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 the other little Indian impediments in the way that we are so ingenious in raising. They got to Bombay in a month. It must make you quite uneasy to know what near neighbours we are—so unpleasant to be overlooked.

I don’t think anybody seems politically happy in England. Indeed, I don’t very well see how anybody can be, because, as neither Whigs nor Tories can govern, it would show want of feeling in either to laugh. If you think that Dost Mahomed would be of any use at home as Prime Minister, in about a week we expect to have him and to be puzzled what to do with him, and we’ll send him to you. You don’t tell me half enough about your two out girls. They are doing just the bit of life which interests me beyond everything, the only violently happy bit in fact.

August 17.

And now we’ve been fighting—taking a fort—just the thing you would have done with your yeomanry, only they never offered you a fort to take. The fort of Ghuznee is only five marches from Candahar, and is considered one. of the strongest forts in India. It was defended