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136 houses was slaughtered; the Treasury was sacked, and both buildings were set on fire.

Thus perished in his prime, with his hand upon the prize for which he had long been hungering, the first conspicuous victim of the frantic policy which he had once so strenuously opposed. 'It was' — says Kaye — 'the hard fate of Alexander Burnes to be overrated at the outset and underrated at the close of his career.' A man of bright talents, immense energy, and high ambition, with a quick, mercurial nature, that touched in one moment the extremest chords of hope and despondency, he was evidently wanting in steadiness of purpose, sound judgement, and moral self-restraint. When the Russians were about to march on Khíva, his lively fancy swelled their numbers to the absurd total of 25,000 men with eighty guns. For the past three years he had been almost a cipher at the Sháh's Court, wasting his time in criticisms and suggestions, to which Macnaghten gave very little heed. And yet he had managed somehow to become the worst-hated Englishman in Afghánistán.

But how happened it that no help came to Burnes at such a moment even from the Bála Hissár? The failure was owing, not to the Sháh himself, but to the commander who, of two roads open to him, had taken that which wound through all the most crowded thoroughfares in Kábul. His troops and guns made slow progress through the narrow winding streets of a populous city, and before they reached their goal they