"
General Pollock carried the famous Khaiber Pass, in advancing to the
relief of Jelalabad in April, 1842. This was the first time that the
great defile--twenty-eight miles in length--had ever been forced by
arms. Timur Lang and Nadir Shah, at the head of their enormous
hosts, bought a safe passage through it from the Afridis. Akbar the
Great, in 1587, is said to have lost forty thousand men in
attempting to force it, and Aurangzeb failed to get through.
The misfortune of Elphinstone's command, great as it was, would have
been much more humiliating to England, had it not been for the
firmness of the gallant General Pollock, who, ordered to withdraw
with his command to Peshawur, by Lord Ellenborough, without
effecting one of the objects of the expedition--the deliverance of
the English captives in Akbar's hands at Kabul,--protested against
such a suicidal act on the part of any Englishman or any
Administration, and, at great personal risk, gained his point.
In the forced march to Kabul, which Pollock made subsequently, the
force of about eight thousand men moved in as light order as
possible. After loading the commissariat camels to their utmost
carrying capacity, the General discovered that the mounted men had
in their kit a spare pair of pantaloons apiece, on which he ordered
the legs to be filled with grain and carried by the men in front of
them, on their saddles.
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