ssion of my own views upon the subject in order that I might,
if possible, obtain from the Amir a perfectly spontaneous and
truthful account of the circumstances which led, in his opinion,
to Sher Ali's estrangement from ourselves and _rapprochement_ to
Russia. In this I think I succeeded. Yakub Khan spoke readily
and freely of all that had passed, and needed no question or
suggestion from me to declare his conviction regarding the cause
of his father's unfriendly attitude towards us during the past few
years.

3. The substance of the Amir's statement was as follows:

'In 1869 my father was fully prepared to throw in his lot with
you. He had suffered many reverses before making himself secure on
the throne of Afghanistan; and he had come to the conclusion that
his best chance of holding what he had won lay in an alliance with
the British Government. He did not receive from Lord Mayo as
large a supply of arms and ammunition as he had hoped, but,
nevertheless, he returned to Kabul fairly satisfied, and so he
remained until the visit of Saiyad Nur Muhammud to India in 1873.
This visit brought matters to a head. The diaries received from
Saiyad Nur Mahomed during his stay in India, and the report which
he brought back on his return, convinced my father that he could
no longer hope to obtain from the British Government all the aid
that he wanted; and from that time he began to turn his attention
to the thoughts of a Russian alliance. You know how this ended.

'When my father received from the Government of India the letter
informing him that a British Mission was about to proceed to
Kabul, he read it out in durbar. The members of the Russian
Embassy were present. After the reading was finished, Colonel
Stolietoff rose, saluted the Amir and asked permission to leave
Kabul. If permitted, he would, he said, travel without delay to
Tashkent, and report the state of affairs to General Kauffmann,
who would inform the Czar, and thus bring pressure to bear on
England. He promised to return in six weeks or two months, and
urged the Amir to do everything in his power meanwhile to prevent
the British Mission from reaching Kabul.

'Colonel Stolietoff never returned to Kabul. He lost no time in
reaching Tashkent, where he remained for a few weeks, and he then
started for Russia.

'T