History of the War in Afghanistan. Sir John William Kaye

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СКАЧАТЬ gratify the personal rancour of the latter they had laid siege to the fortress of Jowayn, and in the vain attempt to reduce a place of no political importance, had crippled their own military resources in a manner which they soon began bitterly to lament. The waste of so much strength on so small an enterprise was unworthy of a man so able and so astute as Yar Mahomed; but the feeling of personal resentment was stronger in him than either avarice or ambition. He had a larger game in hand at that time; and he should have husbanded all his resources for the great struggle by which he sought to restore to the Suddozye Princes the sovereignty of Caubul and Candahar.[145]

      It was soon buzzed abroad in Herat that the army was about to return—that it had broken off from the siege of Jowayn—and was coming back to gird itself up for stirring work at home. Cossids were coming in daily from the royal camp with instructions for the collection of grain and the repair of the defences of the city. The meaning of this was involved in no obscurity. The ambassador who had been sent to Teheran to seek, among other objects, the assistance of Mahomed Shah in the projected enterprise for the recovery of Candahar and Caubul[146] had brought back an answer to the effect that the Persian monarch claimed both principalities for himself, and intended to take possession of Herat as a preliminary to further operations. It was said to be the intention of the King of Kings to proceed to Caubul, and, receiving as the price of his assistance the submission of the Ameer, to join Dost Mahomed in a religious war against the Sikhs. Herat was to be reduced on the road. Kamran was to be deprived of his regal titles. Prayers were to be said and coin struck in the name of the Persian King; and a Persian garrison was to be received into the city. These were the terms dictated by Mahomed Shah, and thrown back by Shah Kamran with defiance.

      The greatest excitement now prevailed throughout the city. There was but one topic of discourse. Every man met his neighbour with a word about the coming of the Persian army. The Sheeahs, smarting under the tyranny to which they had long been subjected, spoke of the advent of the Persian monarch as of the coming of a deliverer, whilst the Soonee Afghans, whom they taunted with predictions of the success of the invading force, swore that they would defend, to the last drop of their blood, the only remnant of the old Afghan monarchy which had not been violently wrested from the hands of its legitimate possessors.

      On the 17th of September the King returned to Herat. Moved by one common impulse of curiosity, the people went forth to meet him. The streets were lined with eager thousands, and the house-tops were alive with gazers. A procession of the true Oriental type, it presented, in vivid contrasts, strange alternations of the shabby and the superb. First came a few strong baggage-mules, and a few straggling horsemen, mounted on fine well-built animals, but lean, and often lame and wounded. Then, in their high red-cloth caps, appeared the criers and the executioners, bearing aloft the instruments of their calling; and, in spite of the grim suggestiveness of the large knives and tiger-headed brazen maces, presenting an appearance less solemn than grotesque. Next came a string of horses led by armed grooms, their fine stag-like heads telling the purity of their blood, and their handsome equipments the royal ownership they boasted. Then followed, close behind, in a covered litter of red cloth, carried by Hindostanee bearers, Shah Kamran himself. Very plainly, but tastefully attired, the golden bosses on his sword-belt, and the jewels on his dagger-hilt, being the only ornaments about the royal person, he returned, through the open curtains of his litter, with a kingly and a graceful courtesy, the salutations of the people. Next came the Royal Princes, with the eunuchs, and other personal attendants of the Shah;[147] and then, but at a long interval, a motley crowd of armed foot-men, the regular infantry of Herat, in all sorts of irregular costumes. These preceded the cavalcade of the Wuzeer, Yar Mahomed, who, with all the chiefs of note around him, headed the main body of the Afghan cavalry, whose low sheepskin caps and uniform attire made up a very soldierly appearance. Another body of infantry closed the procession. The guns had been left behind.

