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21．JUGDULLUK.
JUGDULLUK―terrible name, pregnant with tidings of dread import― “Harbinger of fate and gloom, Turning a palace to a tomb,” who has not heard of thee, and trembled at the sound? Jugdulluk, with its dark and dismal associations, has resounded through English hall and Senate-house, striking terror and dismay to the souls of England’s mightiest, bravest, and most famous sons. Noble, warrior, and statesman hung their heads and listened in deep silence to the disastrous story, “They are all dead, the army is annihilated.” Jugdulluk’s name has entered, suddenly and unbidden, palace and cottage alike; the prayer for the slaughtered “went up through midnight’s breathless gloom,” “and the vain yearning” of the wan and anxious-fronted inmates “woke midst festal song.” Jugdulluk, valley and passes of crimson snow! how many fond hopes and sweetly-cherished thoughts of the young and trusting heart have you not destroyed and withered past redemption! How numberless are the time-tried, long-enduring ties that you have severed for aye in this unhappy world! At thy fatal barriers the love of woman hath gone down. The soldier-boy in the heyday of young hope and joy―the warrior in the flower of manhood, hopeful also but less ardent in his aspirations than his youthful comrade―and the silver-headed veteran, worn and weary with years of toil and disappointment, thinking of home and rest, all―all alike bowed down before the combined powers of treachery, despair, thirst, famine, deadly wounds, and flesh-consuming frosts and snow. How very much have they to answer for who brought this evil on our heads among the bleak mountains of Afghaunistaun!― who made the chambers of daughter, sister, and wife, gloomy, darkened, and forsaken! ―who wrung from the bleeding heart of woman her wildest funeral wail “for the dead that are not buried out of sight!” ―and who caused the grief, deep though constrained, and haggard lip of fathers, and the mothers’ sobs and passion, for “the stream that filled their font is fled―The blood that warm’d their hearts is shed!”
Some of the officers of H.M.13th and 35th Bengal Light Infantry were on a visit to my brother in the Cohistaun, when they were suddenly ordered into Caubul, as intelligence had just been received that the mountain passes between Caubul and Jellulabad were blockaded and occupied by the hill tribes in enormous force, and that the services of both regiments were immediately required to reopen the communication. On the 12th of October, under Sir Robert Sale, they forced the tremendous passes of Khoord Caubul. From Huft Kootul they descended to the valley of Tazeen, and encamped near the clump of trees in the vale of Jugdulluk. During the passage through and the advance to the mouth of this terrible defile, which opens to the left of this sketch, and is two miles from end to end, and exceedingly winding, narrow, and steep, their casualty list amounted to a hundred and twenty-four killed and wounded―among whom was Captain Wyndham, 35th Native Infantry, killed, and Lieutenant Coombes of the same regiment, with three officers of the 13th Light Infantry, Lieutenants Jennings, Holcombe, and Rattray, severely wounded. This brave force was seventeen days and nights in fighting through sixty miles of ground, during which time their killed and wounded in men and officers amounted to two hundred. How they surmounted every obstacle, and nobly contested inch by inch the howling wilderness from Caubul to Jellulabad, is known to every one. During this determined opposition on the part of the Ghiljye chieftains, no suspicions of their sincerity seemed even to cross the minds of the Caubul authorities. Their first combined effort to destroy us was treated as a common occurrence, originating in the petty hostilities of the mountain bandits, who from time immemorial had pursued their habits of war and plunder independently of and uncontrolled by their own chieftains.
On the 2nd of November, the assassination of Sir Alexander Burnes and his friends―the destruction of his house and property―the difficulty with which other residents in the city of Caubul effected their escape―the loss of treasury opposite Burnes’s house―and the increasing boldness of the Afghauns, who rose to the contest as one man, and forthwith commenced operations in the neighbourhood of the cantonments and Balla Hissaur, showed, alas! too surely the dreadful truth, that instead of a partial and trivial insurrection of the Eastern Ghiljyes, the storm of a long-devised, deeply-laid, and sacredly-concealed plot, which had been gradually approaching us without our knowledge, was now about to pour down its full flood of implacable hatred and long-pent-up revenge on its victims, whom it found unprepared, irresolute, and panic-struck, the Afghauns, indeed, setting them an example of energy, promptitude, and dispatch, and losing not a moment in following up the first successes of their revolt. Persian manifestos were dispatched to all parts of the country with the news of the advantage they had gained, and inciting the faithful to rise to the task of extermination. Isolated detachments were marked for destruction, and armies of “Ghazees” were matched hither and thither to root out, by foul treachery and the knife, the unsuspecting foreigners.
