DISASTER TO THE TENTH HUSSARS.

Kumara Times, Issue 838, 7 June 1879, Page 3

DISASTER TO THE TENTH HUSSARS.

The loss of fifty men awl an officer of theTO Hussars, on April llth while crossing the Ckbtil river, will excite n deep and general feel iris; bf regret Jt is said they missed the ford and were carried off by the current. Such a disaster, however, from such a canso is wholly without precedent. It is simply lamentable that a number of men, exceding that which the capture of the Khyber and Heiwar Passes together cost usj should have been drowned by an accident -while crossinga ford on a dark night. . Unr.il tl:<details?of the affair reach us we must content, ourselves with surmises as to how it; can have happened, especially in a comparatively narrow river like the Cabul. A squadron .>f the llth Bengal,Lancers.iiad crossed safely, but as there .would proliably be ;i7i interval between their reai- and the leading hoisemen af the lOlh it might well be that in the darkness the latter did not notice the exact line across the rivrr which the Lancers had followed, and so turned off the shallow passage by which the former had passed. It would seem almost impossible that so large a .number" oi men should have followed each other into deep water; but in the noise of crossing, the splashing made \>y the horses of those behind as lhev entered the stream, the effirfcs each man woul i make to keep his horse on.his feet, and the rush of the water against the hoops. the fact that the leading hoi semen were swept away might puss unnoticed, and so the squadron wonid p. ess forward to destruction. At the. same time it must be admitted llmt it is difficult in the extreme to understand fifty men could have been involved in such a calamity, even making s.llowances for darkness, noise, and confusion. The publie. will anxiously await the publi-cation,-of full details-vf this melancholy affair, and will in particular await the explanation as to what urgent n» ed there could have -been- f>r pushing' troops at ten o'clock fit night, across a rapid and dangerous stream.