1879 The amnesty Proclamation--Strength of the Kabul Field Force -- Yakub Khan despatched to India On the 1st November my Head-Quarters and the 1st division moved into Sherpur, which the Engineers had prepared for winter quarters, and where stores of provisions and forage were assuming satisfactory proportions.

The same day Brigadier-General Macpherson left Kabul with a brigade of about 1,800 men and four guns to join hands with the troops which I had lately heard were advancing from the Khyber, and had reached Gandamak.

I joined Macpherson the following morning at Butkhak, about eleven miles from Kabul, where our first post towards the Khyber had already been established.

It was very important that our communication with India should be by a route good enough for wheeled carriages; I was therefore anxious to see for myself if it were not possible to avoid the Khurd-Kabul Pass, which was said to be very difficult.

I had, besides, a strong wish to visit this pass, as being the scene of Sir Robert Sale's fight with the tribesmen in 1841, and of the beginning of the massacre of General Elphinstone's unfortunate troops in 1842.[1] The Afghan Commander-in-Chief, Daud Shah, and several Ghilzai Chiefs, accompanied me; from them I learned that an easier road did exist, running more to the east, and crossing over the Lataband mountain.