y as formidable a combination as we had
to deal with two months later at Sherpur. Nothing could then have
saved the force, not one man of which I firmly believe would have ever
returned to tell the tale in India. Worse than all, I had in my own
camp a traitor, in the form of the Amir, posing as a friend to the
British Government and a refugee seeking our protection, while he was
at heart our bitterest enemy, and was doing everything in his power to
make my task more difficult and ensure our defeat.

The march to Kandahar was certainly much longer, the country was
equally unfriendly, and the feeding of so large a number of men and
animals was a continual source of anxiety. But I had a force capable
of holding its own against any Afghan army that could possibly be
opposed to it, and good and sufficient transport to admit of its
being kept together, with the definite object in view of rescuing our
besieged countrymen and defeating Ayub Khan; instead of, as at Kabul,
having to begin to unravel a difficult political problem after
accomplishing the defeat of the tribesmen and the Afghan army.

I could only account to myself for the greater amount of interest
displayed in the march to Kandahar, and the larger amount of credit
given to me for that undertaking, by the glamour of romance thrown
around an army of 10,000 men lost to view, as it were, for nearly a
month, about the fate of which uninformed speculation was rife and
pessimistic rumours were spread, until the tension became extreme,
and the corresponding relief proportionably great when that army
reappeared to dispose at once of Ayub and his hitherto victorious
troops.

I did not return to India until the end of 1881, six weeks out of
these precious months of leave having been spent in a wild-goose chase
to the Cape of Good Hope and back, upon my being nominated by Mr.
Gladstone's Government Governor of Natal and Commander of the Forces
in South Africa, on the death of Sir George Colley and the receipt of
the news of the disaster at Majuba Hill. While I was on my way out
to take up my command, peace was made with the Boers in the most
marvellously rapid and unexpected manner, A peace, alas! 'without
honour,' to which may be attributed the recent regrettable state of
affairs in the Transvaal--a state of affairs which was foreseen and
predicted by many at the time. My stay at Cape Town was limited to
twenty-four hours, the Government being apparently as anxious to get