A slave trader who visited the fortress where the hostages were being kept told Lady Sale that ‘400 Hindoostanees have been entrapped at Kabul, under an assurance of safe conduct to Jalalabad . . . Men sell for forty-six rupees; and women for twenty-two, each.’ Uzbek slave traders who dominated the Afghan market were especially feared for the merciless brutality they habitually displayed to their captives.
