ALI MUSJID.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue XIII, 29 November 1878, Page 4

ALI MUSJID.

By our recent telegrams, it wi : l have been seen that AH Mu>jid has been captured by the British troop*. The following is a description of. the place : —

The fort of All Musjid, where Fhere Ali's officers stopped the advanced goard of Sir Neville Chamberlain's mission is about seven miles from the Peahawur end of the Kbyber Pass. It is perched op a lofty rock in the centre of the defile where the two roads leadins up from the British side converge. The distance from the cantonment, of Pesbawur to Jumrood, the scene of a fierce battle between Dost Mohammed Khan and RunjseS Siogb in 1837, is about thirteen miles. Two miles beyond the old Fort of Jumrcod, Khyboree territory commences, and the historio gateway of the Khyber is entered between two lofty and almost perpendicular cliffs which serve as its gate poßtd. The passage between them is the dry bed of a stream, but inside the paeß for eome mileß there is a military road constructed by our engineers in 1841. The gorge in most parts is very wildj narrow, an/1 precipitous, with formidable jutting rocks, from which by an pxpert enemy, detachment of troops or. Kafiias might be easily checked or destroyed. At Ali Musjid the pass is very contracted a«jd difficult, but for all that the fort is by no means nn insuperable barrier to progress. It can easily be turned by lining the heights dominating it on either aide with infantry, and shelling it into silence from coigns of vantage below. Pending the concentration of Sir George Pollock's relieving a^my, in 1842, an advanced force, under Brigadier Wild, made a premature attempt to force the Pass, and was repulsed at Ali Musjid, bat the check was only temporary. Sir Claud Wade'a column, in 1839, when moving up to Cabal with theShabzadah Tiraoor, Shah Shoojeh's heir apparent, captured it wiih but little troable. The Kbyberreea who inhabited the district through which the pass runs owe no allegiance to anyone but themselves. They bave no particular love for Sbere Ali, and care no more for Indian Goveroment rupees than they do for the Ameer's orders. When the latter occupied Aii Muejid in July of last year, with his own troops, he had to pay for permis* sion to do so, and the best and cheapest way to cause its evacuation by the troops of Mufti Shah and Mir Akhar is to bribe the Kbyberees to starve them out.