into the city at every unguarded point, and fired the houses and pillaged the shops of friend and foe. Many hundreds of harmless tradesmen, Hindu as well as Muhammadan, who had but lately re-opened their shops, now saw themselves ruined, and their families exposed to wanton outrage. Even the friendly Kazilbásh quarter narrowly escaped its share in the general havoc. No wonder that the Duke of Wellington, writing afterwards to the Governor-General, expressed his deep surprise that the officer who ordered the destruction of the bazaar did not put himself at the head of half his army, and 'take care to protect the town from the pillage and destruction which it was certain must be the consequence by the other half of the army[1].'
At last, on the 12th of October, 1842, the combined forces under Pollock's command marched off from Kábul, taking with them the blind old Zemán Sháh, whose name had been one of dread to the India of Wellesley's time, and his nephew, Fathi Jang, who preferred a retreat across the Indus to the dangers of a royalty unsupported by our arms and gold. A crowd of famishing Hindus from Ghazní and Kábul, with hundreds of crippled Sepoys and camp-followers, relics of the Kábul and Ghazní garrisons, and a long train of warlike trophies, encumbered the retreat of an army whose achievements the Governor-General had been prompt to recognize and reward. The troops marched in three columns. Pollock leading, and the
- ↑ Lord Colchester's Indian Administration of Lord Ellenborough.
