If in the character and the person of Shah Kamran there was little that

was estimable or attractive, there was less in the person and character

of his Wuzeer. Yar Mahomed Khan was a stout, square-built man, of

middle height, with a heavy, stern countenance, thick negro-like lips,

bad straggling teeth, an overhanging brow, and an abruptly receding

forehead. His face was redeemed from utter repulsiveness by the

fineness of his eyes and the comeliness of his beard. Like his master

he attired himself with care and propriety; but his manner was more

attractive than his appearance. Affable in his demeanour, outwardly

courteous and serene, he seldom gave the rein to his temper, but

held it in habitual control. He talked freely and well, had a fund

of anecdote at his command, was said to be well read in Mahomedan

divinity, and was strict in his attention to the external formalities

of his religion. His courage was never questioned; and his ability was

as undoubted as his courage. Both were turned to the worst possible

account. Of all the unscrupulous miscreants in Central Asia, Yar

Mahomed was the most unscrupulous. His avarice and his ambition knew

no bounds, and nothing was suffered to stand in the way of their

gratification. Utterly without tenderness or compassion, he had no

regard for the sufferings of others. Sparing neither sex nor age, he

trod down the weak with an iron heel; and, a tyrant himself, encouraged

the tyranny of his retainers. As faithless as he was cruel, there was

no obligation which he had not violated, no treachery that had not

stained his career. If there was an abler or a worse man in Central

Asia, I have not yet heard his name.[144]

In the summer of 1837 the bazaars of Herat were a-stir with rumours of

the movements of the royal army. The King and the Wuzeer were absent

from the city on a campaign in Seistan. To gratify the personal rancour

of the latter they had laid siege to the fortress of Jowayn, and in the

vain attempt to reduce a place of no political importance, had crippled

their own military resources in a manner which they soon began bitterly

to lament. The waste of so much strength on so small an enterprise

was unworthy of a man so able and so astute as Yar Mahomed; but the

feeling of personal resentment was stronger in him than either avarice

or ambition. He had a larger game in hand at that time; and he should

have husbanded all his resources for the great struggle by which he

sought to restore to the Suddozye Princes the sovereignty of Caubul and

Candahar.[145]

It was soon buzzed abroad in Herat that the army was about to

return—that it had broken off from the siege of Jowayn—and was coming

back to gird itself up for stirring work at home. Cossids were coming

in daily from the royal camp with instructions for the collection

of grain and the repair of the defences of the city. The meaning of

this was involved in no obscurity. The ambassador who had been sent

to Teheran to seek, among other objects, the assistance of Mahomed

Shah in the projected enterprise for the recovery of Candahar and

Caubul[146] had brought back an answer to the effect that the Persian

monarch claimed both principalities for himself, and intended to take

possession of Herat as a preliminary to further operations. It was said

to be the intention of the King of Kings to proceed to Caubul, and,

receiving as the price of his assistance the submission of the Ameer,

to join Dost Mahomed in a religious war against the Sikhs. Herat was to

be reduced on the road. Kamran was to be deprived of his regal titles.

Prayers were to be said and coin struck in the name of the Persian

King; and a Persian garrison was to be received into the city. These

were the terms dictated by Mahomed Shah, and thrown back by Shah Kamran

with defiance.

The greatest excitement now prevailed throughout the city. There was

but one topic of discourse. Every man met his neighbour with a word

about the coming of the Persian army. The _Sheeahs_, smarting under

the tyranny to which they had long been subjected, spoke of the advent

of the Persian monarch as of the coming of a deliverer, whilst the

_Soonee_ Afghans, whom they taunted with predictions of the success of

the invading force, swore that they would defend, to the last drop of

their blood, the only remnant of the old Afghan monarchy which had not

been violently wrested from the hands of its legitimate possessors.

On the 17th of September the King returned to Herat. Moved by one

common impulse of curiosity, the people went forth to meet him. The

streets were lined with eager thousands, and the house-tops were alive

with gazers. A procession of the true Oriental type, it presented, in

vivid contrasts, strange alternations of the shabby and the superb.

First came a few strong baggage-mules, and a few straggling horsemen,

mounted on fine well-built animals, but lean, and often lame and

wounded. Then, in their high red-cloth caps, appeared the criers and

the executioners, bearing aloft the instruments of their calling;

and, in spite of the grim suggestiveness of the large knives and

tiger-headed brazen maces, presenting an appearance less solemn than

grotesque. Next came a string of horses led by armed grooms, their

fine stag-like heads telling the purity of their blood, and their

handsome equipments the royal ownership they boasted. Then followed,

close behind, in a covered litter of red cloth, carried by Hindostanee

bearers, Shah Kamran himself. Very plainly, but tastefully attired, the

golden bosses on his sword-belt, and the jewels on his dagger-hilt,

being the only ornaments about the royal person, he returned, through

the open curtains of his litter, with a kingly and a graceful courtesy,

the salutations of the people. Next came the Royal Princes, with the

eunuchs, and other personal attendants of the Shah;[147] and then,

but at a long interval, a motley crowd of armed foot-men, the regular

infantry of Herat, in all sorts of irregular costumes. These preceded

the cavalcade of the Wuzeer, Yar Mahomed, who, with all the chiefs of

note around him, headed the main body of the Afghan cavalry, whose low

sheepskin caps and uniform attire made up a very soldierly appearance.

Another body of infantry closed the procession. The guns had been left

behind.

