Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/114

108 letters was inconsistent with the frank and fearless nature of the Sikh.

In April 1840, Sháh Shujá and Sir W. Macnaghten returned to Kábul. The Duke of Wellington had foretold that our real difficulties in Afghánistan would begin at the end of a successful campaign. In spite of a series of astonishing blunders, we had replaced Sháh Shujá on the throne of his very few ancestors. But to conquer the country was one thing, to settle it under a rule propped up by foreign bayonets was quite another. The Afgháns are a group of hardy, war-loving, bigoted, unruly tribes, ready to quarrel upon any pretext, to take up arms for revenge or the chance of plunder, to carry on blood-feuds between tribe and tribe, family and family, for generations. But they are not less ready to combine at need against invaders of alien race, of an obnoxious creed, and of strange, uncongenial habits, who curtail their rude freedom, shock their prejudices, and insult their pride. These Montenegrins of Central Asia might be cowed for a time by the argument of superior force, or soothed by a careful distribution of rupees. But how long would they keep quiet, when money became scarcer, and our diminished garrison was scattered about a country larger than Spain, and more rugged than Switzerland?

While the Sháh retained a certain show of authority, its substance remained in the Envoy's hands. Within certain limits the puppet sovereign might do as much