3-052-723 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Our troops in Afghanistan: a Sowar of the 10th Bengal Lancers, and a private of the 9th Foot, 1880. 'The statement made in the House of Commons on Monday by Lord Hartington, Secretary of State for India, concerning the intentions of her Majesty's Government with regard to our military position in Afghanistan, offers some prospect of the withdrawal of the British and Native Indian troops when the summer season is passed. In the meantime, we may feel satisfied that these forces are now placed in a situation to ensure the present tranquillity of Cabul, Ghuzni, and Candahar, and that sufficient reserves to support them have been collected at Peshawur, and in the Khoorum Yalley, and on the Scinde frontier, but they will not be called into action...Whatever difficulties the political problem may present, there is no doubt that our military position in Afghanistan is perfectly secure against hostile attack. The soldiers represented in our front-page Engraving are a mounted trooper, or "sowar," of the 10th Bengal Lancers, and a private of the 9th Regiment of Infantry, belonging to the force that entered the Khyber Bass from Peshawur at an earlier period of the recent Afghan War'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.