Part 3

Under these circumstances, it seemed necessary to look to the intervening country, Afghanistan, which in this summary manner was to be made a 'platform of observation' for the Perso-Russian army to prepare for its descent upon Hindostan. The Afghans were tribes of hardy mountaineers, inhabiting a wild and thinly-peopled country. They consisted of soldiers, husbandmen, and shepherds, all convertible, at a moment's notice, into thieves and bandits; and through their formidable defiles flowed an uncertain stream of commerce, connecting India with the distant provinces of Persia and Russia. So little was known of these mountaineers, that in the early part of this century, their prince, Shah Zemaun, was a formidable bugbear to the Indian Council, and nothing was thought of for a time but an invasion of the Afghans. In one of the sudden revolutions, however, so common in semi-barbarous states, this shah was taken captive, and his eyes punctured with a lancet--a summary act of deposition in the East, for a blind man cannot reign. Two of his brothers competed for the vacant throne; and notwithstanding the efforts of a famous king-making vizier, Futteh Khan, the prize fell for a time to the lot of him who is so well known to English readers by the name and style of Shah Soojah. But his incapacity was soon manifest. Sometimes a king, sometimes a bandit, and sometimes a fugitive subsisting by the sale of his jewels, his cause at length became altogether hopeless; and after being robbed of his last treasure, the Koh-i-Noor--as has already been detailed in this Journal[2]--he took refuge in the British territory.

Futteh Khan, the king-making vizier, had twenty brothers; but one of the younger fry he treated with especial neglect. 'The son of a woman of the Kuzzilbash tribe, looked down upon by the high-bred Douranee ladies of his father's household, the boy had begun life in the degrading office of a sweeper at the sacred cenotaph of Lamech. Permitted, at a later period, to hold a menial office about the person of the powerful Wuzeer, he served the great man with water, or bore his pipe; was very zealous in his ministrations; kept long and painful vigils; saw everything, heard everything in silence; bided his time patiently, and when the hour came, trod the stage of active life as no irresolute novice. A stripling of fourteen, in the crowded streets of Peshawur in broad day, as the buyers and the sellers thronged the thoroughfares of the city, he slew one of the enemies of Futteh Khan, and galloped home to report the achievement to the Wuzeer. From that time his rise was rapid. The neglected younger brother of Futteh Khan became the favourite of the powerful chief, and following the fortunes of the warlike minister, soon took his place among the chivalry of the Douranee Empire.'

The name of this youth is well known in the annals of our time: he was Dost Mahomed, a gay, bold, frank, daring character, who rose from the excesses of his early years into something resembling a hero of romance. One of these excesses was committed when he had taken by assault the Palace of Herat. It consisted in tearing the jewelled waistband from the person of the wife of one of the royal princes--a terrible outrage in the eyes of these _barbarous_ soldiers of the farther East, who, even when covered with blood, and loaded with rapine, cast down their eyes before the females of their enemies' household. In this case, the profaned garment was sent by the lady to her brother, the son of the then Afghan king, and a bloody vengeance followed, not upon the author of the outrage, but on the king-making vizier, who, falling into the hands of the prince whom he had himself placed upon the throne, was literally hacked to pieces. Dost Mahomed now rose like a rocket. The base and feeble remains of legitimacy seemed to die away of its own weakness, and the despised younger son of the king-making vizier soon reigned supreme at Cabool. Let us note that this was in 1826. The new king, says Mr Kaye, 'had hitherto lived the life of a dissolute soldier. His education had been neglected, and in his very boyhood he had been thrown in the way of pollution of the foulest kind. From his youth, he had been greatly addicted to wine, and was often to be seen in public reeling along in a state of degrading intoxication, or scarcely able to keep his place in the saddle. All this was now to be reformed. He taught himself to read and to write, accomplishments which he had before, if at all, scantily possessed. He studied the Koran, abandoned the use of strong liquors, became scrupulously abstemious, plain in his attire, assiduous in his attention to business, urbane and courteous to all.' In 1833, Shah Soojah, issuing from the British territory, made an abortive attempt to recover his kingdom; but Runjeet Singh, the ruler of the Sikhs, was more successful in wresting from him Peshawur, a province of Afghanistan, and Dost Mahomed, both in rage and terror, began to look around him for a foreign alliance. His grand aim was to secure the friendship of the British; but this was scornfully refused. The governor-general, with exquisite irony, replied to his overture: 'My friend, you are aware that it is not the practice of the British government to interfere with the affairs of other independent states!' and a British envoy to Cabool, while refusing everything that was important for him to ask, kindly cautioned him to abstain from connecting himself with any other power.

