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morable insurrection, is the good faith which the conspirators observed to each other prior to the explosion. In spite of the endless dissensions which keep every tribe and every village of the Affghans almost constantly in arms against their neighbours, not one was found, among the thousands to whom the plot must have been known, who would betray his brethren of the faith for the incentive of Feringhi gold (1). Deep and deadly must have been the feeling of exasperation against us which could not only prompt such a union of discordant elements, but maintain it unbroken through all the toils and losses of the subsequent warfare for Mohammed Akhbar, as we have already observed, seems to have exercised command only over his own clansmen, the Dooraunis, while the great body of the insurgents obeyed no leader but the impulses of their own fanatic zeal. Even in this furious burst of national indignation, the republican spirit which eminently distinguishes the Affghans from all other Asiatics, was so unequivocally apparent, as forcibly to recall the language (worthy of a petty Polish noble under the old régime) in which the aged chief of the Meeankhail tribe replied to Mr. Elphinstone's eulogy on the blessings of a firm and established government unde. a powerful monarch, We are content with discord, we are content with alarms, we are content with blood, but we will never be content with a master ! »

The suddenness and magnitude of the disaster seem at first utterly to have paralysed the minds of the Indian authorities. Not only was no attempt made to raise the leaguer of Cabul, (for which omission, indeed, the shortness of the time, and the severity of the season, was perhaps sufficient excuse,) but the gallant band at Jellalabad were left thronghout the winter, and almost up to the date of the last advices, to maintain themselves not only unsupported by efficient aid, but even without any communication or promise of succour to encourage them in the desperate struggle for existence. attempt was indeed made about the middle of January, by a

An

(') The answer of the Khyberees and Afreedees to the proposals recently made them for an unmolested passage through their defiles was, «This is not a war of gold, but of religion. »

sepoy division under Colonel Wild, to advance through the formidable Khyber Pass for their relief; but this force, though it succeeded in occupying the Ali-Musjid fort in the centre of the defiles, was not only inadequate in strength to the enterprise, but wholly unprovided with artillery-an oversight or neglect scarcely credible and it was consequently repulsed with loss in an action at Jumrood, (the scene of Akhbar Khan's victory over the Sikhs), and with difficulty made good its retreat, withdrawing the garrison from Ali-Musjid. The Sikhs (), however, continued friendly, both from the invelerate hatred which they bear the Affghans, and from the necessity of our alliance to their monarch Shere Singh for his support on his tottering throne; and by their efficient aid in supplying stores and munitions, the corps under General Pollock was put in a condition to renew the attack on the pass: and the lately-received mail informs us that this celebrated defile has been carried in a style which goes far to retrieve the faded lustre of our arms. But during the time thus lost, the citadel of Ghazni, the first and most glorious trophy of our Afghan campaigns, had been wrested from us the governor, Colonel Palmer (2), who had only one sepoy regiment, (the 27th Bengal infantry,) under his orders, having been forced to capitulate by the want of provisions and water; so that Jellalabad and Candahar, separated from each other by the whole extent of the country from east to west, are the only points now remaining in our possession; and an attempt by General England to victual and relieve the latter

(') Our relations with the Sikhs appear not unlikely, from recent accounts to lead to a curious complication of our eastern hostilities. In the anarchy following the accession of Shere Singh, a chief named Zorawar Singh, with a few thousand followers, made an incursion (without authority from Lahore) on the Chinese frontier in Tibet, where at first he gained extraordinary successes, but was eventually defeated and killed by a Tartar-Chinese army sent against him. In the prosecution of their victory, the Chinese have attached the hill Rajahs about Ladakh, who are subject to Lahore; and as we are bound by treaty to aid the Sikhs if called upon, the result may be an Anglo-Sikh invasion of China on the west'

(2) The written orders of General Elphinstone, extorted by the Afghans at the capitulation of Cabul, are alleged by Colonel Palmer in extenuation: similar orders were sont to Jellal bad and Candahar, but discharged by the gallant officers there

in command.

fortress, has been frustrated by the determined resistance of the Affghans at the Kojuck Pass. Such is the state of affairs at present; bnt though an advance from Jellalabad upon Cabul and Ghazni is confidently talked of, it is obvious that some considerable time must elapse before any such movement can even be attempted, since it is admitted that the success of General Pollock at the Khyber was owing to his being almost entirely unencumbered with baggage or stores; and without vast trains of camels and munitions of war, it will be manifestly impossible to penetrate, in the face of an active enemy, into a rugged and mountainous country, where facilities do not exist for procuring supplies of any description. We can scarcely, therefore, be said to be in a condition to assume the offensive at all, and the forthcoming campaign is as yet wholly a matter of speculation.

