neutralised, and eventually wholly destroyed its work. Shah Soojah, a name to be before many years but too familiar to English ears, received the envoys at Peshawur, then one of the chief cities of his kingdom. He appeared to them in royal state, seated on a golden throne, and blazing with jewels, chief among which shone forth in a gorgeous bracelet the mighty Koh-i-noor. Nor were the English outdone in magnificence. The entire mission was on a scale of profuse splendour, and the presents they brought with them so numerous and so costly that when, thirty years later, Burnes arrived in Cabul the courtiers turned in disgust from what Kaye contemptuously calls "his pins and needles, and little articles of hardware, such as would have disgraced the wallet of a pedlar of low repute." The envoys were most hospitably received, and Elphinstone formed a very favourable opinion of the character of Soojah, whom he described as both affable and dignified and bearing the "manners of a gentleman." He listened attentively to the envoys' proposals, and declared that "England and Cabul were designed by the Creator to be united by bonds of everlasting friendship," but at the same time he confessed his country to be in such an unsettled condition, and his own throne so insecure, that, for the present, the best advice he could give the English gentlemen was that they should retire beyond the frontier. On June 14th, 1809, therefore, the mission set out on its homeward journey, having, however, arranged a treaty, which was shortly after formally ratified by Lord Minto at Calcutta, by which Soojah bound himself to treat the French, if allied with the Persians, much as the Persian monarch had pledged himself to behave to them if allied with the Afghans. But even at the very time of ratification this treaty had been practically rendered null by the success of Sir Harford Jones's mission to Teheran, and within a year Soojah had been deposed by his brother Mahmoud, from whom he had himself wrested the crown, and was a captive in the hands of Runjeet Singh.

The final overthrow of Napoleon in 1815 removed all fears of a French advance on India, but in its stead arose the still more imminent shadow of Russia. For many years past that shadow had been looming larger and larger to the eyes of the kings of Teheran, till the annexation of Georgia brought the eagles of the Czar over the Caucasus up to the very frontier of their northern provinces. The English alliance, and an army drilled under the supervision of English officers, had, however, turned the head of the Persian king, and his heir, Abbas Mirza, at the head of 40,000 troops, of whom half were drilled and equipped after the English fashion, dared, in 1826, to throw down the gauntlet to the Czar. He paid dearly for his daring. English drill and English arms availed him little without English officers. His son, Mahomed Mirza, was utterly routed with the division under his command, and soon after he himself was defeated in open battle by the Russian Paskewitch with a loss of 1200 men. The English help, promised by the treaty of 1814 in the event of Persia becoming involved in war with any European power, was not forthcoming. Mediation took the place of armed men, and with the help of Great Britain a peace was concluded in 1828 between the two powers, humiliating to Persia, and ultimately disastrous to England. By this treaty Persia lost the Khanates of Erivan and Nakhichevan, and practically her whole defensive frontier to the north. In Sir Harford Jones's words, "Persia was delivered, bound hand and foot, to the Court of St. Petersburg." The territory acquired by Russia was nearly equal in extent to the whole of England, and her outposts were brought within a few days' march of the Persian capital. From that time, up to Lord Auckland's arrival at Calcutta in 1836, Persia was little more than a minion of the Czar, used by him to cover the steady advance of his battalions eastward. The death of Futteh Ali Shah, at Ispahan in 1834, snapped the last link that bound Persia to our interests. Futteh Ali, as far as lay in his power, had ever striven to remain faithful to his English allies, and to resist, as far as he dared, Russian intrigue and Russian influence within his kingdom. But his son and grandson had welcomed the Muscovite alliance with open arms, and when the latter ascended the throne on his grandfather's death, it was evident that the Czar would be paramount at the Persian Court. Mahomed Mirza Shah, the new king, had long dreamed of the conquest of Herat and the extension of his eastern frontier, and had more than once, in his grandfather's lifetime, striven to turn his dreams to facts. Nothing could have been more favourable to the Russian plans, and no sooner was Mahomed secure upon the throne than he was urged to the immediate execution of his long-cherished designs. Such was the state of affairs when Lord Auckland was despatched by Lord Melbourne in 1836 to take the reins of Indian Government from the hands of Sir Charles Metcalfe.

Meanwhile many changes had taken place at Cabul. The weak and dissolute Mahmoud, the deposer of Soojah, proved no more than a puppet in the hands of his Vizier, Futteh Khan, the head of the great Barukzye tribe. The youngest of the twenty brothers of this able and powerful chief was the celebrated Dost Mahomed. Born of a woman of an inferior tribe, he had entered life as a sweeper of the sacred tomb of Lamech. From thence he was promoted to hold a menial office about the person of his great brother, into whose favour he at length rose by the murder, when only a boy of fourteen, of one of the Vizier's enemies. From that time his rise was steady, and as he rose so did he discard the follies and excesses of his youth, displaying a daring and heroic spirit, great military address, and a power of self-discipline and self-control unparalleled among the chiefs of Central Asia. To his hands was entrusted the execution of the Vizier's project for establishing the Barukzyes in Herat, then held by a brother of the reigning king. The design was completely successful for the moment, owing to the daring and also to the treachery of Dost Mahomed, but the blow recoiled with fearful force on the person of the Vizier. Returning from his raid against the Persians, which had been the ostensible pretext for his march to Herat, Futteh Khan was seized by Prince Kamran, son of Mahmoud; his eyes were put out, and persisting in his refusal to give up his brother to the Prince's vengeance, he was hacked to pieces before the whole court. This brutal act finally overthrew the long tottering dynasty of the Suddozyes, who had been kings in Cabul since Ahmed Shah founded the Afghan Empire in 1747. Dost Mahomed's vengeance was sudden and no less brutal. But it is impossible in this limited space to enter into all the details of his rise to the chief seat of power. It must suffice to say that when Lord Auckland entered on his government Dost Mahomed was firmly seated on the throne of Cabul, and the whole of the country in the hands of the Barukzye Sirdars, with the exception of Herat, where Kamran still reigned, the last remnant, save the exiled Soojah, of the legitimate line.

Shortly after Lord Auckland's arrival at Calcutta Dost Mahomed addressed to him a letter of congratulation on his assumption of office. Adverting to his quarrel with the Sikhs, who, under Runjeet Singh, the old one-eyed "Lion of the Punjab," had wrested the rich valley of Peshawur from the Afghan Empire, he said, "the late transactions in this quarter, the conduct of the reckless and misguided Sikhs, and their breach of treaty, are well known to your Lordship. Communicate to me whatever may suggest itself to your wisdom for the settlement of the affairs of this country, that it