ian friends, and made for the north; sending letter after
letter ahead of him to General Kaufmann, imploring the promised aid
of Russia. The rapid course of events, however, had entirely
disconcerted the Russian plans.

In the spring, a Russian army might have advanced and cooperated
with that of the Ameer; but the winter had set in, the distance was
immense, and the Russians unprepared for instant action. The
appeals of the unfortunate prince were responded to with vague
generalities. He was no longer a powerful ally, but a broken
instrument and, heartbroken with disappointment and failure, the
unfortunate Sheer-Ali was seized by fever and died, in an obscure
village, almost alone and wholly uncared for.

His son Yakoob Khan--who had, in his youth, proved himself a brave
and able soldier; but who, having incurred his father's
displeasure, had been for years confined as a prisoner at
Herat--was now liberated, and took his place as his father's
successor. He saw at once that, with a broken and disorganized
army, he could not hope to resist the advance of the three British
armies which, coming from Jellalabad, from the heights of the
Shatur-Gardan, and from Candahar, would simultaneously advance upon
his capital, as soon as the snows melted. He therefore opened
negotiations and, early in May, himself descended from Cabul and
had an interview with General Browne, at Gundamuk; when the
preliminaries of peace were arranged, and signed.

The terms insisted upon by the British were not onerous. Yakoob was
recognized as the Ameer of Afghanistan, the annual subsidy paid to
his father was to be continued. The Khyber Pass and the Khurum
valley, as far as the Peiwar-Khotal, were to remain in the hands of
the British; and a British minister was to be stationed at Cabul.
When peace had been signed, the greater portion of the British army
retired to India; and the Khurum column, leaving two or three
regiments in that valley, also fell back.

While the first and second divisions had been gaining victories in
the Khyber and Khurum valleys, the column under General Stewart had
met with difficulties of another kind. Between the Indus, and the
foot of the range of mountains through which the Bolan Pass leads
to the lofty plateau land above, a great waste of sand stretches.
In the wet season, this tract of country is overflowed by the
Indus. In the dry season it is a parched and bare desert, with its
wells few and far apart. There wer