Note 72 — Chapter VII

Shah Soojah attributes his defeat to an accidental explosion of gunpowder. “Our attendants,” he says, “only amounted to 300, with two guns, but they had taken up an advantageous position on a bridge, near the garden. The Meer Akhor charged us with his horse; but the first fire from the cannon made him bite the dust, when an unfortunate accident happened. A large quantity of powder had been brought to be divided among the matchlock men. This caught fire, by which fifty men were blown up and others wounded. Resistance was now in vain, and we escaped with difficulty to the Khybur hills.”