Just such a band as this, on the day after Sir Alexander Burnes’s murder, wended its way, with dire intent, from the mountains of Nijrow, across the beautiful valley of Cohistaun, to the fort of Lughmaunee. Notices had been issued throughout the valley, that able-bodied men were required to increase the cavalry escort of the Cohistaun mission. Taking advantage of this circumstance to cloak their hellish designs, on the 3rd of November, the Nijrow chiefs, who till now had never even pretended submission, rode straight up with their followers to the “Ghurree,” or fort (where Major Pottinger and my brother resided), made their sal āms, and offered themselves and horsemen as candidates for the escort. On their arrival, my brother was warned by a Persian in whom he put great faith, not to receive them, or at all events not to leave the fort in order to do so, as firing had been heard at Caubul, and very bad news had been received from the same quarter. Considering it his duty to do so, (he was fully aware, a month previously, that there were traitors in our camp, and had reported his fears on the subject,) he received the smiling chieftains with all honour, and descended with them to the outer gate of his fort. He inspected the horsemen brought for “Khidmut” (service), who were drawn up at a short distance from the portal, enlisted them, paid them each a certain sum with his own hand, received their salutations, and retraced his steps. On his entering the fortress, a deputation followed, which begged him to show himself a second time outside. Through again warned by Ali Asker, the Persian, he did so fearlessly. In company with a Goorkha “Moonshee,” or writer, he reached the cavalry, who were formed in the shape of a crescent, and had scarcely done so, when one of assassins leveled his piece at him; on perceiving which, he cried out, “Uz berai e Khoodah che meykoonee Bucchha?” (for God’s sake, what are you doing, young man?) Others followed the murderous example, and this victim of blackest treachery fell. In the confusion which ensued, the Moonshee fled under the horse’s legs with a wound in his thigh, and Major Pottinger, who was also engaged with some pretended negotiators, managed to escape into the fortress. This gallant officer, the hero of Heraut, had lately arrived at Caubul, and as no appointment adequate to his high merits was at the time available, the agency of the Cohistaun was made over to him. This change placed my brother under his authority, who till then, as political assistant to the Envoy and Minister, had been in sole charge of the valley. Mounting the ramparts, he could see (as he told me afterwards) Captain Rattray stretched on the ground, badly wounded. He lay there for some time, still breathing, till the arrival of a party of the Nijrowees, who were returning laden with plunder from the camp of the Hazirbaush. This term, which was applied to some Afghaun cavalry, signifies “ever ready.” They formed the former escort, and not only warned Pottinger of his danger, but remained faithful to the last. On the wretches passing near my brother, one put an end to his sufferings by shooting him through the head, while others fired their matchlocks into his body. The weight of sorrow felt by his friends for the fate of one who fell thus in the early prime of manhood, and in the full enjoyment of the happiest prospects which this world could give, or the most ambitious soldier could desire, was sufficiently bitter. What consolation, then, is it to know that, through agonies preceded death, after death came burial, without defilement or mutilation of his poor remains! On our after-arrival at Caubul, I ascertained this point beyond a doubt, from the mouths of five different people who were in his service at the time, and whom I questioned separately at an interval of some weeks. These were a Kuzzilbaush Meerza, a Goorkha Moonshee, a Persian steward, an Afghaun trooper, and a Hindoostaunee cook; all of whom assured me on their sacred oath, that though the Afghauns considered it their duty to destroy the unbelievers root and limb, they regretted the necessity in this case, for, though they killed him in their religious hatred of all infidel intruders, yet, consequent on the esteem in which they held him as a soldier and friend, they positively forbade the maltreatment or dishonour of his corpse, and, in addition to this, gave it that decent burial which they universally refused to their other victims. I write advisedly, though I feel convinced that there is no second instance on record, throughout the whole Caubul tragedy, of such (comparatively speaking) attachment and good feeling as this. To these traits I have pleasure in adding another, which came under my own and my brother’s personal observation. An Afghaun boy, by name Goolosein, who had served his unfortunate master, my brother, for some years faithfully, made us both out at Caubul, and brought with him an English pistol and a Persian sword, which he had rescued at the time of his murder, and had kept safely by him on the chance of ever meeting us again. Though I love not the Afghauns, and have suffered much and grievously at their hands, I cannot resist mentioning, among so much evil, and so many crimes of the blackest dye which have been laid to their charge, the little good I know of them, particularly as, from unhappy and unparalleled events, they are generally believed to be a people without one good quality, “Without even savage virtue blest, Without one free or gen’rous breast.” Their virtues were at least their own: would that it could be added that their vices and less admirable qualities were not nurtured and encouraged in their growth tenfold by our own hesitation, apathy, and, lastly, dishonourable surrender!
