Note 225 — Chapter III

Runjeet was always doubtful whether his soldiers would not shrink from attempting to force the Khybur Pass. He told Mackeson, before the arrival of Macnaghten’s Mission, that the Khalsa entertained very strong prejudices against that kind of warfare, of which it may be added, both he and his chiefs had the vaguest possible idea. He believed that to force the Khybur Pass was to push a column of troops into it, somewhat as you would push them over a narrow bridge, the men in the rear stepping over the bodies of their slaughtered comrades. He had no notion of turning the pass by flank movements—of crowning the heights on each side—and accomplishing by skilful dispositions what could not be done by brute force without a dreadful sacrifice of life. Subsequently, at his interviews with the officers of the British Mission, he reverted to this subject. He said that he had never tried the Khalsa at such work; that he doubted whether they could be induced to march over the corpses of their countrymen; and asked whether British troops could be depended on for such service. He added, that the Sirdars whom he had sent to command his troops at Peshawur, had often urged him to suffer them to move through the Khybur upon Jellalabad; but that he had uniformly refused to listen to their proposals.—[MS. Notes.]