Such was the position of affairs in Afghanistan when the government of India, in 1838, was roused to a sense of what seemed immediate danger by the movements in Central Asia. On the one hand, there was a _de facto_ king, who had reigned twelve years, who was now struggling in the grasp of the ruler of the Punjab, and eagerly soliciting the alliance of the British; while the Russians and Persians, leagued before Herat, were already negotiating for a footing in his country. On the other hand, there was a deposed exile, who had tried repeatedly, and in vain, to recover his throne, whose whole life had been a tissue of misfortunes and feeblenesses, and who now lived on the charity of the Company in their own territory. The obvious policy was to secure the independence of Afghanistan and aid her resources. How to do this? To embrace the proffered alliance of Dost Mahomed, or force Shah Soojah upon the country, and prepare for the reception of the Persians and Russians, by kindling a civil war? The latter was the course determined on! A league was formed, known in the history of our time as the Tripartite Treaty--including Runjeet Singh, Shah Soojah, and the British government. By this document, it was agreed that certain large portions of the Afghan territory, including Peshawur, should belong for ever to Runjeet Singh; that the maharajah should likewise possess the passes both of the Sutlej and the Indus, with power to bar the way at his pleasure; that the Afghans and Sikhs should mutually exchange military assistance when required; and that the friends and enemies of any of the three high contracting parties should be the friends and enemies of all.

There was not a word in this treaty, it will be seen, of a British war in Afghanistan; but the Indian government soon came to enlarge its views, and instead of merely patting Shah Soojah on the back, and setting him upon his countrymen, it determined to take the field in such force as would instantaneously settle the whole affair. The celebrated Simlah manifesto was accordingly drawn up, in which the governor-general gave 'his most exquisite reasons,' unpolitely stigmatised by a great portion of the Indian press as a tissue of falsehoods. With this, however, we have nothing to do; _our_ business is with the fact, that before this proclamation had obtained general currency, information had been received that the siege of Herat was raised, and the Persian army on its retreat. This was awkward. The occasion of the intended British invasion of Afghanistan was at an end. No matter. A large and brilliant army was already assembled on the banks of the Indus, and the war must go on! Many persons from the first considered the result doubtful; and Shah Soojah himself had his misgivings, when he found that he was to be forced by Christian bayonets upon a nation of bigoted Mohammedans!