Among the many who went forth on that September morning to witness

the entrance of Shah Kamran into his capital, was a young European

officer. Riding out a mile beyond the city walls, he picketed his horse

in the courtyard of a deserted house, and joined a party of Afghans,

who, sitting on the domed roof of the building, were watching the

procession as it passed. He had entered Herat about a month before,

after an adventurous journey from Caubul, through the Imauk and Hazareh

countries. The name of this young officer was Eldred Pottinger. He

was a Lieutenant in the Bombay Artillery; and had been despatched by

his uncle, Colonel Pottinger, who was then Resident in Sindh, for the

purpose of exploring the countries of Afghanistan, and collecting

materials for a full report to be drawn up on his return. He started

in no recognised official capacity, but travelled onward in the most

unostentatious manner, assuming the disguise of a Cutch horse-dealer,

and attracting little attention on his route. Journeying upwards by

Shikarpoor and Dehra Ismael Khan to Peshawur, he proceeded thence to

Caubul, and there changing his disguise for that of an Indian Syud,

made his way through the rude country of the Imauks and Hazarehs to

Herat. Though at this period he was but slightly acquainted with the

Persian language, and was ignorant of the Mahomedan prayers, of their

genuflexions, modes of worship, and similar observances, he passed on

almost unquestioned by the credulous Afghans. In Herat itself, though

he seems to have taken little pains to conceal his real character, he

remained, for some time,[148] lodging in a caravanserai, and mixing

freely with its inmates, but seldom recognised as an European by those

with whom he associated.

The King and the Wuzeer returned to Herat; and Eldred Pottinger soon

sent a message to the latter, offering, as a stranger and a traveller,

to wait upon him, if he desired to see him. To the surprise of the

English officer, Yar Mahomed sent a messenger to him intimating that,

early on the following morning, he would be happy to receive him.

Pottinger went. The minister, who was seated in an alcove in the

dressing-room of his bath, rose as the stranger entered, invited him to

take a seat beside himself, and welcomed him with becoming courtesy. As

the only articles he possessed worthy of the acceptance of the chief,

Pottinger presented his detonating pistols; and the gift was graciously

received. A few days afterwards he paid, “by desire,” a visit to the

King.[149] Little did Shah Kamran and Yar Mahomed, when they received

that unassuming traveller, think how much, under Providence, the future

destinies of Herat were in the hands of the young Englishman.

The spirit of adventure was strong in Eldred Pottinger. It had brought

him to the gates of Herat, and now it kept him there, eager to take

a part in the coming struggle between the Heratees and their Persian

invaders. And when the day of trial came—when the enemy were under the

walls of the city—he threw himself into the contest, not merely in a

spirit of adventure, as a young soldier rejoicing in the opportunity

thus afforded him of taking part in the stirring scenes of active

warfare, but as one profoundly impressed with the conviction that his

duty to his country called upon him, in such a crisis, to put forth all

his energies in aid of those who were striving to arrest a movement

threatening not only the independence of Herat, but the stability of

the British Empire in the East.

Scarcely had the King returned to Herat, when a proclamation went forth

into the surrounding villages, decreeing that all the grain and forage

should be brought into the city, and that the villagers should abide

within its walls, on pain of the Shah’s resentment. The danger seemed

something dim and remote, and the order, at first, was little heeded.

But when, towards the close of October, intelligence reached Herat that

the Persian army had arrived at Toorbut, another more imperative edict

was issued, commanding all the outstanding crops, grain, and forage,

to be destroyed, and the fruit-trees to be cut down in the surrounding

gardens. The soldiery were let loose upon the country to carry out

the royal decree. The policy of this measure is apparent; but there

was unlooked-for evil in the result. It was the object of the Heratee

Government to keep all the available grain, forage, and firewood

outside the city from falling into the hands of the invading army. If

these necessaries could not be stored in Herat, the next best thing was

to destroy them. But the licence thus given to the soldiery completely

unhinged the little discipline that had before kept them together. They

were, indeed, from that time so completely disorganised, that it was

never afterwards found practicable to reduce them to order.

In the mean while, the city was alive with rumours of the progress of

the Persian army. It was ascertained that they were moving forward in

three bodies, the advance of which was a force of 10,000 or 12,000

men, under Alayar Khan.[150] Every now and then a prisoner was brought

in; but the people, who seized them, bitterly complained that they

could not make more captures. The Persian army, they loudly declared,

was composed of a set of the most contemptible cowards, because

they marched in compact bodies, defended by their guns, instead

of straggling boldly about on purpose to be cut off by marauding

Afghans.[151]

Early in November there was a hard frost, and the Heratees began

hopefully to speculate on the chances of a severe winter. Never were

the predictions of the weather-wise so cruelly falsified; but the hope

buoyed them up for a time. Another cheering anticipation was belied in

the same mortifying manner. It was long a matter of anxious conjecture

whether the Persians would attack Ghorian. In 1834-35 they had left

it untouched; and it was believed that now again they would mask it,

for its reputed strength was greater than that of Herat, and it was

defended by a picked garrison, under the command of the brother of Yar

Mahomed. But these hopes were soon dispersed by the arrival of couriers

from Ghorian, with tidings that the place was besieged. On the 15th of

November it was announced that Ghorian had fallen.

