10

THE BRITISH CONQUERORS.

which had not fallen to his lot during a life of gallant exploits, hardships, and sufferings.

The simultaneous advances of Generals Pollock and Nott from Jellalabad and Kandahar, were almost daily marked by the defeat or flight of the savage tribes who had aided in the massacre of the ill-fated garrison of Caubul. Ghuzni was not defended a second time, but evacuated on the approach of Nott, who dismantled its bloodstained fortifications, and thence moved, unopposed, to unite his army with Pollock's at Caubul. The tribes under Akbar Khan were more resolute in their defence; but light mountain troops, without artillery, and ignorant even of the most simple methods of rendering their passes more difficult of approach, present but a contemptible barrier to a well-organized and effective army. Marching over the heights, which were strewn with the mangled corpses of their ill-fated comrades, peals of British musketry rung a tardy death-knell to their memories, but wrote the epitaph in the blood of their assassins.

Leaving Khoord Caubul, the most formidable barrier to the metropolis, undefended, Akbar and

his forces fled from the field of Tezeen, and left the country again in the hands of the British conquerors.

The capture of Istalif closed the three years' tragedy enacted amidst the rugged defiles of Afghanistan.

The unexpected release of the prisoners crowned the successes of this fortunate expedition; and it now remained only to retire, with as good a grace as possible, from a country where the most extraordinary vagary which had ever invaded the head of civilized man had originally conducted the army of the Indus.

As a last memento of the British invasion, the arched bazaars of the city of Caubul were destroyed, and buried in a confused mass of blackened ruins. This has always appeared to me rather a wanton mode of exciting the hostility of the harmless bunneahs* of Caubul against us: for the insurrection and its concomitant disasters arose not amongst the mercantile community of Caubul, but amongst the warlike mountain tribes. To punish the unfortunate house-owners of the ba

* Shopkeepers.

12

AFGHANISTAN VACATED.

zaars, was not a dignified retaliation for our losses.

In November, 1842, the united forces quitted the metropolis of the Afghans, leaving the inhabitants of these barbarous regions to their wonted occupation of cutting each other's throats ad libitum. That soil can surely never flourish, which is eternally watered with human blood. The earliest records of Afghan history present to us the same prevalence of murderous tastes, from the days of Sinkol, the contemporary of Romulus, throughout the Middle Ages, down to the year of our Lord, eighteen hundred and forty-two, when the British Government wisely resolved to have nothing more to do with Afghanistan.

Were the invasion of that country a measure conducive to our interests, it follows that the occupation thereof must have been necessary, in order to render it a bulwark against the nations lying to the north-west, of whom, in 1838, such unnecessary apprehensions were entertained. As this measure required a large subsidiary force to be maintained in the country, entailing a consequent augmentation of our army in the East, which

DOST MAHOMED.

13

was not convenient to the wishes or coffers of the Anglo-Indian Government, there cannot exist a doubt of the wisdom of Lord Ellenborough's administration in correcting the errors of his predecessor, and withdrawing the army from a country which was never likely to become a profitable territory.

The question of its advantages as a military position, may form a theoretical subject for discussion; but practically, the utter inability of the country to pay and maintain a large subsidiary force, and the impracticability of the exhausted revenues of India furnishing the sinews of war, sets the question at rest.

The finishing stroke yet required to be put to the Afghan policy, in disposing of Dost Mahomed, who had remained for some time in our hands; but now that his country was no longer an object of interest, of course the ex-king was less so. The release of that monarch, and his return to the throne to hurl him from which had impoverished India, besides draining it of some of its best blood, was the practical and final satire on the Caubul campaign.

14

THE CAUBUL WARRIORS.

I have not been diffuse in entering on minute details of the losses experienced on our march into that country, because I cannot flatter myself that the subject possesses sufficient general interest; but should any one have any curiosity regarding the number of men, camels, horses, bullocks, and asses that died during the first campaign, together with the minutest particulars, more than the most inquisitive disciple of Hume could require, let him not languish in ignorance, for are they not written in the Book of Hough?

Our questionable allies, the Sikhs, having been a cause of some disquietude, it was thought prudent to assemble a large force on the north-west frontier, at the close of the year 1842, which was denominated the "Army of Reserve." This force, encamped on the banks of the Sutlej, in the vicinity of Ferozepore, awaited the return of the victorious troops from Afghanistan, and Lord Ellenborough was present in person to welcome the arrival of the Caubul warriors under a triumphal arch which he had caused to be erected at the extremity of a bridge of boats thrown across the Sutlej. The united forces, when Generals Nott