But although the change in the state of affairs in Central Asia made no change in the belligerent resolves of the Indian government, it determined them to reduce the size of the army, and so make a little war instead of a great one. Scarcely had the Army of the Indus, as it was called, begun its march through Scinde, when it was beset with difficulties. 'Between Sukkur and Shikarpoor the camels had dropped down dead by scores. But there was a worse tract of country in advance. The officers looked at their maps, and traced with dismay the vast expanse of sandy desert, where no green pasture met the eye, and no sound of water spoke to the ear. But the season was favourable. Escaping the arid and pestilential blasts of April and May, and the noxious exhalations of the four succeeding months, the column advanced into Cutch. The hard, salt-mixed sand crackled under their horses' feet, as the general and his staff crossed the desert, on a fine bright night of early March--so cool, that only when in a full gallop the riders ceased to long for the warmth of their cloaks. The distance from Shikarpoor to Dadur is a hundred and forty-six miles. It was accomplished by the Bengal column in sixteen painful marches. Water and forage were so scarce, that the cattle suffered terribly on the way. The camels fell dead by scores on the desert; and further on, the Beloochee robbers carried them off with appalling dexterity. When the column reached a cultivated tract of country, the green crops were used as forage for the horses. The _ryots_ were liberally paid on the spot; but the agents of the Beloochee chiefs often plundered the unhappy cultivators of the money that had been paid to them, even in front of the British camp.' The Bolan Pass was more formidable. 'The stream of the Bolan river was tainted by the bodies of the camels that had sunk beneath their loads. The Beloochee freebooters were hovering about, cutting off our couriers, murdering stragglers, carrying off our baggage and our cattle. Among the rocks of this stupendous defile, our men pitched their tents, and toiled on again day after day, over a wretched road, covered with loose flint-stones, surmounting, at first by a scarcely perceptible ascent, and afterwards by a difficult acclivity, the great Brahoo chain of hills. The Bolan Pass is nearly sixty miles in length. The passage was accomplished in six days. They were days of drear discomfort, but not of danger. A resolute enemy might have wrought mighty havoc among Cotton's regiments: but the enemies with which now they had to contend were the sharp flint-stones, which lamed our cattle; the scanty pasturage, which destroyed them; and the marauding tribes, who carried them off. The way was strewn with baggage, with abandoned tents and stores; and luxuries, which a few weeks afterwards would have fetched their weight twice counted in rupees, were left to be trampled down by the cattle in the rear, or carried off by the plunderers about them.'

These disagreeables were surmounted; Soojah was installed at Candahar; Ghuznee was captured in gallant style--when fifty prisoners were hacked to pieces by orders of the shah; Dost Mahomed was beaten wherever he shewed himself; and, finally, our victorious army arrived at Cabool. Glorious victories are always highly appreciated in England. The chief actors in this expedition were rewarded with titles of earl, baron, baronet, and knight; and 'all went merry as a marriage-bell.' Not, however, but that there were moments of misgiving among the conquerors at Cabool. Dost Mahomed, though beaten, was not subdued, and his repeated small successes made him almost formidable. But even this was at an end, and the Dost surrendered himself prisoner.

The British force remained in Cabool two years, where officers and men alike misconducted themselves, as soldiers always do in a conquered country. The exasperation of the natives became more and more manifest: Akbar Khan, a son of Dost Mahomed, hovered about the country, the evil genius, as it is supposed, of the rising storm; and at length an insurrection broke out in the city. In this tissue of surprising blunders, perhaps none is more remarkable than the facts, that the general selected to command an army so critically placed was a poor old man, feeble in body and mind, and that the wives and children of many of the officers were present with their husbands and fathers, as if the causeless invasion of a country, and the massacre of thousands of its inhabitants, had been a party of pleasure! The moment of retreat at length came; snow covered the ground; the dreary passes of Khoord-Cabool were before them; and as they turned their backs upon the city, they were saluted with farewell volleys of musket-bullets.

