and husbandry, were undertaken by Lieutenant Irvine, and the trade and revenue by Mr. Richard Strachey. The history fell to Mr. Robert Alexander, and the government and the manners of the people, Lo me.'

From Mr. Elphinstone's personal knowledge and observation, from very extensive inquiries, and from the reports of the gentlemen named in the preceding extract, the materials of the present work have been derived. One individual of this brief list, Lieut. Macartney, is since dead; and a short, but expressive tribute to his high desert, is inserted in the Preface.

In our analysis of the contents of this comprehensive volume, we shall follow the plan which the Author laid down for himself, without amusing ourselves with frivolous inquiries whether it might not, in some respects, be altered for the better. The work, after a short introduction containing an account of the proceedings of the mission, divides itself into five books: 1. The geography of Afghaunistan; 2. General account of the inhabitants; 3. Particular account of the Afghaun tribes; 4. The provincial divisions; 5. The royal government of Caubul. We shall advert to the contents of the Appendix in their order; anticipating, however, that portion of it, which relates to the establishment of the Dooraunee monarchy in Caubul.

The Dooraunees are of obscure and uncertain origin. By some, they are stated to have inhabited the mountains of Toba ; while other and more prevailing traditions describe them as issuing from the mountains of Ghore, and inundating the plains of Khorasan. Hanway, to whose opinion Mr. Elphinstone attributes 'great probability,' supposes them to have been settled 'to the east of Herat, early in the ninth century.' It would appear that they maintained their independency until the seventeenth century, when, in consequence of the successful hostilities of the Uzbeks, they were compelled to purchase the protection of Persia, by consenting to become her tributaries.

In the year 1716, the Dooraunees, who were then called Abdaullees, under the command of Abdoolla Khaun, invaded the Persian territory, at first with success; but their enterprise terminated in defeat. Soon after this Abdoolah was deposed by Zemaun Khan, the father of the celebrated Ahmed Shah. The chieftainship of Zemaun was enterprising and successful; he defeated the superior numbers of the Persians, retained Herat, and pushed his conquests to the North-western extremity of Khorasan. A season of anarchy intervened between the splendid rule of Zemaun, and the submission of the Abdaullees to the sword of Nadir Shah, in 1728; but soon after this period they resumed hostilities under the command of Zoolficaur, the son of Zemaun, passed the Persian boundaries, defeated the brother of Nadir, and laid siege to Meshhed. At length, Nadir himself

Took the field against them, and after an obstinate resistance, ultimately reduced the whole of the Afghan tribes under his dominion. He took a considerable number of these warlike freebooters into his service, and seems to have shewn great at'tachment' to them. To this partiality, among other causes, 'is attributed his murder by the Persians in June, 1747.' The Afghans and Uzbeks under Ahmed Shah endeavoured to revenge his death; but they sustained a repulse.

After this failure, Ahmed fought his way to Candahar, at the head of an inconsiderable force of cavalry; and in October, 1747, assumed the sovereignty of the Afghan tribes, at the early age of 23. Without any delay he began his career of conquest, and the weak and distracted state of Persia, and of the surrounding nations, offered a rich harvest to the invader's sword. He first reduced the Ghiljies, and then advanced against the Mogul governor of Caubul, who fled before him. He still pressed forward, crossed the Indus, entered Lahore after a victorious conflict, and prepared to advance upon Delly.' In the mean time, the army of Mahommed Shah, the emperor of Hindostan, under the command of his son and his vizier, seized the fords of the Sutledge; but Ahmed, by manœuvres of astonishing rapidity, effectually disconcerted their defensive system, crossed the river at a higher point, and leaving the Indian army in his rear, captured the town of Sirhind, where it had deposited its baggage and its stores. In a subsequent battle, he was defeated by the talents of the Indian general; but notwithstanding this, he continned to secure the dominion of the Punjaub, the most important frontier province of the Mogul Empire, In successive campaigns he reduced Herat, mastered the principal portion of Khorasan, and conquered Cashmeer. In 1756, he again advanced against Hindostan, entered Delhi in triumph, and forced from the Emperor the cession of the Punjaub and of Sind. The troops and officers whom Ahmed left behind him, when he quitted Hindostan for his own states, were speedily forced to retire by the Marhattas, to oppose whose encroachments, the Afghan chief found it necessary to march eastward in 1759; and in January, 1761, he routed the Marhattas in the fatal battle of Paniput. The remainder of his eventful life was fully occupied by quelling petty insurrections, and by repelling the more formidable aggressions of the Persians and the Sikhs. He died in June, 1773, in the 50th year of his age.

