Page:The Earl of Auckland.djvu/92

86 lost king. In Macnaghten's programme a large space had been set apart for 'the populace restrained by the Sháh's troops.' But the space seemed almost empty, nor did any Afghán of known repute come forward to pay his reverence to the popular idol of Macnaghten's fancy.

The army encamped before Kandahár was in sore need of rest and refreshment alike for man and beast. It took time to replenish the commissariat stores and to repair the loss of camels, horses, and bullocks in the long march from Firozpur. The monotony of camp-life under a burning sun was broken now and then by rambles through the city bazaars, by ceremonious visits to the Sháh, by the murder of an officer who had strayed too far from camp, by the arrival of a large convoy of grain from the southward, by the presence of a mission from Herát, by the despatch of a small force westward in pursuit of the fugitive Sirdárs. Colonel Sale's detachment crossed the Helmand river to Girishk in the middle of May, to find only an empty fort; for the Kandahár chiefs, who had refused Macnaghten's invitation to surrender, had fled from Girishk towards the Persian frontier. Before Keane's army was ready to move forward, fever and dysentery had filled the hospitals and taken heavy toll of human life.

Meanwhile Macnnghten was preparing to make a suitable return to the overtures received from Sháh Kámrán and his villainous Wazír, whose open insults in the previous January had driven Eldred Pottinger