Matters now began to wear a more alarming aspect. Cursing with his

whole heart the cowardice or treachery of his brother, who, almost

without a struggle, had shamefully surrendered his charge,[152] Yar

Mahomed, with increased vigour, addressed himself to the defence of

the city. The gates were closed against all egress. The people poured

into Herat in floods from the surrounding country. In every house were

huddled together the members of five or six families. The very ruins

were thickly tenanted. But still the streets were alive with throngs of

people seeking habitations in the city. Everywhere excitement and alarm

were visible in the countenances and the gestures of the Heratees.

It was a strange and fearful conjuncture, and no man felt himself

secure. A fiat had gone forth for the apprehension of all persons of

doubtful loyalty. Many suspected of infidelity were seized, their

persons imprisoned, and their property confiscated, whilst others, in

whom the spirit of rebellion had been more clearly evidenced, were

plunged, with all their family and dependents, into one great sea of

ruin. When it was known that Shums-ood-deen Khan,[153] an Afghan chief

of note, had thrown off his allegiance to Herat, his Persian dependents

were seized and stripped of all they possessed. Some were tortured,

some were sent into slavery, and some were condemned to death. The

women and children were sold or given away. Those of the Afghan tribes

were more mercifully treated; but few escaped imprisonment and fine.

Nor were even the priesthood spared. The Moollahs of the Sheeah sect

were arrested and confined, lest they should stir up intrigue and

disaffection among the people.

Whilst these precautions against internal revolt were taken by the Shah

and his unscrupulous minister, actively and unceasingly they laboured

to defend the city against the enemy advancing from without. The

fortifications now began to bristle with armed soldiers. The hammer of

the artificer rang upon the guns in the embrasures. The spade of the

workman was busy upon the ramparts. Eager for the foray, the trooper

mounted his horse and scoured the country to cut off stragglers. But

still the Persian army moved forward in that compact and well-ordered

mass which had baffled the efforts and kindled the indignation of

marauders along their whole line of march. Soon the contest actually

commenced. On the 22nd of November, the advanced guard of the Persian

army took up its position on the plain to the north-west of the city.

Watching its opportunity, the Afghan horse charged the enemy’s cavalry

with success, and then fell upon an infantry regiment, which stood

firm, and repulsed the attack. The Persian field artillery opened

briskly upon the Afghan force. A couple of guns in the city replied to

them; whilst a party of Afghan horsemen, dismounted, crept under cover,

and with their long rifle-barrelled matchlocks, fired on the Persian

gunners. Upon this, skirmishers were sent out by the Persians, who

turned the flank of the Afghans, and forced them back to the position

which they had taken up before. No advantage was gained by either

party. But the contest was now fairly commenced.

The following day witnessed the opening of the siege of Herat—one,

whether we regard the protracted nature of the operations, the vigour

of the resistance, the gallantry of the chief actors concerned in it,

or the magnitude of the political results, of the most remarkable in

modern history. It was on the 23rd of November that the siege actually

commenced. Taking possession of all the gardens and enclosures to the

west of the city, and establishing themselves in considerable force

among a cluster of ruins that afforded them good shelter, the Persians

began to make their preparations for the attack. The garrison sallied

out as they advanced. The Afghan infantry disputed every inch of

ground, and the cavalry hung on the flanks of the Persian army. But

they could not dislodge the enemy from the position they had taken

up; and after carrying off a few prisoners, were compelled at last to

retire.

From the events, however, of that day, two significant facts were to

be deduced. The Persians had tried their artillery upon the walls of

Herat in answer to the guns which the garrison had fired in support

of their skirmishers: and the rotten parapets had fallen like tinder

even to the light shot that was poured upon them. It was plain that

little reliance was to be placed upon the strength of the defences. It

was plain, too, that the war thus commenced would be carried on in a

spirit of unsparing hatred and savage inhumanity—that what was wanting,

on either side, in science or in courage, would be made up for in

cruelty and vindictiveness. The Afghan skirmishers that evening brought

in some prisoners and some heads. The latter were paraded about the

ramparts.[154] The former bartered for horses with the Toorkomans, and

sent off to the slave-markets of Merve.

The siege was soon in full operation. Whilst the Heratees were busily

at work strengthening their defences, the Persians were entrenching

themselves, throwing up their batteries, planting their guns, and

trying their effect upon the walls of the city. After a day or two,

guns, mortars, and rocket batteries were all in full play upon Herat.

The rockets ranged too widely to work any serious mischief to the

besieged; but their grand fiery flight as they passed over the city

struck terror into the hearts of the people, who clustered upon the

roofs of the houses, praying and crying by turns. “The uproar and

confusion inside was tremendous, whilst not a sound was heard from the

ramparts which a few nights before had been shaken by clamour.”[155]

The defenders of the city had too much serious occupation on hand to

expend themselves in much noise. It was no easy thing to repair the

defences which were crumbling to pieces under the fire of the Persian

batteries. Silently, but resolutely, they set about their work,

repairing the mischief as it arose, and giving a new character of

defence to the battered fortifications.[156]

Day after day, with little change of circumstance and little gain to

either party, the siege continued throughout the months of November and

December. At the end of the former, Pottinger wrote in his journal,

“The Persians have wasted some thousand rounds of ammunition, and

are not more advanced than when the firing commenced.” The dreaded

artillery of Mahomed Shah was less formidable in reality than in

the excited imaginations of the Heratees; and the besieged gathered

new courage from the success of their resistance. The fire from the

Persian batteries was irregular and spasmodic; sometimes maintained

with exceeding spirit, and at others languid and uncertain. The round

shot from the guns went over the batteries, often clearing the entire

city, but sometimes falling within it. The vertical firing from the

mortars told with better effect. The shells[157] were thrown less at

random, and many houses were destroyed. The loss of life was not great

in the city; but those domestic episodes of war, which give so painful

an interest to the annals of an attack upon a fortified town, were not

absent from the siege of Herat. In the next house to that in which

Eldred Pottinger resided, a shell descended close to the spot on which

an infant was sleeping. The terrified mother rushed between the deadly

missile and her child. The shell exploding carried off her head; and

the corpse of the mother fell upon the babe, and suffocated it.