Ahmed Shah appears to have been a man of consummate abilities, brave to admiration, and of indefatigable activity. His natural dispositions were comparatively mild and merciful. Crimes he certaily committed in his efforts to attain and to secure his height of power; yet the memory of no eastern

· prince is stained with fewer acts of cruelty and injustice. 'He was a divine and an author, and was always ambitious of 'the character of a saint.'

His son and successor Timoor Shauh, was a prince of a very different character; his principal attention was directed to the accumulation of money, and the preservation of his actual possessions. He abandoned himself to ease and indolence, from which he seldom roused himself except when compelled by domestic commotion or foreign inroad. The effects of this relaxation and the absence of the vigorous hand of Ahmed, were soon felt; and though the reign of Timoor himself was tolerably quiet, yet he prepared the way for those scenes of anarchy and turbulence, and for that dismemberment of the Afghan empire, which took place in the reign of his successor.

After the death of Timoor Shah, in May 1793, Shauh Zemaun ascended the throne, having, either by force or stratagem, baffled the efforts of his numerous brothers. His reign presents little more to the reader of its history, than a series of political blunders. He seems to have been both active and brave; but he sacrificed the security of his empire, and the stability of his reign to a strange and impolitic anxiety for the invasion of India, and this error of judgement, together with the injudicious choice of a vizier, effected his ruin. The general alarm which the avowed determination of Zemaun excited in India, and even in this country, cannot have escaped the recollection of our readers; and there can be no doubt that, although to human apprehension his ultimate failure was certain, his appearance would have excited the Mahommedans of India to a universal revolt, which could not have been quelled but at the expense of much treasure, and much blood. It is utterly impracticable to give in this brief sketch, any adequate description of the various marchings and counter-marchings of this infatuated prince, from one part his dominions to another, perpetually tormented by his Indian mania, and continually called off from this point by domestic insurrection, and by the attacks of the Persians. His brother Mahmood, after a number of unsuccessful attempts, at length established himself on the throne of Zemaun, whom he seized and caused to be blinded.

The principal agent in this revolution, was Futteh Khan, one of those extraordinary beings, who so rarely appear on the stage of real life, and whose actions would appear almost incredible, even if attributed to the heroes of romance. Utterly regardless of danger, and equally indifferent as to the moral complexion of the means used to accomplish his ends, he has repeatedly effected the most important events, sometimes by his own single interposition, and at other times, with the aid of a mere handful of followers. Exile, freebooter, general, or vizier-his cha

racter has never altered, nor has his self-dependence for one moment forsaken him; and even at this very time, it is his weight alone that presses down the scale of empire on the side of Mahmood. The accession of Mahmood was not, however, unopposed, nor his prosperity of long continuance. Prince Shuja, Zemaun's full brother, commenced active hostilities. He first raised the tribe or clan of the Berdooraunees, through whose want of discipline he sustained a severe defeat from. Futteh Khan. He then advanced on Peshawer at the head of 12,000 Khyberees; but he was again unsuccessful. In the mean time, Mahmood was weakening his own cause by his incapacity; the excesses of his favourite guards exasperated the people of Caubul, who 'rose in insurrection, and Shuja being called in by the insurgent party, was, after defeating Futteh Khan, seated on the throne.

