Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/498

442 Afghanistan was intended, broke out into insurrection around Kabul, and in December, 1879, they combined for a resolute assault upon the British intrenchments outside the city. Their defeat, after some very sharp fighting, quieted the surrounding districts for the time, and communications with India were reopened; but the manifest interest of the British government was to make over Afghanistan to some capable and not unfriendly ruler; and, indeed, the war had been undertaken with this sole object.

ABD-AR-RAHMAN, AMIR OF AFGHANISTAN, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH MADE BETWEEN 1870 AND 1880. From The Life of Abdur Rahman.

From this dilemma we were extricated by the appearance in the northern province of Abd-ar-Rahman, the nephew of the Amir Sher Ali's predecessor, who had been driven out of the country when Sher Ali won his throne in the civil war for succession, and had been living under Russian protection beyond the Oxus River. The Viceroy of India (Lord Lytton) made amicable overtures to him, with assurances that his accession to the vacant rulership would not be opposed, and he received an invitation to the British headquarters at Kabul, for the