among the conquerors at Cabool. Dost Mahomed, though beaten, was not
subdued, and his repeated small successes made him almost formidable.
But even this was at an end, and the Dost surrendered himself
prisoner.

The British force remained in Cabool two years, where officers and men
alike misconducted themselves, as soldiers always do in a conquered
country. The exasperation of the natives became more and more
manifest: Akbar Khan, a son of Dost Mahomed, hovered about the
country, the evil genius, as it is supposed, of the rising storm; and
at length an insurrection broke out in the city. In this tissue of
surprising blunders, perhaps none is more remarkable than the facts,
that the general selected to command an army so critically placed was
a poor old man, feeble in body and mind, and that the wives and
children of many of the officers were present with their husbands and
fathers, as if the causeless invasion of a country, and the massacre
of thousands of its inhabitants, had been a party of pleasure! The
moment of retreat at length came; snow covered the ground; the dreary
passes of Khoord-Cabool were before them; and as they turned their
backs upon the city, they were saluted with farewell volleys of
musket-bullets.

The story of this fatal retreat has been often told. The result was
communicated in the following manner to the British troops shut up in
Jelalabad: 'At last, on the 13th of January, when the garrison were
busy on the works, toiling with axe and shovel, with their arms piled
and their accoutrements laid out close at hand, a sentry on the
ramparts, looking out towards the Cabool road, saw a solitary
white-faced horseman struggling on towards the fort. The word was
passed; the tidings spread. Presently the ramparts were lined with