There appears to be no doubt, however, that the present determination of the Indian cabinet is to employ all the means at their disposal for the subjugation of the Affghans; and the recent embarkation of ten thousand British troops for India, affords a hope that in future the sepoys will be spared the brunt of a warfare for which, notwithstanding their exemplary patience and bravery, their habits and constitution utterly unfit them. In addition to the manifold inconveniences necessarily attendant on the observance of the usages of caste in a strange country, Hindoo troops have been in all ages reluctant to pass the stream of the Indus, which their superstition is taught to regard as the fated boundary of their country, as it unquestionably is the natural boundary of Indian rule; and the events of the late campaign have fatally confirmed the propriety of the title-Hindoo-Koosh, or HindooKiller—which the vast mountain ranges about Cabul had long since acquired by the destruction of the armies sent by the emperors Akbar and Shah Jehan among their snowy defiles. The operation of these causes, combined with the tragical fate of their comrades at Cabul, is said to have so materially affected the spirit of the regiments on the north-west frontier, that whole squads were going over to the Sikhs,.... and among these many old soldiers and men who, up to that period, had

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been regarded as good and true Neemukwallahs (adherents to their salt)." But the annals of few armies, of equal nu merical amount, present so unvaried a picture of loyalty, subordination, and gallantry, as has been displayed by our sepoys while serving under a standard to which, it must be remembered, they owe no natural allegiance; and they have an undeniable claim for consideration to be shown both to their national and religious prejudices, and to their constitutional inability to support a climate so different from that of their native country.

Before we dismiss this part of the subject, it will be necessary to make some allusion to the political arrangements which are rumoured to have taken place among the Affghans themselves since the insurrection at Cabul, as upon these must in some degree depend the measures to be taken for the future settlement of the country, in the event of its again falling into our power. But notwithstanding the length of time since the revolt, the accounts which have been received on this point are so confused, and so much at variance one with another, that scarcely any thing can be ascertained with certainty. In the consternation of the first surprise, Shah-Shoojah was almost universally denounced as the prime mover and instigator of the massacre of the allies who had placed him on the throne; and his continuing to reside unharmed in the Bala-Hissar during the siege and after the capitulation, would certainly appear to afford strong primà facie evidence of his complicity with the conspirators. But other statements seem to prove that his apparent subservience to the insurgents was prompted only by a regard for his own safety; and the Calcutta papers mention that he had even contrived to forward a letter to the Governor-general, exculpating himself from the charge of treachery, and bitterly inveighing against the late envoy as having brought on the catastrope by his injudicious conduct. It does not appear very clearly in whom the actual authority of Cabul is at present vested. Akhbar Khan's authority seems to be limited to the military command; and though the names of various chiefs are mentioned as assuming the temporary direction of affairs, no one appears to have

acquired a sufficiently decided predominance to justify his being regarded as the supreme leader ('). Nor do we conceive that the death of Shah-Shoojah (if the report of his assassination by the Ghazis should prove to be well founded) will materially lessen the diplomatic difficulties of our situation; for if, on the one hand, it saves us the trouble of punishing him should the charge of foul play be brought home to him, it deprives us, on the other, (according to any but Asiatic rules of equity,) of our only colourable pretext for continuing to interfere in the affairs of the country since, had our ex-ally not existed in 1839, it is difficult to conjecture what grounds we could have put forward to justify our aggression.

Hitherto we have considered the subject of the late reverses only in its military point of view, and with reference to our future proceedings in Afghanistan itself. But severe as is the amount of actual loss which has been sustained, and grievous as are the sacrifices by which it may be necessary to retrieve it, the political results of these disasters are to be looked for, not so much on the further side of the Indus, as in the train of feeling which may be kindled by this event among the native population of India. The people of Central Asia, to quote the language of an eloquent writer in the Edinburgh Review, (Oct. 1841, article on Warren Hastings,) had always been to the inhabitants of India, what the warriors of the German forests were to the subjects of the decaying monarchy of Rome. During the last ten centuries, a succession of invaders descended from the west on Hindostan

(1) Nawab Jubbar Khan, eldest brother of Dost Mohammed, is said to be the only person who can maintain order and concord among those fiery chiefs, all of whom respect his single-hearted and venerable character; but he takes no part in the direction of affairs. This aged chief «arrived at Ghazni, during its occupation by the British, with offers of submission from Dost Mohammed to Shah-Shoojah, expressive of his willingness to cede to him all right to the city of Cabul, on condition that he should not be compelled to remain in a British province under surveillance, maintaining at the same time his indefeasible right to the office of vizier, as head of the Barulzyes. It being impossible to entertain such a proposition, the old man, in his bluntness, expressed great indignation at the rejection of what he considered as but just and righteous. >> (Sir K. Jackson's Views in Afghanistan.) We must confess ourselves far from disinclined to coincide in the view of the subject as taken by the honest old Afghan.