Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. Lake Lagowlee.—Poisonous shrub.—Konchai.—Water-supply.— Shah-pasand.—Hauz. — The first village. — Melmanda. — The enemy. — Cavalry scrimmage. — Afghan uniform. — Arms. — Takht-i-pul.—Deh Hajji.—Khusab.—View of Kandahar.—Kit.— Climate.—Enter Kandahar. Wednesday, 1st January 1879.—Happy new year to all. All busy starting; Haslett and his company marching straight on Konchai to develop the water- supply, and the other company, with Barton, marching with the rest of us to Lake Lagowlee, some 11 miles from Gwaja. Col. Sankey stayed behind to see Gen. Stewart; and Call with the park had to stand fast, as his camels had been taken to get the troops off, his escort of the 59th remaining also. Our route lay over a plain covered with boulders and broken by nullahs, following, for a short distance, the Kandahar kafila road. We passed a group of four kibitkas, the first LAKE LAGOWLEE. 49 we had seen; these are formed out of branches bent in a curve and stuck in the ground, and then the framework is covered with a thick coarse camel-hair cloth, most neatly pinned together with large thorns, and fixed to the ground by short ropes and pegs. In these domed tents, men, women, children, and animals all live together, and they suit the climate, being warm to a degree. The guide then led the column by a short cut, which was all well enough till we approached our journey's end and entered sand-drifts or dunes, along which we have skirted up to this station or camp with no signs of their ceasing. They are, apparently, drifts from the westward, and undoubtedly are rapidly extending, the several groups of hills becoming gradually swallowed up in the great glacis of sand which now encircles them. The road we took was £ar too heavy for the guns, and although it was 3 o'clock, I had...