In the mean while, with a vigour and a constancy worthy of any

garrison, in ancient or in modern times, the besieged continued to

conduct their defensive operations. Three of the five gates of the city

were kept open, and the communications with the surrounding country

were preserved. The cattle were sent out to graze. Firewood and other

commodities were brought into the city. Every night the garrison

sallied out, attacked the working parties, carried off their tools,

often destroyed their entrenchments, wounded and sometimes killed the

workmen, and carried their bleeding heads, with barbarous triumph, into

the city.

Whilst the activity of the garrison thus sensibly increased, that

of the besiegers was plainly declining. Throughout the month of

December little progress was made. The fire of the Persian batteries

slackened—sometimes altogether ceased. When it was most lively, it was

wild and eccentric—so slovenly, indeed, as to warrant the belief that

every gun was pointed in a different direction, and every gunner firing

at some particular mark of his own. At last, on Christmas Day, when the

siege had been continued for more than a month, Eldred Pottinger wrote

in his journal, “I could not help recollecting the three shots a day

which the Spanish army before Gibraltar fired for some time, and which

the garrison called after the Trinity.”

The following day was one of barbarous retaliation. All the Persian

prisoners in Herat were sent off for sale to Kurookh. There were Afghan

prisoners, at this time, in the Persian camp; and Mahomed Shah had no

refined Christian notions on the score of returning good for evil.

He ripped up the bellies, or destroyed after some cruel fashion, all

the prisoners who fell into his hands. After this, in spite of the

heavy rains that fell during the two succeeding days, there were some

demonstrations of increased vigour in the conduct of the siege. A mine

was sprung, and a practicable breach effected; but the storming party

was driven back with considerable loss. Hadjee Khan, who commanded the

party, was severely wounded, and one Mahomed Sheriff, a deserter from

Herat, and a soldier of very formidable reputation, was killed in the

breach. So much was this man dreaded, and such throughout the city was

the opinion of his prowess, that when intelligence of his death was

conveyed to Kamran, the Shah exclaimed, with eager delight, “Mahomed

Shah, I am well satisfied, will never take Herat _now_.”

The 30th of December was the great day of the festival of the

Eyd-i-Ramzan. On this day the long Mahomedan fast terminates; and it

is ordinarily one of feasting and rejoicing. Even now, with becoming

festivity, was it observed both by besiegers and besieged. On either

side there was a tacit suspension of hostilities. Accompanied by the

royal family, Shah Kamran went in procession to the Juma Musjid, or

great mosque;[158] and, after offering up the accustomed prayers,

distributed sweetmeats among the Moollahs. The holy men scrambled

for the delicacies with surprising activity; but they were deprived

of their accustomed banquet of more substantial food. The liberality

of his Majesty, on this occasion, flowed in a different channel.

It was not a time in which to distribute valuable provender among

such unserviceable people as priests, nobles, and courtiers. The

customary entertainment to these worthies gave place, therefore, to a

distribution of all the disposable provisions to the fighting men and

operatives on the works.

The new year opened with some increase of activity on the part of

the besiegers. Their mining operations alarmed the garrison; and

vigorous efforts were made by a corresponding activity in the works,

to frustrate the designs of the assailants. All true Mahomedans were

called upon, by proclamation, to aid in the defence of the city, as

the danger was very pressing. The assistance of the Moollahs was called

in to organise working parties from among the people; and the houses of

the Sheeahs and all suspected persons were again searched for arms. In

the midst of these preparations, an emissary from the Persian camp made

his appearance in the trenches opposite to the south-west bastion, and

demanded to speak with the Wuzeer. This was the brother of Yar Mahomed,

Shere Mahomed Khan, who had delivered up Ghorian to the Persians. The

Wuzeer refused to see him; but the Sirdar implored the soldiers at the

post to tell his brother that if Herat were not surrendered to Mahomed

Shah, the Persian monarch would put him to death, storm the city, hang

Yar Mahomed like a dog, and give his women and children to be publicly

dishonoured by the muleteers.

The Afghans replied with a volley of abuse, cursing the Sirdar and the

Persians; but the message was delivered to the Wuzeer. It found the

minister in no very gentle mood. The mention of his brother’s name

exasperated him beyond control. “Tell the Sirdar,” he said, “I am

glad that Mahomed Shah intends to save me the trouble of putting the

traitor to death. He is no brother of mine. I disown him. He is not my

father’s son. He is not an Afghan, but a Cashmerian, after his mother.

