Muhammad's jailor into his ally[1]. And, worse still, they failed to soften the heart of that fierce tyrant towards another captive, the ill-fated Colonel Stoddart, whom McNeill, some months before, had sent on a friendly mission to the Khán's Court.
Meanwhile D'Arcy Todd had taken at Herát the place of Eldred Pottinger, returning to India on leave. Sháh Kámrán's new engagements with his English friends, who were so lavish of rupees and so helpful in strengthening the defences of his frontier city, did not prevent him and his villainous Wazír from playing their old game of intrigue at Teherán and among the Khánates along the Oxus. Our meddling and fussing policy was sowing throughout Central Asia the seeds of a not unreasonable mistrust. Why were all those English Sahibs riding to and fro, scattering gold, promises, and threats over countries so remote from the Anglo-Indian frontier? Macnaghten's letters of this period showed his eagerness to annex Herát, to coerce the Sikhs into 'macadamizing the Punjab,' and to carry our arms across the wilds of Balkh even to the banks of the Upper Oxus. If the rulers of Herát got scent of these designs, no wonder they took our money and intrigued against us at the same time!
If they succeeded in working upon the jealous fears of the ruler of Bokhára, who treated Stoddart as an enemy in disguise, their appeals were wasted upon the Khán of Khíva, whose Khánate lay to the west of
- ↑ Durand.