      Among the many who went forth on that September morning to witness the entrance of Shah Kamran into his capital, was a young European officer. Riding out a mile beyond the city walls, he picketed his horse in the courtyard of a deserted house, and joined a party of Afghans, who, sitting on the domed roof of the building, were watching the procession as it passed. He had entered Herat about a month before, after an adventurous journey from Caubul, through the Imauk and Hazareh countries. The name of this young officer was Eldred Pottinger. He was a Lieutenant in the Bombay Artillery; and had been despatched by his uncle, Colonel Pottinger, who was then Resident in Sindh, for the purpose of exploring the countries of Afghanistan, and collecting materials for a full report to be drawn up on his return. He started in no recognised official capacity, but travelled onward in the most unostentatious manner, assuming the disguise of a Cutch horse-dealer, and attracting little attention on his route. Journeying upwards by Shikarpoor and Dehra Ismael Khan to Peshawur, he proceeded thence to Caubul, and there changing his disguise for that of an Indian Syud, made his way through the rude country of the Imauks and Hazarehs to Herat. Though at this period he was but slightly acquainted with the Persian language, and was ignorant of the Mahomedan prayers, of their genuflexions, modes of worship, and similar observances, he passed on almost unquestioned by the credulous Afghans. In Herat itself, though he seems to have taken little pains to conceal his real character, he remained, for some time,[148] lodging in a caravanserai, and mixing freely with its inmates, but seldom recognised as an European by those with whom he associated.

      The King and the Wuzeer returned to Herat; and Eldred Pottinger soon sent a message to the latter, offering, as a stranger and a traveller, to wait upon him, if he desired to see him. To the surprise of the English officer, Yar Mahomed sent a messenger to him intimating that, early on the following morning, he would be happy to receive him. Pottinger went. The minister, who was seated in an alcove in the dressing-room of his bath, rose as the stranger entered, invited him to take a seat beside himself, and welcomed him with becoming courtesy. As the only articles he possessed worthy of the acceptance of the chief, Pottinger presented his detonating pistols; and the gift was graciously received. A few days afterwards he paid, “by desire,” a visit to the King.[149] Little did Shah Kamran and Yar Mahomed, when they received that unassuming traveller, think how much, under Providence, the future destinies of Herat were in the hands of the young Englishman.

      The spirit of adventure was strong in Eldred Pottinger. It had brought him to the gates of Herat, and now it kept him there, eager to take a part in the coming struggle between the Heratees and their Persian invaders. And when the day of trial came—when the enemy were under the walls of the city—he threw himself into the contest, not merely in a spirit of adventure, as a young soldier rejoicing in the opportunity thus afforded him of taking part in the stirring scenes of active warfare, but as one profoundly impressed with the conviction that his duty to his country called upon him, in such a crisis, to put forth all his energies in aid of those who were striving to arrest a movement threatening not only the independence of Herat, but the stability of the British Empire in the East.

      Scarcely had the King returned to Herat, when a proclamation went forth into the surrounding villages, decreeing that all the grain and forage should be brought into the city, and that the villagers should abide within its walls, on pain of the Shah’s resentment. The danger seemed something dim and remote, and the order, at first, was little heeded. But when, towards the close of October, intelligence reached Herat that the Persian army had arrived at Toorbut, another more imperative edict was issued, commanding all the outstanding crops, grain, and forage, to be destroyed, and the fruit-trees to be cut down in the surrounding gardens. The soldiery were let loose upon the country to carry out the royal decree. The policy of this measure is apparent; but there was unlooked-for evil in the result. It was the object of the Heratee Government to keep all the available grain, forage, and firewood outside the city from falling into the hands of the invading army. If these necessaries could not be stored in Herat, the next best thing was to destroy them. But the licence thus given to the soldiery completely unhinged the little discipline that had before kept them together. They were, indeed, from that time so completely disorganised, that it was never afterwards found practicable to reduce them to order.

      In the mean while, the city was alive with rumours of the progress of the Persian army. It was ascertained that they were moving СКАЧАТЬ