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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES


This e-text contains a non Latin-1 character, an 'a' with a macron
(horizontal line above). This character occurs in two names--'Wali' and
'Gholam'. For ease of reading, this diacritic macron has been replaced
with an unaccented 'a' in this text. A UTF-8 text file has been
prepared with the correctly displayed character.

Odd-numbered page headers have been retained as sidenotes. Where
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main text by blank lines.

Minor punctuation errors repaired.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_

 p160 I judged the enemy were thowing up replaced with
      I judged the enemy were throwing up




    FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY.

          PRIVATE JOURNAL

                 OF

        HENRY FRANCIS BROOKE,

        LATE BRIGADIER-GENERAL

    COMMANDING 2ND INFANTRY BRIGADE

        KANDAHAR FIELD FORCE,

        SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN,

 FROM APRIL 22ND TO AUGUST 16TH, 1880.


 _For_......................

 _From_.....................


 DUBLIN:
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CURWEN, 3, NASSAU STREET.

 1881.




PREFACE.


The following Journal or Diary was written by my dear Husband--to use
his own words--"for _you_, of course, first, but written in this form
_specially_ for the dear chicks, and therefore quite simple and plain,
so as to interest and amuse them; but I shall be very glad _if_ it
interests the others if you will send it the rounds, as then I need
not try to write the same story over and over again, which is very
tiresome."

When on the 20th March, 1880, being at the time Adjutant-General of
the Bombay Army, my dear Husband, to his infinite satisfaction and
delight, and full of ardour and zeal, was ordered to the Front, to take
command, as Brigadier-General, of the 2nd Infantry Brigade at Kandahar,
Southern Afghanistan; knowing how deeply interested we (his wife,
and children, his mother, brothers and sisters) would be in all his
movements and actions, he conceived the idea of writing this Journal,
and most regularly week by week, as he found time to write, and as the
Indian mail arrived, did I receive it, and most eagerly was it looked
for and read. It will be seen that at first going off the wording of
it was simple so that the children might easily understand all that
their dear Father was doing, and _small_ details describing the various
stages of his journey up to Kandahar from Bombay are fully entered
into with the object of amusing and interesting them, and that they
might the more readily picture him both then, and when later on, having
reached Kandahar, and before troubles began, he amused himself by daily
rides into the neighbouring fields and orchards, and still further
into the villages and surrounding districts, not always unattended
without a certain amount of risk and danger, and thus became acquainted
_intimately_ with the country within 12 or 15 miles of Kandahar. But
as difficulties developed themselves, and were followed, first by
the lamentable defeat and retreat from the battlefield of Maiwand,
of a portion of the already too small force that was holding, what
appeared to _him_, the very false military position at Kandahar, and
ended as a climax, in the Siege of Kandahar itself, the subject matter
of the Journal necessarily became of such painful interest, that the
language of it on many points almost went beyond the comprehension of
the children, or, at any rate, was not too "simple" for their elders,
albeit only too "plain" and grievous for all to read hereafter, when
we remembered that He, whom we so dearly loved, had been besieged
within the walls of that city, and had been in _daily_ danger of losing
that life so valuable to his wife and children, and which, alas! it
was God's will--before the Kandahar garrison was relieved--_should
be_ sacrificed in the performance, in the first instance, of his
duty, as a true and ardent soldier in the service of his Queen and
country, during the sortie upon the village of Deh Khoja on the 16th
August, 1880, while in command of the attacking party; and, more
directly, in the endeavour to rescue