Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/110

104 met with its full reward. Perovski's column struggled on week after week with amazing hardihood through the bleak snow-covered wastes, losing men, horses, and camels in daily increasing numbers, until its leader was driven to choose between certain annihilation and a timely retreat. He returned to Orenburg with the loss of nearly all his baggage and half his men.

While Perovski was marching from the Caspian towards the Aral Sea, Sháh Shujá and his Envoy set out from Kábul to pass the winter in the milder climate of Jalálábád; Burnes staying behind as Macnaghten's deputy, while Sir Robert Sale commanded the troops in garrison. The question of housing those troops had just been settled by Macnaghten himself in sole accordance with the petulant demands of his royal puppet, who owed everything to the victors of Ghazní. In vain had Durand, as chief engineer, insisted on the vital importance of the Bálá Hissár for every purpose alike of shelter and defence. It commanded the city, it was strong enough to defy attack from any Afghán force; it could easily be made yet stronger, and it offered ample room for the housing of a whole brigade. Some of our troops had been quartered there from the first, and barracks for the remainder could be built at trifling cost. Sale, of course, and every officer of any experience, agreed with Durand; nor was the Envoy himself blind to the expediency of retaining a firm hold upon the Sháh's citadel. With the Sháh's unwilling consent