Street scene, Jellalabad, 1879

Photograph by John Burke, 2nd Afghan War (1878-1880), 1879.

Following the capture of Fort Ali Masjid on 21 November 1878 and the forcing of the Khyber Pass, Lieutenant-General Sir Sam Browne's Peshawar Valley Field Force had occupied Jellalabad, 70 miles east of Kabul, on 20 December 1878. The photographer John Burke accompanied the army to Jellalabad and took a number of pictures there as the British waited throughout the early months of 1879 for the Afghans to accept their peace terms. His photograph of Jellalabad's main street, showing the covered bazaar, features a sentry, probably of the 2nd Gurkhas, standing in the foreground to the right.