'Scene on the River Sutledge, near Paukputtun in the Punjaub [sic]', 1839 (c)

Tinted lithograph from bound volume of 26 tinted lithographs, 'Sketches in Afghanistan', 1838-1842. By Louis and Charles Haghe after James Atkinson, published by Henry Graves and Company and J W Allen and Company, 1 July 1842.

Atkinson (1780-1852) painted this image while serving as official Superintending Surgeon of the Army of the Indus, a combined force of British and Indian troops that marched on Kabul in 1839. The British were unable to march directly across the Punjab to the Khyber Pass as its ruler, Ranjit Singh, refused to let them cross the heartland of his territory. They entered Afghanistan from the south, marching along the Sutlej river to its confluence with the Indus and then though Sindh and Baluchistan to the Bolan Pass.