rightful owner, and acting upon the principle of "might makes right,"
possessed himself forcibly of it, and has held it ever since. He
treated us with great kindness and attention, sending us most
acceptable presents of fruit, with food for our followers and cattle.

We here experienced to a great degree that remarkable daily variation
of temperature so peculiar to these regions: in the gully the wind was
bleak and cold, but when encamped under the shelter of the fort the
heat from the sun's rays reflected from the smooth surface of the bare
rock was so intense that the thermometer rose to 100 of Fahrenheit.
While in camp at Cabul I frequently experienced the same rapid change,
for it would sometimes be a hard frost at day-break and an Indian
summer heat at mid-day.

On the 19th of June we started very early, as the tremendous Oonnye
pass rising to the height of 11,400 feet lay before us, and we had a
full ten miles march ere we could reach our proposed halting place at
the village of Uart. We soon entered the mouth of the pass, which was
girt on either side by magnificent precipices; the road was narrow and
slippery--of course without even an apology for a parapet--running
along a natural ledge on the verge of a perpendicular cliff, and so
_sheer_ was the side, that from a horse's back you might
sometimes have dropped a stone into the apparently bottomless
ravine--bottomless, for the rays of a noon-day sun have never broken
the eternal darkness of the awful chasm beneath. Had horse, camel,
or man missed their footing whilst scrambling up the steep and stony
pathway, nothing could have saved them from being dashed to pieces.
Frequently, when rounding some projecting crag, the small treasure-box
fastened on the camel literally overhung the abyss, and I held my
breath and the pulsations of my heart increased as I watched horse