As for myself, when Mahomed Shah takes the city, he is at liberty to do

with me what he likes. In all other respects, I am his Majesty’s most

obedient servant; but I cannot obey him in this matter, for the Afghans

will not hear of surrender.”[159] And with this message Shere Mahomed

returned, crest-fallen, to the Persian camp.[160]

The siege operations were continued; but with little access of

vigour. The Persians were conducting no less than five several

attacks on different points of the fortifications. The work was not

carried forward in a manner that would have gladdened the heart of

the commanding officer of a corps of English sappers; but the real

nature of the enemy’s movements was so little understood, that the

garrison often exaggerated the danger, and gave the Persians credit

for stratagems that had never entered their minds. One example of this

will suffice. From beneath the rampart opposite the attack, conducted

by General Samson and the Russian regiment, a mysterious noise, as of

mining, was heard to proceed. It was audible to very few, and then

only from a particular point; but abundant confirmation of the worst

apprehensions of the garrison was derived from the fact that there

was a working party in constant activity, throwing out black mud from

the trench in the neighbourhood of the spot whence the mysterious

sounds were heard to issue. The greatest alarm was occasioned by this

intelligence; and the Heratees began at once to take counsel as to the

best means of counteracting the stratagems of the besiegers.

In this crisis, the advice of Eldred Pottinger was sought by the

garrison. His activity was unfailing; he was always on the ramparts;

always ready to assist with his counsel—the counsel of an educated

English officer—the ruder science of the responsible conductors of the

defence, and to inspire with his animating presence new heart into the

Afghan soldiery. They asked him now if it were possible to mine below

the ditch. His answer was in the affirmative; but he represented at the

same time how much more feasible it was to fill up the ditch and sap

across it. “The fear of stratagem, however,” he says, “was predominant;

and they took stronger measures to counteract the supposed danger,

and went to greater trouble about it than they did with actions of

vital importance to their preservation. I recommended that a gallery

of envelope under the lower _fausse-braie_ should be completed, and in

it a few shafts sunk a little below the floor of the gallery. This did

not satisfy them; so they sunk shafts on both sides of the wall and

connected them by galleries; and dug a ditch inside the city, at the

foot of the mound, till the water stood several feet deep in it.” The

sequel of all this is sufficiently diverting. It was not until some

months afterwards, when these extensive and laborious works were nearly

completed, that it was discovered that the mysterious noise, which had

struck so great a terror into the hearts of the garrison, arose from

nothing more formidable than “a poor woman, who was in the habit of

using a hand-mill to grind her wheat, in an excavation at the back of

the mound.”[161]

On the 18th of January, Yar Mahomed besought Eldred Pottinger to

proceed as an envoy, on the part of the Afghans, to the Persian

camp. The young English officer readily assented to the proposal;

and it was arranged that on the morrow he should have an audience of

Shah Kamran, and receive instructions for the conduct of his mission.

Accordingly, on the following day, he was conducted to the residence

of the Shah. As he went along, he observed with pain, in the interior

of the city, the desolating effects of the siege. “Scarcely a shop

had escaped destruction. The shutters, seats, shelves—nay, even the

very beams and door-posts—had in general been torn out for firewood.

Scarcely any business was going on. Here and there were gathered

knots of the pale and anxious citizens, whispering their condolences

and grievances—anxious that they might escape the notice of the rude

Afghans, who were swaggering about the streets.”[162]

The room in which the Shah received the English officer was a dreary,

comfortless place. “I have seen nothing I can compare to it,” wrote

Pottinger, “but an empty store-room carpeted.” Plainly, but richly

attired, attended only by his eunuchs, the Shah welcomed the young

Englishman. But he appeared ill at ease—unhappy about himself—peevish,

and lost in thought; for he was sick. It was plain, indeed, that he

was more concerned about his health than about the safety of the

city. Sending for his chief physician, he consulted him about the

royal symptoms, and in the intervals of this interesting personal

conversation, coughed out, with considerable energy and warmth, his

instructions to the British officer. His cough, indeed, in all

probability, saved him from something more serious. For when he had

worked himself into a passion, it compelled him to pause, and whilst he

was applying himself to the restoratives at hand, he cooled down till

the next paroxysm of rage and coughing brought him to a full stop.

The interview was long and tedious. Much was said in a very wordy

language by the Shah, about his own merits and his own wrongs, and

the ingratitude and injustice of his enemies. Then Pottinger received

his instructions regarding the message which he was to deliver in the

Persian camp. It commenced with a string of reproaches, and ended in a

strain of mingled invective and entreaty.

“How generous!” ran the message, after much more in the same style.

“You look round to see who your neighbours are. I am your weakest one.

You, therefore, assemble all your force to rob me of my last of eighty

cities. You answer my supplication for aid by the roar of your cannon

and bombs. Raise the siege; retire and give me the troops and guns I

want to recover my kingdom; and I will give you Herat on my return.

Send the Afghan traitors out of your camp. If you persist in your

present purpose, future ages will call you a robber, who preyed upon

the aged and helpless. If you do not act generously, God is great; and

on him we rely. We have still got our swords.”

Such was the pith of the message which Pottinger was commissioned to

deliver to the Shah of Persia. It came out by snatches, in an excited

spasmodic manner; but was understood by the British officer. Having

heard all that was to be said, he took his departure, and joined the

Wuzeer upon the works. But, for some time, the projected negotiations

never advanced beyond the threshold. It occurred to Shah Kamran that

it would be well to strike a blow, and to achieve some demonstrable

success, before despatching an emissary to the Persian camp, lest

the overtures should be attributed to conscious weakness, and rather

increase than lower the pretensions of the Shah.

