OUR TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 141, 23 April 1879, Page 2

OUR TROOPS IN AFGHANISTAN.

The letter of a correspondent from the Kuram force contains an interesting anecdote which illustrates the spirit of our artillery. He writes" The road along which we are marching is atrociously bad: it is simply no road at all: for many hundred yards in places the rocky beds of nullahs are utilised. I have, just witnessed a frightful accident on it, Opposite our camp the so-called road crosses a nullah up the slope of which any guns have to be taken at a gallop, and then wheeled round and taken along the edge of the cliff, with a 12-feet gorge below. Well, F A Battery R. H. A., cam,, along and got their guns and limbers safely over ; then came a store-cart, with six horses and threo drivers, At the turn they blundered, and the right wheel went over the edge, For some six yards they were at full gallop. The cart, which was attached to a limber, ran along on one wheel; then the other wheel struck a great stone, and down fell the store, cart crashing into the nullah, The shaft broke, but the coupling chains held, so dragging down the lumber, with horses and drivers. To the very last these noble fellows stuck to their houses, the leading driver only throwing himself off when the two rear drivers had been dragged down. " Stick to it, Bill!" was all one heard during those frightfully exciting seconds while these gallant fellows were battling for their lives. Imagine six horses with a couple of men and a cart and limber all falling in a heap together to the bottom of the rocky bed of the stream. The horses lay there a good twenty minutes before the men could be extricated." One of those poor fellows, the letter goes on to say, was believed to have injured his spine, but the other got off with some bruises.