The story of this fatal retreat has been often told. The result was communicated in the following manner to the British troops shut up in Jelalabad: 'At last, on the 13th of January, when the garrison were busy on the works, toiling with axe and shovel, with their arms piled and their accoutrements laid out close at hand, a sentry on the ramparts, looking out towards the Cabool road, saw a solitary white-faced horseman struggling on towards the fort. The word was passed; the tidings spread. Presently the ramparts were lined with officers, looking out, with throbbing hearts, through unsteady telescopes, or with straining eyes tracing the road. Slowly and painfully, as though horse and rider both were in an extremity of mortal weakness, the solitary mounted man came reeling, tottering on. They saw that he was an Englishman. On a wretched, weary pony, clinging, as one sick or wounded, to its neck, he sat or rather leant forward; and there were those who, as they watched his progress, thought that he could never reach, unaided, the walls of Jelalabad. A shudder ran through the garrison. That solitary horseman looked like the messenger of death. Few doubted that he was the bearer of intelligence that would fill their souls with horror and dismay. Their worst forebodings seemed confirmed. There was the one man who was to tell the story of the massacre of a great army. A party of cavalry were sent out to succour him. They brought him in wounded, exhausted, half-dead. The messenger was Dr Brydon, and he now reported his belief that he was the sole survivor of an army of some 16,000 men!'[3] From this wholesale butchery, which we are not disposed to detail, the women and children, the general, and the husbands of the ladies, were rescued by Akbar Khan. They were held for a time by the son of Dost Mahomed in a sort of captivity; where some of them had leisure to write narratives of their adventures, while others, with an inconsistence common and entertaining in melodramatic pieces, amused themselves with fun and frolic!

And what became of Shah Soojah? 'Rising early on the morning, he arrayed himself in royal apparel, and, accompanied by a small party of Hindostanees, proceeded under a salute, in a chair of state, towards his camp, which had been pitched at Seeah-Sungh. But Soojah-ool-dowlah, the son of the Newab, had gone out before him, and placed in ambush a party of Jezailchees. As the shah and his followers were making their way towards the regal tent, the marksmen fired upon them. The volley took murderous effect. Several of the bearers and of the escort were struck down, and the king himself killed on the spot. A ball had entered his brain. Soojah-ool-dowlah then rode up; and as he contemplated his bloody work, the body of the unhappy king, vain and pompous as he was to the very last, was stripped of all the jewels about it--the jewelled dagger, the jewelled girdle, the jewelled head-dress--and it was then cast into a ditch.'

It was of course impossible for the Company to suffer the blot upon their arms to remain: indeed, their safety in India required that no tarnish of defeat should rest permanently upon their name. The British troops at Candahar and Jelalabad were ordered to march upon Cabool, where, as an enduring mark of the retributary visit, in addition to pillaging the shops, setting fire to the houses, and murdering the unresisting inhabitants, they destroyed--not the fortress--but the _bazaar_, the great commercial depôt of Central Asia!

_The objects of the war were now accomplished._ But Shah Soojah was dead. The king we had driven from the throne, however, was still alive: Dost Mahomed, therefore, was restored; and nothing remained to be done, since the grand drama had been brought to a conclusion, but to celebrate the happy _dénouement_ by a fête. This, accordingly, came off at Ferozepore. 'Then there was feasting and festivity in the gigantic tents, hung with silken flags, on which, in polyglot emblazonments, were the names of the actions that had been fought; many complimentary effusions, in the shape of after-dinner harangues; and in the mornings grand field-days, more or less, according to the "skyey influences." The year--a most eventful one--was closed with a grand military display. The plain was covered with British and Sikh troops, and in the presence of Pertaub Singh, the heir-apparent of Lahore; Dhyan Singh, the minister; the governor-general, the commander-in-chief, and others of less note, some 40,000 men, with 100 guns, were man[oe]uvred on the great plain. On this grand tableau the curtain fell; and the year opportunely closed in gaiety and glitter--in prosperity and parade.'

We have now concluded our task, but without having been able to convey even a faint idea of the stores of information that are contained in these valuable volumes. They are destined, however, to retain a permanent place among the books of reference which enrich our national literature, and contribute to its advancement.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _History of the War in Afghanistan_: from the unpublished Letters and Journals of Political and Military Officers employed in Afghanistan throughout the entire period of British Connection with that Country. By John William Kaye. 2 vols. London: Bentley. 1051.

[2] See No 291.

[3] A sketch of this famous retreat will appear in a forthcoming volume of _Chambers's Pocket Miscellany_.

OCCASIONAL NOTES.

TENACITY OF LIFE IN INSECTS.