An attempt was soon made to strike an important blow, but it was

singularly unsuccessful. On the 21st of January, the Afghans determined

to make a night attack, in considerable force, upon the camp of Sirdar

Mahomed Khan at Karta. Nearly the whole garrison turned out, and was

reviewed by the Wuzeer. The King himself, looking out from a tower of

the citadel, surveyed in secret the gathering below, as Yar Mahomed,

on the _terre-pleine_ of the rampart, surrounded by all the principal

chiefs not absolutely on duty elsewhere, mustered the fighting men on

the lower part of the works. Twelve hundred men were selected for the

sortie, and told off in detachments, under the command of different

chiefs. Divesting themselves of whatever could, in any way, encumber

their movements—of everything, indeed, but their shirts, drawers,

skull-caps, and swords—they filed out of the Kootoobchak gate, the

chief of each party naming his men, one by one, as they crossed the

drawbridge. Futteh Mahomed Khan, to whom the command of the entire

party had been entrusted, followed last, upon foot. But of all these

great preparations nothing came at last. “The business failed; no

attack was made; and every one was blamed by his neighbour.”[163]

This lamentable failure determined the Shah to postpone Pottinger’s

departure for the Persian camp. To commence negotiations immediately

after a miscarriage of so formidable a nature, would have been a

confession of weakness, very impolitic in such a conjuncture. The King,

therefore, imperatively arrested the movements of the young English

ambassador, whilst the Wuzeer began to bethink himself of the best

means of removing the impediment which loomed so largely before the

eyes of the King. Accordingly it was determined that, on the 26th of

January, both the cavalry and the infantry should be sent out to draw

the Persians into action. It was a fine, bright morning. The whole city

was in an unusual state of excitement. Partly impelled by curiosity,

partly moved by a more laudable ambition to fill the places of those

whose services were required beyond the walls, the citizens flocked

to the ramparts. Along the whole eastern face of the fortifications

the parapets and towers were alive with men. “The old Afghans and

relatives of the military,” writes Pottinger, “in like manner crowded

the _fausse-braies_. I do not think that less than 7000 men were

assembled on one side in view of the enemy.” The scene on which they

looked down, was a most exciting one. It stirred the hearts of that

eager multitude as the heart of one man. The Afghan cavalry, on issuing

from the city, had spread themselves over the open country to the east,

and the foot-men had taken possession of a neighbouring village and

its surrounding gardens. The Persian videttes had fallen back; the

trenches and batteries had been manned; and the reserves had stood to

their arms, when, looking down from the ramparts, the excited Heratees

saw the Persian Sirdar, Mahomed Khan, with a large body of troops,

prepare himself for an offensive movement, and push onward to the

attack. At the head of the column were the Persian cavalry. As soon as

they appeared in sight, the Afghan horse streamed across the plain, and

poured themselves full upon the enemy.

The charge of the Afghans was a gallant and a successful one.

Whilst the ramparts of Herat rang with the excited acclamation of

“_Shabásh! Shabásh! Chi Roostumány!_” (”Bravo! Bravo! conduct worthy

of Roostum himself!”) the Persian column gave way before its impetuous

assailants, and retreated amongst the buildings from which it had

debouched. For a short time the progress of the struggle was lost sight

of by the gazers on the ramparts; but the sharp, quick rattle of the

musketry, the loud booming of the guns, and the columns of dust that

rose against the clear sky, told that the infantry and artillery had

covered the retreat of the Persian horsemen. The tide of victory now

turned against the Afghan force. The Heratees, who before had driven

back the Persian cavalry, were now in turn driven back by the enemy.

The squadrons in the rear, instead of closing up, wheeled about, and

the whole column was soon in flight. Recovering themselves, however,

for a short time, the struggle was briefly renewed on the plain; but

the Persian horse being well supported by the infantry planted in the

gardens on both sides, whilst the rear of the Afghan cavalry afforded

no support to the troops in front, the flight of the Heratees was

renewed, and a gun was brought to bear upon their retreating columns.

With varying success the battle was continued throughout the day.

Towards evening the Afghans regained the advantage which they had

lost at an earlier period of the engagement; and as the shades of

evening fell over the scene, the Persians evacuated the posts they had

occupied, and the Afghans were left in possession of the field.

The engagement, though a long, was not a sanguinary one. The loss on

the side of the Afghans was not estimated at more than twenty-five or

thirty killed. The Heratees, of course, claimed the victory; but the

Sheeah inhabitants, who had made their way to the walls of the city,

and were among the spectators of the fight, could not repress their

inclination to sneer at a success of so dubious a character.[164] To

the young English officer who had watched the events of the day, it

was very clear that neither army was of a very formidable character.

The Afghan cavalry made a better show than that of the enemy, but

in the infantry branch the advantage was greatly on the side of

the Persians. The whole affair was nothing better than a series of

skirmishes, now resulting in favour of one party, now of the other.

But the crafty Wuzeer boasted of it as a great triumph; and on the

following morning went round to all those parts of the works from which

the scene below could not be observed, rendering a highly embellished

account of the events of that memorable day. “Though so changed,” says

Pottinger, “that scarcely any one could recognise it, those who had

been present in the fight, finding themselves such heroes, commenced

swelling and vapouring.” The soldiery gathered round in the greatest

excitement, and their opinion of their own superiority to the Persians

was greatly increased. Many of them would say, “If we had but guns!”

Others, evidently disliking the Persian cannon, would improve on this,

and say, “Ah! if the infidels had no guns, we would soon send them

away.”

