A skirmish with the Beloochees is here represented, a circumstance by no means uncommon near this place. Not far from it the rearguard of an European regiment was attacked by between two and three hundred Beloochees rushing down the hills, and after firing their matchlocks, were advancing sword in hand, when the officer commanding, collected his Sepoys (about eighty) and keeping them quiet till the Beloochees came within gun-shot, gave them a volley and immediately afterwards charged them with bayonets to their great discomfiture. Fifty-one killed and wounded were left on the ground, besides a number with slighter wounds, carried off by their flying companions, thus terminating for that day, the troubles of the rearguard. The rocks on each side this Pass are projecting and stupendous, and in the narrowest passages almost perpendicular. Immense blocks of stone are scattered about all the way and the scenery is of a more magnificently wild character and of a bolder form than any hitherto met with. Many impediments, during the march through the Pass, had been removed by the Engineers, but it was still an arduous task to surmount the many remaining difficulties which were continually appearing. Sketches in Afghanistan, Henry Graves & Co. and W.H. Allen & Co., London, 1842. Letterpress title printed in blue incorporating list of plates, tinted lithographic title, dedication leaf, 25 tinted plates by Louis and Charles Haghe. This is one of the earliest collections of views of Afghanistan. James Atkinson, the celebrated translator of Firdausi’s Shah Nameh and one of the first Europeans to explore Afghanistan, was on of the pioneers of oriental studies. The lithographers Louis and Charles Haghe were involved in a number of important publications in the 1840’s and 1850’s and are celebrated for the particular high quality of their work.