most unsuitable as a transport, and uncomfortable to the last degree for passengers, besides which it blew a gale the whole way to Alexandria. We were all horribly ill, and our child caught a fatal cold. We thoroughly appreciated a change at Suez to the Indian trooper, the Malabar, where everything possible was done for our comfort by our kind captain (Rich, R.N.), and, indeed, by everyone on board; but, alas! our beautiful little girl never recovered the cruel experience of the Helvetia, and we had the terrible grief of losing her soon after we passed Aden. She was buried at sea.

It was a very sad journey after that. There were several nice, kind people amongst our fellow-passengers; but life on board ship at such a time, surrounded by absolute strangers, was a terrible trial to us both, and, what with the effects of the voyage and the anxiety and sorrow she had gone through, my wife was thoroughly ill when we arrived at Simla towards the end of February.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

IN January, 1869, Sir John Lawrence, after a career which was altogether unique, he having risen from the junior grades of the Bengal Civil Service to the almost regal position of Governor-General, left India for good. He was succeeded as Viceroy by Lord Mayo, one of whose first official acts was to hold a durbar at Umballa for the reception of the Amir Sher Ali, who, after five years of civil war, had succeeded in establishing himself on the throne of Afghanistan, to which he had been nominated by his father, Dost Mahomed Khan.*

Sher Ali had passed through a stormy time between the

Dost Mahomed had several sons. Mahomed Akbar and Ghulam Haidar, the two heirs-designate in succession, died before their father. Sixteen other sons were alive in 1863, of whom the following were the eldest:

1. Mahomed Afzal Khan, aged 52 years | By a wife not of

Royal blood.

2. Mahomed Azim Khan,

Afzal Khan had a son Abdur Rahman Khan, the present Amir of Afghanistan, and Sher Ali had five sons-Ali Khan, Yakub Khan, Ibrahim Khan, Ayub Khan, and Abdula Jan.

death of the Dost, in June, 1863, and September, 1868. He had been acknowledged as the rightful heir by the Government of India, and for the first three years he held the Amirship in a precarious sort of way. His two elder brothers, Afzal and Azim, and his nephew, Abdur Rahman (the present ruler of Afghanistan), were in rebellion against him. The death of his favourite son and heir-apparent, Ali Khan, in action near Khelat-i-Ghilzai, in 1865, grieved him so sorely that for a time his reason was affected. In May, 1866, he was defeated near Ghazni (mainly owing to the treachery of his own troops) by Abdur Rahman, who, releasing his father, Afzal, from the prison into which he had been cast by Sher Ali, led him in triumph to Kabul, and proclaimed him Amir of Afghanistan.

The new Amir, Afzal, at once wrote to the Government of India detailing what had occurred, and expressing a hope that the friendship of the British, which he so greatly valued, would be extended to him. He was told, in reply, that the Government recognized him as Ruler of Kabul, but that, as Sher Ali still held Kandahar and Herat, existing engagements with the latter could not be broken off. The evident preference thus displayed for Sher Ali caused the greatest vexation to the brothers Afzal and Azim, who showed their resentment by directing an Envoy who had come from Swat to pay his respects to the new Amir to return to his own country and set on foot a holy war against the English; the Waziri maliks* in attendance at the court were dismissed with presents and directions to harass the British frontier, while an emissary was despatched on a secret mission to the Russians.

The headmen of villages in Afghanistan are styled maliks.

1869]

AFZAL KHAN OUSTS SHER ALI

43

After his defeat near Ghazni, Sher Ali fled to Kandahar, and in the January of the following year (again owing to treachery in his army) he met with a second defeat near Khelat-i-Ghilzai, and lost Kandahar.

On this fact being communicated to the Government of India, Afzal Khan was in his turn recognized as Amir of Kabul and Kandahar. But he was at the same time informed that the British Government intended to maintain a strict neutrality between the contending parties in Afghanistan. John Lawrence, in his letter of the 20th of February, said that neither men, nor arms, nor money, nor assistance of any kind, have ever been supplied by my Government to Amir Sher Ali. Your Highness and he, both equally unaided by me, have fought out the battle, each upon your own resources. I purpose to continue the same policy for the future. If, unhappily, the struggle for supremacy in Afghanistan has not yet been brought to a close, and hostilities are again renewed, I shall still side with neither party.'

This reply altogether failed to satisfy Afzal and Azim. They answered it civilly, but at the same time they sent a copy of it to General Romanofski, the Russian Governor of Tashkent, who was informed by the new Amir that he had no confidence in the Lord sahib's fine professions of friendship, and that he was disgusted with the British Government for the ingratitude and ill-treatment shown towards his brother Azim. He looked upon the Russians as his real and only friends, hoped soon to send a

* Azim Khan behaved well towards the Lumsden Mission, and it was reported that he encouraged his father, Dost Mahomed Khan, not to disturb the Peshawar frontier during the Mutiny.

regular Ambassador to the Russian camp, and would at all times do his utmost to protect and encourage Russian trade.'

In October of this year (1867) Afzal Khan died, and his brother Azim, hastening to Kabul, took upon himself the Amirship. Abdur Rahman had hoped to have succeeded his father, but his uncle having forestalled him, he thought it politic to give in his allegiance to him, which he did by presenting his dead father's sword, in durbar, to the new Amir, who, like his predecessor, was now acknowledged by the Government of India as Ruler of Kabul and Kandahar.

The tide, however, was beginning to turn in favour of Sher Ali. Azim and Abdur Rahman quarrelled, and the former, by his extortions and cruelties, made himself detested by the people generally.

In March, 1868, Sher Ali's eldest son, Yakub Khan, regained possession of Kandahar for his father. In July father and son found themselves strong enough to move towards Ghazni, where Azim Khan's army was assembled. The latter, gradually deserted by his soldiers, took to flight, upon which Sher Ali, after an absence of forty months, entered Kabul on the 8th of September, and re-possessed himself of all his dominions, with the exception of Balkh, where Azim and Abdur Rahman (now reconciled to each other) still flew the flag of rebellion.

One of the newly-installed Amir's first acts was to inform the Viceroy of his return to Kabul, and of the recovery of his kingdom. He announced his desire to send some trusted representatives, or else proceed himself in person, to Calcutta, for the purpose of showing his