'Mahmood, deserted by all his adherents, suffered himself to be quietly conducted to the upper fort, where the princes of the blood are confined. His eyes were spared, but Shuja has unfortunately had sufficient reason to regret this clemency, of which he probably. afforded the first example in this country.'

Still more unhappily, Shuja, although an amiable and accomplished man, was deficient in the genius and energy which were requisite to restore a government so far sunk in anarchy and decay.' Mokhtar Oodoulah, to whose influence and enterprise the new monarch had been indebted for his success, though he was made vizier, was never in his master's confidence. Rebellions, in every possible kind, suddenly started up, and as suddenly subsided. The indefatigable Futteh contrived to be almost constantly at the scene of action. We cannot attempt to describe the state of confusion that resulted from this situation of affairs, as it would require too much space to make it intelligible; and we shall merely remark in general, that when the embassy reached Caubul, the king had been every where successful, and had just quelled a most formidable insurrection headed by his vizier, the only man, it would appear, to whom Shuja has been ungrateful.

In the year 1808, when, from the embassy of General Gardanne to Persia, and other circumstances, it appeared as if the French intended to carry the war into Asia, it was thought expedient by the British government in India to send a mission to the king of Caubul, and I was ordered on that duty. As the court of Caubul was known to be haughty, and supposed to entertain a mean opinion of the European nations, it was determined that the mission should be in a style of great magnificence; and suitable preparations were made at Delly for its equipment.'

A secretary and two assistants, one surgeon, two military surveyors, one captain commandant, one captain in second, six lieutenants, one hundred regular and the same number of irregular

cavalry, with two hundred infantry, were appointed to attend the Embassy, which set out from Delhi on the 13th of October, 1808. At Canound they first encountered the sands of the desert, rising one after another like the waves of the sea, and 'marked on the surface by the wind like drifted snow. There ' were roads through them, made solid by the treading of ani'mals; but off the road our horses sunk into the sand above the ' knee.' After a day or two's travelling through this amusing country, they reached

Singuana, a handsome town, built of stone, on the skirts of a hill of purplish rock, about six hundred feet high. I was here met by Rajah Ubhee Sing, the principal chief of the Shekhawut tribe. He was a little man with large eyes, inflamed by the use of opium; he wore his beard turned up on each side towards his ears, which gave him a wild and fierce appearance; his dress was plain, and his speech and manners, like those of all his countrymen, rude and unpolished. He was, however, very civil, and made many professions of respect and attachment to the British. I saw him several times, and he was always drunk either with opium or brandy. This was indeed the case with all the Shekhawuttee Sirdars, who are seldom in a condition to appear till the effect of their last debauch is removed by a new dose; consequently it is only in the interval between sobriety and absolute stupefaction that they are fit for business. Two marches from Singuana brought us to Jhoonjhoona, a handsome town with some trees and gardens, which look well in such a desert. Each of the chiefs, who are five in number, has a castle here; and here they assemble when the public affairs require a council. At this place, I saw the remaining four Shekhawut chiefs; they were plain men. One of them, Shaum Sing, was remarkably mild and well-behaved; but some of the others bore strong marks of the effects of opium in their eyes and countenance. They were all cousins, and seemed to live in great harmony; but scarcely had I crossed the desert, when I heard that Shaum Sing had murdered the three others at a feast, stabbing the first of them with his own hand!'

The embassy now entered the territories of the Rajah of Bikaneer, the least important of the five princes of Raujpoot'ana.' The description given by Mr. Elphinstone of this part of his travels, is truly frightful. Hills of shifting sand were seen from twenty to a hundred feet high. In winter, when they are somewhat permanent, they are covered with a scanty and precarious herbage. Here, and on the march, were found a few wretched villages, composed of straw huts, surrounded with thorn hedges stuck in the sand.

'These miserable abodes are surrounded by a few fields which depend for water on the rains and dews, and which bear thin crops of the poorest kind of pulse, and of bajra, or holcus spicatus; and this last, though it flourishes in the most sterile countries, grows here with difficulty, each stalk several feet from its neighbour. The wells