The catastrophe in Afghanistan, so long anticipated in our 'columns,
has occurred. General Roberts, who, ten days ago, was believed to be master of Cabul, and on the 13th inst. to have carried "a peak," and so dispersed not very formidable insurgents, on the 14th inst. was obliged to fight his way from the till above the Charasiab road round the city to his cantonment, under incessant attack from an army of 30,000 men, commanded by Mahommed Jan, Governor of Ghaznee, and a soldier of great repute in the wars in Turkestan. General Roberts has abandoned Cabul and the Bala Hissar, and is shut up. in a can- tonment built by Shore Ali, and therefore called Shirpore, a fairly fortified rectangle, but commanded on one side by the Behmasuo Hills. Here he will be besieged by the enemy, while the whole country has risen to expel the detested Infidel, and the Hill-men are pressing upon the road, full of defiles, which :stretches between Cabul and ,Tellalabad, under Asmutoollah, the Gliilzie chief, in such numbers that reinforcements 'Cannot be forwarded until a new army has been organised at Peshawur. Communication with Shirpore is of course cut, and General Gough, who advanced at once from Guudamuck to the Jagdalak Pass, with one European and two Native regiments, has been stopped, defeated, and obliged to shelter himself in Jagdalak Fort. He is surrounded by swarms of armed mountaineers, and his danger is extreme ; but General Arbuthnot, at Jellala- bad, has carried to his relief only 700 natives ; and General Bright, in the Khyber, can spare only three companies of her Majesty's 51st, at most 240 men. He cannot, the Viceroy telegraphs, "weaken his line."