From Lughmaunee, the shout and groan of war swept along the valley to Chareekar, two miles away. Here the 4th Goorkha regiment, under the brave and intrepid Codrington, were annihilated. Led on by their noble officers, they defended themselves with the most undaunted bravery against an overwhelming enemy, inspired with feelings of the most bloodthirsty ferocity and fanatical zeal. These they feared not, and acted on the offensive and defensive for twenty-three days. But, alas! a more powerful foe appeared in the field to destroy their untiring and invincible ardour. Their ammunition, water, and food failed them. To assuage the horrors of thirst, they had been for some time reduced to sucking the blood out of raw meat, and squeezing the stomach of a sheep through cloths. A mine was sprung under their feet. This was too much ; so, rallying round their only remaining officer, Lieutenant Haughton, a brave and fine fellow, who had lost his right fore arm in defence of the guns at Chareekar, they charged the ruthless enemy, and, fighting the whole way, actually succeeded in accomplishing two full marches towards Caubul. Here they were surrounded and utterly massacred, with the exception of Major Pottinger, Lieutenaut Haughton, and one Sepaye, the remnants of seven hundred men and officers, and an immense crowd of women, children, and camp-followers.
My paper reminds me that the remaining space must bring this sad history to bear more particularly on the ground embraced in this sketch, and the passes on either side, where lie the “Rocks, caves, dens, bogs, and shades of death, A universe of death ; where all life dies, death lives.” On leaving Caubul, in October 1842, our route lay through those same dark and dreary defiles which nine months previously had been trodden in blood by our ill-fated army. Though throughout the valley of Caubul to the gorge of Boodkark skeletons scattered here and there prepared us in a measure for what was to follow, no fables yet feigned or fear ever conceived a scene so sickening as the one which we were now called upon to encounter. We entered the long and narrow defile of Khoord Caubul, which is five miles in length, and hemmed in on each side by frowning and perpendicular mountains gradually narrowing towards their apex. In this pass alone three thousand souls sunk down to rise no more. Their skeletons were crowded like waves upon each other, and piled by Death’s grim architect in mounds, and walls, and pyramids. It was a fearful thing to listen to their crackle as we smashed over them, and to hear the grating of the gun-wheels as they ground their bones to powder. In regions such as these, frozen and dolorous, in their damp and stony beds, and deep recesses of the black hill side, where the sunbeam never enters, where the ice and snow girding the winding rivulet melts not, sleep the once-beloved and beautiful, preserved from putrefaction by the freezing blast of winter. As we wound down the staircase-like descents of the Huft Kootul, three miles long, a more dreadful spectacle than any we had as yet witnessed met us “with shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast,” for down these steps to Tazeen nine thousand men and camp-followers, exclusive of cattle, strewed the road. In numerous instances their corpses had assumed a dried mummy-like appearance, and they threw up the scent of a tan-yard. So perfectly preserved were many by the effects of frost and their sheltered position, that the fair man could be easily distinguished from the dark. Friend recognized friend, from the dried features, shape of face, cut of beard and whisker, and the colour of the hair, locks of which in more than one instance were severed as keepsakes. Particles of clothing still adhered to the bones of many. For example, on the withered arm of a headless skeleton, which seemed to have been struck down while kneeling (never for quarter! perhaps by a friend’s or brother’s side) and frozen as it knelt, was a white glove of fine material, denoting that its wearer was an officer. Then among a heap of horses, the remains of a trooper’s cap and a mouldering piece of blue cloth on one of the bodies told where the cavalry fought and fell. Further on was picked up a Bhehistee’s or water-carrier’s leathern cap, a stock, a bit of yellow facing, and an English shoe. Under the stunted evergreen bushes the dried corpses lay thick, and among them a cypress waved querulously―“Dark tree, still sad when others’ grief is fled, The only constant mourner o’er the dead!” Thus we were led on by our skeleton guides from mountain to deep ravine, over valley and rugged cliff, skeletons for land marks, for direction-posts skeletons; who could have mistaken the road? “Army of martyrs! can it be That this is all remains of thee?”