On the 8th of February, Pottinger received permission to visit the

Persian camp. In the public baths of the city, where Yar Mahomed, with

other men of note, in a state of almost entire nudity, was sitting at

breakfast on the floor—his officers and servants standing around him

armed to the teeth—the English officer took leave of the Wuzeer. “Tell

Hadjee Meerza Aghassi” (the Persian minister), said Yar Mahomed, “that

ever since he has honoured me with the title of son, and the Hadjee

has assumed that of my father, I have been most desirous of showing

him filial affection, and have endeavoured to do so. But the Hadjee,

in a most unpaternal manner, has brought the Shah-in-Shah with an army

to besiege Herat; and I am bound, by the salt I am eating, to stand by

my old master. If, however, they will return to Persia, I will follow

and show my obedience as the son of the Hadjee and the servant of the

Shah-in-Shah. Further, tell him, that whatever may be my own wish, the

Afghans would never surrender the city, nor dare I propose it to them.

And you may tell him, too, that we have all heard of the bad treatment

received by the Afghans who have joined the camp of Mahomed Shah, and

are thereby deterred from joining his Persian Majesty.”

Carrying this message with him, Pottinger left the city, accompanied

by a small party of Afghans. They attended him some distance beyond

the walls; and then shouting out their good wishes, left him to pursue

his journey. A single attendant, Syud Ahmed, and a cossid went with

him. Pushing on through narrow, tortuous lanes, bounded by high mud

walls, and every moment expecting to be saluted by a bullet from some

zealous sentinel posted on his line of road, the young English officer

pushed on towards the Persian camp. “I kept a good look-out,” he wrote

in his journal; “and fortunately I did so, as, through one of the

gaps in the wall, I observed the Persians running to occupy the road

we were following. I therefore stopped and made Syud Ahmed wave his

turban, for want of a better flag of truce. The Persians, on this,

came towards us in a most irregular manner—so much so that, if twenty

horsemen had been with me, the whole Persian picket might have been

cut off. Some were loading as they ran; and one valiant hero, who came

up in the rear after he had ascertained who we were, to prevent danger,

I suppose, loaded his musket and fixed his bayonet. They were a most

ragged-looking set, and, from their dress and want of beard, looked

inferior to the Afghans. They were delighted at my coming; and the

English appeared great favourites among them. A fancy got abroad that

I was come with proposals to surrender, which made the great majority

lose all command over themselves, at the prospect of revisiting their

country so soon. They crowded round; some patting my legs, and others

my horse, whilst those who were not successful in getting near enough,

contented themselves with Syud Ahmed and the cossid—the whole, however,

shouting, ‘Afreen! Afreen! Khoosh amedeed! Anglish hameshah dostan-i

Shah-in-Shah.’” (”Bravo! Bravo! Welcome! The English were always

friends of the King-of-Kings.”)[165]

The officer who commanded the picket, a major in the Persian army

who had served under Major Hart, who knew all the English officers

recently connected with the Persian Court or the Persian army, and who

had, moreover, been the custodian of Yar Mahomed when the Wuzeer was a

prisoner at Meshid, conducted Pottinger to the guard-room. Apologising,

on the plea of military necessity, for any interference with his free

progress, he stated that discipline required that the emissary should

be taken to the Major-General commanding the attack. It happened that

General Samson,[166] of the Russian regiment, was the officer in

command. The way to the General’s quarters was “through gardens and

vineyards, in which not even the roots of the trees and shrubs were

left.” The General received the British officer with much courtesy,

conceiving him at first to be an Afghan; and was greatly surprised to

find that he was in the presence of an European soldier. Sending for

tea and kalyans (pipes), he regaled his guest with becoming courtesy,

and then sent him on in safety to the Persian camp.

Intelligence of Pottinger’s arrival had preceded him, and the whole

camp came out to meet the ambassador. None knew who or what he was.

A report had gone forth that he was some great Afghan dignitary from

Herat, who brought the submission of Kamran to the terms of Mahomed

Shah. As he advanced, the torrent of people swelled and swelled,

until in the main street of the camp the crowd was so dense that, if

the escort had not plied their iron ramrods with good effect, it is

doubtful whether the embassy would ever have reached the tent of the

Persian Wuzeer. The quarters of the great man were gained at last,

and the envoy was graciously received. The interview was a brief one.

Readily obtaining permission to visit the tent of Colonel Stoddart, and

to deliver the letters of which he was the bearer from the Government

of India, the question of admission to the presence of Mahomed Shah

was left to be decided by the monarch himself. It is easy to imagine

the delight of the two English officers on finding themselves, in so

strange a place and under such strange circumstances, in the presence

of one another.[167] It was cruel to interrupt such a meeting; but

before Stoddart and Pottinger had exchanged many words, and partaken of

a cup of coffee in the former’s tent, a peremptory message came from

the minister to summon the latter to his presence. The two officers

went together to Hadjee Meerza Aghassi’s tent, where the Wuzeer, after

the usual courtesies, asked what was the message brought by Pottinger

from “Prince” Kamran to the King-of-Kings, and what was that which Yar

Mahomed had sent to himself. “I replied,” says Pottinger, “that the

message from the Afghan _King_ was to the Persian King, and that I

could not deliver it to any one else; that regarding his own message,

probably a smaller number of auditors would be desirable.” The tent

accordingly was cleared; and the Hadjee, a small, thin man apparently

in a very bilious and excitable state, twisted himself into all kinds

of undignified contortions, and prepared himself to receive the message

of the Afghan Wuzeer.

