Kabul, rode thirty miles into camp to meet Sir Donald Stewart and the Division with which he had for many months been previously connected as AdjutantGeneral. He brought the first postal intelligence we had received from the outside world since leaving Kandahar.

During the march from Kandahar the weather had been splendid. The mornings, especially at 3.30 A.M., at which time the troops usually turned out for the march, were generally intensely cold, with a searching keen and bitter wind; but from sunrise to sunset the climate left nothing to be desired. The purity of the air and the delicious weather had a most beneficial effect on the men wounded at Ahmed Khel and Orzoo. Under any circumstances the presence of many wounded men with an army on the march must be attended by grave inconveniences both to themselves and to the troops. These were, however, mitigated as much as was possible by the splendid weather, and the arrangements which Sir Donald Stewart was enabled to make for their comfort. After leaving Ghazni the army only made short stages until it reached the Logar valley, where a long halt enabled most of the men to make a speedy recovery.

On the morning of the 30th April the division paraded, in order that Sir Donald, who was proceeding to Kabul, might bid farewell to officers and men, which he did in a few well-chosen words. He was guilty of no flattery in assuring the troops that no officer could ever hope or desire to command a finer body of men. He had proved

them in all seasons and under all circumstances, and had never found them wanting. And he expressed absolute confidence in their power to perform any duty which might be set before them. The severance of the tie which had existed for so many months between Sir Donald Stewart and the force was not accomplished without keen regret on both sides, and the troops would gladly have learnt that there was again a prospect of serving

under his orders.

Next day Sir Donald Stewart marched towards Kabul with General Ross's Division, taking with him his own personal escort, consisting of two companies 60th Rifles, two companies 25th P. N. I., and one troop of the 19th B. L., who had been in attendance on

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Sir Donald Stewart's March from Kandahar to Kabul.

him during the campaign. His chief of the staff, Colonel Chapman, also accompanied him to Kabul, thereby entailing upon the Kandahar force a loss they could ill afford. From the commencement of the campaign Colonel Chapman had worked for the good of the troops with untiring zeal and ability; and the excellent arrangements, carried out with unfailing exactitude, in the course of this long march, during which not a single camp follower was lost or a single animal carried off by the enemy, may be in a great measure attributed to his energy and able supervision, associated with his widely extended experience.

The Ghazni field force then marched straight into the Logar valley, where it remained until the first week in August, 1880, when it returned to India, with the exception of General. Barter's brigade, which was incorporated with Sir F. Roberts's force, and marched once again south to the relief of Kandahar. On this occasion it was commanded by Brigadier General, now Sir Charles, Macgregor, K.C.B. General Barter had been sent to Nedid invalided.

It will be seen from the foregoing account that the Division under Sir Donald Stewart reached Ghazni, a distance of 234 miles, in twenty-one days after leaving Kandahar. This time, which gives an average of over eleven miles a day, includes two days' halt at Kelat-i-Ghilzai and Karabagh. It must be remembered, however, that the baggage of the Division was carried almost exclusively by camels, and that, included in the force, was an elephant heavy gun battery and an ordnance field park, which, from the nature of things, prevented anything like rapid

marching. Add to this the fact that for many days together the army were (unless they trenched upon the reserve supplies) almost entirely dependent for their forage and provisions upon what they could forage for themselves after arrival in camp-in many cases late in the afternoon-and that for the first few marches a very large number of men and animals, who had been incapacitated by their long and forced inaction at Kandahar for regular marching, were knocked up and became hors de combat, and it will be acknowledged by all acquainted with military matters that the army did well in maintaining an actual rate (counting halts) of over eleven miles a day for twenty-one consecutive days, during which period their reconnoitring duties were of an extended and unusually trying character, and in which time also they fought and won a general action.

It may be asserted that had it not been for the Elephant Battery the rate of progress would have been even greater than it was, but it was indeed only owing to the ceaseless care and affectionate supervision that Major Tillard exercised on behalf of his elephants that the army had never to halt on their account. When at Ghazni the bullocks of the Battery temporarily succumbed to disease, brought on by their having over-eaten themselves in the green lucerne fields around Ghazni, the sympathy felt for Major Tillard could not have been exceeded; it was, if possible, heightened by the knowledge that, so far as Ghazni was concerned, all that officer's care and trouble had been expended to no purpose. There was nothing at Ghazni worthy of the attention of his forty pounders.

THE ENGLISH COMMUNITY IN IOWA.

THERE is an old story of a Western American who met a Southerner and fell to boasting of the riches and wonders of "the Great West." The dispute waxed hot till the western man essayed to close it with a characteristic bit of Johnsonian logic. "Sir," he said, "I'd rather be the meanest citizen of my state than the greatest white man yours ever produced." "Well," returned the other, "I reckon you've got your drather." The story illustrates a peculiar trait in the American character-a certain sublime selfconfidence, and imperturbably circumstantial reasoning-qualities which are valuable enough when backed by a country so rich in all the elements of material prosperity, but which are apt to make their possessors blind to the proportions of things and forgetful of the fact that the work of a generation cannot be done in a day.

Some such logical shortsightedness as this seems to pervade the many prospectuses of agricultural schemes which the year 1880 has brought forth. Each vaunts his particular locality, and, with one honourable exception lately exemplified in the pages of this Magazine, offers a golden road to the distressed British farmer, or to the small capitalist or cadet, who can find no place in the old country. It is a sort of beggarmy-neighbour game of fortune-making, and the wonder to outsiders is how there can be so many Paradises, and how it is that we have been left so long in benighted ignorance of them. But the problem which has called. into existence this idea of land owning in America is not less a real one. The ability of America to feed the world is working a momentous social as well as economical change. The object of the present article is to give, in contrast with the estimates of others, an accurate account of the results obtained through four years' labour, No. 259. VOL. XLIV.

by a certain English colony in Iowa, so far as the history bears on the present difficulty of the English country gentleman-how to recover his rents, and provide for his younger sons.

Although the colony had no formal founding and is only now building a church of its own, it numbers over 500 souls, including women and children, and not less than 120,000 acres have already been taken into cultivation, representing a capital of about 250,0007. It may be said to date from the visit to America in 1876 of a well known Cambridge University oarsman. He had made up his mind that if it was necessary to take risks with the view of making money no two were in the long run better to take than those which have never failed mankind since the world began :-the risk of the fruits of the earth, and of the westward spread of population. His visit taught him the lesson which two years later began to be forced upon people in England, that the American growth of grain and kindred products was still in its infancy. realized in 1877, in the depth of the commercial depression, when about half the American nation was going through the bankruptcy court, and when people were saying that the future of trade was loss and not profit, that, notwithstanding, the farmers of America as a class were making money. The question turned on the cost of transportation. A few years before they had burnt Indian corn for fuel on the Mississippi River steamboats, and wheat had been left to rot in Californian fields. It cost too much to carry it where it was needed. happily the means of transportation had been developed to an extraordinary extent. Railways and canals had been made far beyond the traffic requirements of the country, and when in the depression of 1874-8 there was less to

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