ritish troops in motion
against him. In March 1839 the British force under Sir Willoughby Cotton
advanced through the Bolan Pass, and on the 26th of April it reached
Kandahar. Shah Shuja was proclaimed amir, and entered Kabul on the 7th
of August, while Dost Mahommed sought refuge in the wilds of the Hindu
Kush. Closely followed by the British, Dost was driven to extremities,
and on the 4th of November 1840 surrendered as a prisoner. He remained
in captivity during the British occupation, during the disastrous
retreat of the army of occupation in January 1842, and until the
recapture of Kabul in the autumn of 1842. He was then set at liberty, in
consequence of the resolve of the British government to abandon the
attempt to intervene in the internal politics of Afghanistan. On his
return from Hindustan Dost Mahommed was received in triumph at Kabul,
and set himself to re-establish his authority on a firm basis. From 1846
he renewed his policy of hostility to the British and allied himself
with the Sikhs; but after the defeat of his allies at Gujrat on the 21st
of February 1849 he abandoned his designs and led his troops back into
Afghanistan. In 1850 he conquered Balkh, and in 1854 he acquired control
over the southern Afghan tribes by the capture of Kandahar. On the 30th
of March 1855 Dost Mahommed reversed his former policy by concluding an
offensive and defensive alliance with the British government. In 1857 he
declared war on Persia in conjunction with the British, and in July a
treaty was concluded by which the province of Herat was placed under a
Barakzai prince. During the Indian Mutiny Dost Mahommed punctiliously
refrained from assisting the insurgents. His later years were disturbed
by troubles at Herat and in Bokhara. These he composed for a time, but
in 1862 a Persian army, acting in concert with Ahmad Khan, advanced
against Kandahar. The old amir called the British to his aid, and,
putting himself at the head of his warriors, drove the enemy from his
frontiers. On the 26th of May 1863 he captured Herat, but on the 9th of
June he died suddenly in the midst of victory, after playing a great
role in the history of Central Asia for forty years. He named as his
successor his son, Shere Ali Khan. (E. I. C.)

DOSTOIEVSKY, FEODOR MIKHAILOVICH (1821-1881), Russian author, born at
Moscow, on the 30th of October 1821, was the second son of a retired
military surgeon of a decayed noble family. He was educated at