Twenty-three miles from Tazeen lies the valley of Jugdulluk. The pass, which rises in a steep ascent, has been mentioned in an early part of this description; between its stupendous walls of blackened granite, remnants of barricades still stood in many places, grasping the mountain sides across the defile. They were interlaced with bones, branches of trees, skulls, and pieces of rock; and close beside them, pointing out where death and destruction fell fiercest on the imprisoned and pent-in troops, were raised up regular piles of whitening skeletons. Here also, as at Burik-Aub, which we had left behind us, the holes in the rocks were filled with bodies, and grinning skulls peeped out at us from every corner: there the poor creatures must have crept for warmth, or shelter from the Ghiljye bloodhound’s deadly knife, or “Juzzail’s” withering fire. An archway, or tunnel mouth (no matter which), and the caves at Barik-Aub, I never shall forget. They were all so filled and choked up with piles upon piles of bodies, that it was impossible to conceive how they got in there. The ruined fort to the right of this sketch was the scene of awful destruction. The wretched, worn-out remnant of the army, who crept for shelter between its walls, were deliberately butchered by the merciless enemy that took possession of the heights above. From out of this square, also, General Elphinstone was summoned by Akbar Khaun, and basely kept a prisoner by him. Consequently, the melancholy survivors, abandoning their wounded and dying, rushed down in despair to the valley, and, bravely led by their officers, charged past the clump of trees into the jaws of death―the month of the Jugdulluk Pass. Through the defiles they pressed along under a heavy fire, led by twenty devoted officers, who formed line and showed front, when, to their dismay, they found, near the top of the pass, two barriers of six feet in height across their road. The confusion that took place was terrific, and the slaughter immense, in which, exclusive of the troops, twelve officers were killed. Forty of the latter managed to extricate themselves, and were all in turn destroyed, with the exception of twelve, who, being tolerably mounted, pushed on. Twenty muskets were now the sole representatives of the once-mighty force whom the Afghauns were ahead ready to welcome. On they sped, and were nearly all picked off from the rising ground, near Gundamuk, where the horrible butchery was almost completed by a rush of the Afghauns upon them sword in hand. Six officers still remained, and succeed in reaching Futtehabad, where some old men and women pretended to take pity on them, and offered them “Naun” (bread). They unwisely remained till the treacherous wretches had armed themselves, who succeeded in knocking poor Bellew and Bird from their horses with stones and clubs. The survivors now were four, three of whom were pursued and murdered four miles from the haven of their hopes, leaving Dr Brydon to tell the disastrous story at Jellulabad. Gratitude for Captain Bellew’s friendship, respect for his talents and firmness of character, and admiration of his indomitable courage and noble deeds, more particularly during his last great earthly trial, induce me to offer this small tribute of attachment to the memory of one whose heart was full of gentleness, simplicity, and benevolence.
In passing through these savage regions, Nott’s loss was trifling. His casualties were seventy-four, and thirteen horses, in the Huft Kootul, and seventy-one at Jugdulluk, where my friend Carter, 16th Grenadiers, and myself, were on rear-guard together and witnessed some curious scenes. Why were those skeletons permitted to remain above-ground as everlasting monuments of our weakness and disgrace? Had each successive regiment of the armies passing over them burnt, during its brief halt, a portion of those bones, they would have been shut out effectually at least from the gloating eyes, if not from the memories, of their slayers; nor would our indelicate haste to retreat from the charnel-house have been impeded or our progress retarded by this act of decency and duty to our own countrymen. Why have the brave been thus abandoned to the insults of a whole nation? What have they done, that their wretched remains should be held up to the mockery of every passer-by, and be pointed at, kicked, and spit upon? while the little children, even as they gaze at the skeleton host and listen to the wondrous tragedy from the lips of their own fathers who hunted them to the death, lisp triumphantly in the scornful tone of Akbar to Captain Colin Mackenzie, who became his prisoner on the Envoy’s murder, “Ha! ha!” “Shuman Moolk-e-mau me geereed!” (You’ll seize my country, will you!)
[Keywords]
munshi/ hazer-bash/ bihishti/ nan/ Jagdalak/ Kabul/ Jalalabad/ Khord Kabul/ Haft Kotal/ Tazin/ Ghilzay/ Ghazi/ Nijraw/ Kohestan/ Laghmani/ khedmat/ Qizilbash/ Hindustani/ Gul Husayn/ Charikar/ Jazayel/ Barikab/ Akbar Khan
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