However useful insects may be in the general economy of nature, it is but too true that farmers and gardeners often find them a pest, and with each returning summer the pages of agricultural journals abound with remedies, offensive and defensive, against the obnoxious invaders. In such cases, it becomes desirable to know what remedial means are the most efficacious, and we are glad to find that the question has been taken up by persons competent to discuss it. Among these, Dr J. Davy has given the results of his inquiry in a paper, 'On the Effects of certain Agents on Insects,' which has just been published in the Transactions of the Entomological Society, and is well worth reproduction in a condensed form. The experiments were begun in the winter of 1850, the season, as will be remembered, being so mild that insects were readily met with. Their objects were threefold--to test the effects of temperature, of gases, and of vapours. In the former, recourse was had to extremes of heat and cold. A bee placed in a temperature of 32° became at first more active, but the next morning was found torpid, as if dead; a register-thermometer shewing that 25° had been the lowest temperature during the night. Transferred to a temperature of 52°, the bee revived in half an hour, and on the following day exhibited the same results under the same conditions. A fly which, on December 8, was lively on the wing, in a temperature of 52° indoors, was disinclined to move at 40°; and still more so, stirring only when touched, at 33°, but did not become torpid, as in the case of the bee, even at 23°, signs of life being distinctly visible. Several trials made with different species of flies all gave the same result--a remarkable power of sustaining life. The method adopted was to enclose the insects in a glass tube, and place them out of doors all night; and though the tube was frequently covered with frost, they soon revived in the warm temperature of a room. It is perhaps scarcely possible to estimate the degree of cold which insect life will bear without destruction, since many of these creatures survive the terrible winters of the arctic regions. Still, a knowledge of the effects of reduction of temperature will be valuable, as affording data by which to judge of the effects and probable duration of visitations of insects, and of the nature of the precautionary measures to be adopted. In an experiment of alternate temperature from 40° to 65° tried for five days on a bee, the creature at last 'ceased to give any sign of vitality.'

The influence of heat appears to be much more rapid than that of cold: a fly exposed to a temperature of 120°, died in two or three minutes; and 113° proved fatal to another; while a third, placed in a temperature increased gradually to 96°, remained alive for more than an hour. Others bore from 80° to 90° for two hours; and in one instance, a fly survived from 86° to 100° for several hours, but became uneasy with a slight rise, and died at 105°. A bee, taken on March 15, from a temperature of 45°, was exposed to 80° without any apparent diminution of activity; at 90° it ceased to buzz; and at 96°, ceased altogether to move, and did not revive. Although these results are too few to enable us to determine the laws with respect to the influence of temperature on insects, they may serve a purpose, in shewing that the effect is not that gradual one of hybernation, where activity and torpor succeed each other but slowly.

In the series of experiments with gas, it was found that flies placed in carbonic acid gas became instantly motionless, and died if left for any length of time. Some revived after an hour's immersion; others, after two or three hours--the revival being slow in proportion to the time of exposure to the gas. Somewhat similar results were obtained with flies and bees in hydrogen and azote. To try the effect of deprivation, a fly was shut up in a tube with but a small quantity of common air, on the 5th February, in a temperature varying from 52° to 60° during the whole time of the experiment. The insect manifested no uneasiness until the 25th day, and was found dead on the 28th. Another fly, enclosed in a similar tube, with a quantity of air not more than a few times its own volume, became languid on the second day, and motionless on the twelfth, but revived on being taken out.

Flies immersed in oxygen were found dead the second day, with a diminution of the quantity of the gas. Coal-gas produced almost immediate insensibility, with a few feeble attempts at revival, but in no case effectual. Sulphuretted hydrogen also proved especially fatal--an instant's immersion was sufficient to destroy life; though withdrawn at once, not one of the flies recovered. It was the same when the portion of gas diffused in the air of the tube was so minute as to be scarcely appreciable. On bees, too, the effect was similar; the deadly nature of the gas on their delicate organisation being invariably destructive. Like results were obtained with chlorine.