Arizona weekly citizen., 1882-06-11
A Campaign Scene.

It was during the Afghan war. I had just ridden back from General Roberts camp in the Thull Valley, on the frnntier of Afghanistan, and found myself stopped on my return at the Kohal Pass. 1t IS the orders uf Government" said the sentry: 'the pass Is unsafe f. r travellers"
 But I had to get through the pass whether it was "safe" or mt, for thr ugh it lay the only road to General Browns camp, to which I was attached. So I dismOunted and after a great deal of palaver, partly of bribes, partly untruths not only got past the native sentries but got a guide to escort me, through the thirty miles ot wild Afridi defles that lay before ne. The scenery Is among the finest in the world, I think, while added to all was the strange fanci- nation of the knowledge that the people who live in the pass have cherished from generation to generation the most vIndictive blood feuds. The villages walled-in in inclosures, loopholed along tn top, on all four sides. with the hIts built agains the wall, and the roofs of them used by the men of the village as lounges during the day, and ramparts tor sentries during the night. Within these sullen squares each clan lives n perpetual siege, the women and children being at all times permitted to go to and fro; but for the men, woe to him who happens to stray within reach of the jezails that lie all ready loaded ID the lOopholes of the next villagel The crops are sown and reaped by men with guns slung on their backs, and Tn the middle of every field stands a martelC- tower, in which they can take shelter if neighbOrs sally out to attack them while at work. ROpe ladders hang from doorway halfway up the tower, and up these like lizards the mep scramble one by one as soon as danger threatens, draw in the ladder and taking post at once by the lOOpholes, overlook their menaced corps.
 A wonderful country truly, and some thing in the ar that day made my guido ride as hard as the road would let him, with his sword drawn across the saddle before him. My revolver was in my hand. And so we clattered along, mile after mile, through the beautiful valleys grim villages, and towers. Now and again party OfwOmen would step aside to let us pass, or d deg start up and bark at us, but not man was Tn sight Yet we knew very well that hundreds of men saw Us ride by and that ieZail was lying at every loophOle and covering the very path We rode 0n. We reached sudden turn of the path; my guide gallOped around 1t He was hardly out of my sIght when bangi bangl It was no use pulling up, and the next instant l was around the corner too. A man with his iezail still smoking from the shot started up from the undergrowth almost under my horses feet, and barely escaped being ridden down.AnOther man came running down the hillside towards him. In front of me, soEe fifty yards of, was my guide with his horses head toward me and his sword n his hand. on the path between us lay heap of brightly colored cloth ing-a dead AfridI For q second We both thought that 1t was we who bad d avn the fire from the ambushed men; but no 1t was the poor Afridi lying dead there in the path before us, and the victim of blood feud He had tried, DO doubt, to steal across from his own village to some friendly hamlet close by, but his lynN-eyed enem mics had seen him, and lying there on either side of his path had shot him as he passed.
 But what u group We were! Myself, with my revolver in my hand, looking. horrOr-striken, now at the dead, and now at his murdereTs. My guide, in the splendid uniform of the Indian regular cavalry, emOtiOnless as only Orientals can be: the two murderers talking together excitedly; in the mid dle of us the dead ladl But there was still another figure to be added, for sud denly, along the very path by which the victim had come, there came running an old woman-perhaps she had followed the lad with a mothers natural anxiety for his safety-aud in an instant she saw the W, rst. Without glance at any of us, she flung herself down with a cry of breaking heart, by the dead boys side, and as my guide turned to ride on and l followed him, as the murderers slipped away into the undergrowth, We all heard her grooming, between her sob., over the body of her murdered son.