2,000 men, with food for beasts of burden in proportion. And when the eventful day of presentation arrived, they found the King, with that love of outward pomp so pleasing to the Oriental mind, sitting on a gilded throne, crowned and plumed; his dress a blaze of jewellery, conspicuous among which was to be seen the famous Koh-i-noor diamond, which became subsequently such a source of misery to himself, and which, after having undergone such romantic vicissitudes, is now in the possession of Her Majesty Victoria the Queen-Empress of India.

To return, however, to the fortunes of the "ameermaker," Futteh Khan. At the very time that Shah Soojah was receiving the first British embassy in his royal city of Peshawur, Mahmoud having escaped from his prison, succeeded in forming a junction with his old friend Futteh Khan, when he determined again to assert his claim to the sovereignty of Afghanistan. They jointly defeated the forces which Shah Soojah sent against them, and they entered Cabul in triumph. Soojah was next defeated in person by Futteh Khan, when he fled, first to the hills, and subsequently sought the protection of Runjeet Singh, the Maharajah of the Punjaub. It soon became very evident that Runjeet Singh coveted the possession of the great Douranee diamond. On the second day after his entrance into Lahore, Shah Soojah was waited upon by an emissary from Runjeet, who demanded the jewel in the name of his master. The fugitive monarch, asking for time to consider the request, hinted that after he had partaken of his master's hospitality, he might be disposed to grant it. On the day following, the same messenger ap

Infamous Conduct of Runjeet Singh. 253

peared and received a similar reply. Runjeet Singh, determined to possess himself of the matchless Kohi-noor, resorted to other measures in order to extort it from its luckless owner. The means employed shall be related in Shah Soojah's touching words of the transaction. After recounting the privations to which he was reduced by the infamous behaviour of Runjeet, even wanting the necessaries of life, he says: "After a month passed in this manner, confidential servants of Runjeet Singh waited on us, and asked again for the Koh-i-noor, which we promised to deliver as soon as a treaty was agreed upon between us. Two days after this, Runjeet Singh came in person, and after friendly protestations, and swearing by the Grunth of Baba Nanuck and his own sword, wrote the following treaty: 'That he delivered over certain provinces to us and our heirs for ever; also offering assistance in troops and treasure, for the purpose of again recovering our throne.' He then proposed himself that we should exchange turbans, which is among the Sikhs a pledge of eternal friendship, and we then gave up to him the Koh-i-noor diamond."

Having thus possessed himself of the coveted jewel, Runjeet Singh proceeded to prove himself one of the basest characters among the Oriental princes with whom we have had to deal in Hindostan. After he had stripped the fugitive monarch of everything he possessed that was worth taking, "even after this," says the wretched Soojah," he did not perform one of his promises." After a series of romantic adventures, extendingover a course of years, which prevents our recording them here, the discrowned

monarch of Afghanistan, in the year 1816, sought and found a resting-place under the mighty ægis of the British crown; and for some years Shah Soojah gratefully accepted our hospitality for himself and family, in Loodhianah, the neighbourhood of which became famous in after years for Sir Harry Smith's decisive victory over the Sikh army.

After Shah Soojah's flight, in the year 1809, and Mahmoud's capture of Cabul, by the assistance of Futtch Khan, the "ameer-maker," that enterprising soldier and distinguished statesman virtually ruled Afghanistan, under the name and authority of Shah Mahmoud. He captured Herat from Haji Ferooz, the brother of Mahmoud, and vigorously repulsed an attack on that famous city which is of some interest to us at the present time, when the Shah of Persia had sent his troops to demand tribute of its inhabitants.

A few years later, A.D. 1818, Mahmoud having become jealous of his great prime minister, Futteh Khan, as is too commonly the case with Oriental despots, most ungratefully seized and blinded, under circumstances of peculiar atrocity, the man who had twice placed him on the throne. Upon this the family of Futteh Khan flew to arms to avenge him, when the partisans of Mahmoud attacked the illustrious Futteh, blinded as he was, and literally cut him to pieces. Thus died this remarkable man, the ameer-maker of the Douranee Empire, whose versatile talents gave the ascendency to whatever party he joined; and though his perfidy and want of principle were notorious, there is this to be said in extenuation, that he possessed them in common with every one

The Rise of Dhost Mohammed.

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of his countrymen, and what seems vice to us was accounted a virtue by them.

Among the twenty brothers of Futteh Khan was one many years his junior, whose infancy was wholly disregarded by the great Barukzye Sirdar. The son

of a lowly woman of the Kuzzilbash tribe, he was looked down upon by the high-bred Douranee ladies of his father's household. The lad had begun life in the menial office of a sweeper at the sacred edifice, which is traditionally supposed by the Afghans to contain the remains of the antediluvian saint, Lamech, the father of Noah! Permitted at a later period to hold office in his brother's household, he saw everything, heard everything, watched silently, bided his time patiently, and when the hour came he played his part on the stage of life, as one of the most remarkable characters in central Asia with whom our Indian officials have come in contact. On one occasion he slew, in broad day, in one of the crowded thoroughfares of Peshawur, one of the enemies of Futteh Khan, and galloped home to report the deed to his all-powerful brother. From that moment his rise was rapid; he became the favourite of the chief minister of Shah Mahmoud, and took his place among the chivalry of the Douranee Empire.

Such was the rise of the famous warrior DHOST MOHAMMED, who in after years was the cause of so much anxiety and distress to the British Empire. Nature had designed him for a hero of the true Afghan stamp and character. His youth was stained with many crimes which he lived to deplore. It is to the credit of Dhost Mohammed, that in the vigour of his years he looked back with contrition upon the

excesses of his early life, one of which, the plunder of the harem of Ferooz-ood-Deen, at Herat, was accompanied with acts of peculiar atrocity. But such acts, partly caused by a neglected childhood, he struggled manfully in after years to remedy and repair. When he had attained the height of his reputation, it may be safely said that there was not to be found in central Asia a chief so remarkable for the exercise of self-discipline and self-control.

The assassination of the illustrious Futteh Khan was the signal for the dismemberment of the Douranee Empire. The murder of his father, Poyndah Khan, nearly twenty years before, had shaken the Suddozye dynasty to its base; the assassination of the son soon made it a heap of ruins. From this time the rise of Dhost Mohammed was rapid. He succeeded in speedily making himself sovereign ruler of Cabul, with the reputation of being an enlightened prince. Kamran, the son of Shah Mahmoud, seized Herat. Candahar became subject to the Sirdars. The ameers of Scinde made themselves independent ; while Runjeet Singh took advantage of the general confusion to make large encroachments on the Afghanistan monarchy, which was then falling rapidly to pieces, very much in the same manner as Turkey is in the present day.

To come to the events of our own generation. In 1835, Runjeet Singh crossed the Indus, and occupied the province of Peshawur up to the mouths of the Khyber Pass. Dhost Mohammed, hoping to recover Peshawur, caused a holy war to be proclaimed against the Sikhs, and a large force, descending the passes, appeared before the city. The agents of