July 20. - Marched to Nanee, eight miles, the 1st and 4th Brigades together. The road sandy and stony over small hills. From a hill close to the encampment, Ghizni is visible through a telescope. This morning, Abdul Rusheed Khan, a nephew of Dost Mahomed, joined the Shah on the march, with a few men. He made his escape from the fort of Ghizni last night. The accession of this man is of great importance, bringing, as he does, accurate information on the existing state of things. The ditch had been widened and deepened, two of the three gates built up, and it appears that Dost Mahomed's two sons, Afzul and Hyder Khan, have with them about five thousand men within the walls, well equipped with arms, and determined to oppose us to the last extremity. Fine ripe apples are brought into camp, eight seers the rupee; horses also for sale and fowls twelve the rupee.(1) See: William Dalrymple, Return of the King: The Battle for Afghanistan, Bloomsbury, London 2013, page 185: The previous day [July 18, 1839], as the invading army had been approaching the fortress [Ghazni] a senior Barakzai prince and rival of Dost Mahommad, Abdhul Rashid Kahn, had crossed the lines and surrendered to Mohal Lal whom he knew from the munshi's days as an 'intelligencer' in Kandahar working for Wade in the mid-1830s. Debriefing him in his tent, Mohan Lal discovered that according to the Prince the fortress had one major weak point. Most of the fortress had been bricked up as the British approached, but the Kabul gate had been left open so as to allow continued communication with Dost Mahommad. When Burnes passed the information to Keane, the Commander-in-Chief decided he had no option but to attack that very night ... 1. J. Atkinson, The Expedition into Afghanistan, Notes and Sketches descriptive of the country contained in a personal narrative during the Campaign of 1839 and 1840, up to the surrender of Dost Mahomed Khan, The Naval Military Press, 2006, pages 198-199