nadir shah and the afghans, 1732–47George Alfred Croly,
The Sacking of the
Great Bazar of Caubul,
1842, ink wash over
pencil sketch.
one bothered to make any detailed plans or sketches of the bazaar or its
principal buildings prior to its destruction. Of the three drawings that exist
of Chahar Chatta prior to 1843, only one provides any detail of the Mughal
architecture. 42 Several other monuments were also demolished, including
the Masjid-i Farangi, the Frank’s Mosque, which had been constructed over
the site where Macnaghten had been assassinated.
The troops sent to carry out the destruction in the Old City soon got
out of hand. Burning for revenge and with the memories of the rotting
and mutilated corpses of their comrades fresh in their minds, the soldiers
looted and burnt shops and houses and killed anyone who stood in their
way. By the time discipline was restored many of the wooden houses and
shops in the Old City, some of which dated back hundreds of years, were
ablaze. Only the Bala Hisar and the Qizilbash quarter of Chindawal, both
of which were faced with stone and well defended, survived. When Pollock
left two weeks after his arrival, the fires were still burning and the smoke
could be seen as far away as the Khurd Kabul.
When Pollock withdrew, many of the Hindu baniyas decided to accom-
pany the army back to India, for not only had they lost their homes and
livelihoods, they feared the reprisals that would follow once the British