Pottinger delivered his message. A long, animated, but profitless

discussion then arose. The Hadjee refused to listen to the Afghan

proposals, and declared that the English had themselves set down

Herat on their maps as a part of the Persian dominions. In proof of

the assertion, Burnes’s map was produced, and, to his inexpressible

chagrin, the Hadjee was shown to be wrong. Colonel Stoddart was then

appealed to; but his answers were shaped in true diplomatic fashion.

He had no instructions on the subject—he would refer the case to the

envoy at Teheran—he was not aware that the British Government had ever

received official information from the Persian Government, of Herat

being annexed to that state, whilst a branch of the Suddozye family,

which the British Government, in conjunction with Futteh Ali Shah, had

acknowledged as sovereign in Afghanistan, still held possession of the

place. The difficulty was not to be solved; and the English officers

took their departure from the tent of the Wuzeer, to be summoned

shortly to the presence of the Shah.

Under a tent, surrounded on all sides by an outer wall of red canvas,

Mahomed Shah, plainly attired in a shawl vest, with a black Persian cap

on his head, received with becoming courtesy the British officers. At

the opposite end of the tent, in posture of profound reverence, heads

bent, and arms folded, stood the personal attendants of the King. The

message of Shah Kamran was delivered; and the Persian monarch, speaking

at first with much dignity and calmness, stated in a clear and forcible

manner, his complaints against Herat and its ruler. But, warming as he

proceeded, he lashed himself into a passion; denounced Shah Kamran as a

treacherous liar; and declared that he would not rest satisfied until

he had planted a Persian garrison in the citadel of Herat. There was

nothing more to be said upon the subject; and the British officers were

formally dismissed.

A violent storm, which broke over Herat on the following day, prevented

Pottinger’s return to the city. But on the 10th of February, he turned

his back upon the Persian camp. “I mounted,” he writes, “and riding

out by the flank of the Persian line, I returned to the city by the

gate I come out at; and so avoided the points where hostilities were

going on. On my coming back the whole town was in a ferment. What they

had expected I do not pretend to know; but from the instant I entered

the gate, I was surrounded by messengers requesting information. I,

however, referred them all to the Wuzeer, and went there myself. After

a short interview, I was summoned by a messenger from the Shah. His

Majesty having seen my return with his glass, was awaiting my arrival,

anxious to hear Mahomed Shah’s message. When he had heard it, he

replied by a gasconading speech, abusing every one.” And so terminated

these first negotiations for a suspension of hostilities, in an utter

and mortifying failure.

With little variation from the procedure of the two previous months,

the siege operations were continued. The Persians had expected much

from the addition to their siege train of an immense sixty-eight

pounder, which was to batter down the defences of Herat as easily as

though they had been walls of glass.[168] But the gun was so badly

mounted that, after the fifth or sixth round, the light carriage gave

way, and this formidable new enemy, that was to have done such great

things, sank into an useless incumbrance.

The siege continued without intermission; but it was evident that

both parties were anxious to conclude a peace. Not many days after

Pottinger’s return to Herat, a Persian officer[169] came into the

city with instructions from General Samson, privately endorsed by the

Wuzeer, to endeavour to persuade the Afghans to consent to the terms

offered by Mahomed Shah. It was better, he said, for them to settle

their differences among themselves, than to employ the mediation of

infidels.[170] At the same time, he assured the Afghans that Mahomed

Shah had no desire to interfere in the internal administration of

Herat. What he required them to do was, to supply his army with

soldiers, as they had, in times past, supplied the armies of Nadir

Shah. The present movement, he said, was not an expedition against

Herat, but an expedition against Hindostan, and that it behoved,

therefore, all true Mahomedans to join the army of the King-of-Kings.

Let them only unite themselves under the banner of the great defender

of the faith, and he would lead them to the conquest and the plunder of

India and Toorkistan.

The Persian emissary returned, on the following day, bearing

promises of a vague and delusive kind, and suggestions that, if

the Persians were really inclined for peace, the best proof they

could give of the sincerity of their inclinations would be the

retirement of the besieging force. Great was the excitement after his

departure, and various the views taken of his mission. By some, the

young and thoughtless, it was conjectured that his visit betokened

a consciousness of weakness on the part of the enemy; and they

already began to picture to themselves the flight and plunder of the

Persian army. But the elder and more sensible shook their heads,

and began, with manifest anxiety, to canvass the Persian terms. It

mattered little, they said, whether Kamran were designated Prince or

King—whether the supremacy of the Persian Shah were, or were not,

acknowledged in Herat, so long as they did not endeavour to plant a

Persian garrison in the city. But the Wuzeer declared that he had

no confidence in the Persians—that he desired to be guided by the

advice, and to be aided by the mediation of the English; and that

if the Shah would place the conduct of negotiations in the hands of

Colonel Stoddart, he on his part would trust everything to Lieutenant

Pottinger, and agree to whatever was decided upon by the two English

officers. “This,” wrote the latter, “was a most politic measure. It

threw all the odium of continuing the war off the shoulders of the

Afghan war party on those of the Persians, whom every one would blame,

if they declined to trust their guest, Colonel Stoddart; and it would

tend to make the Afghans believe that nothing but their destruction

would satisfy Mahomed Shah.”

On the 20th of February, the Persian emissary again appeared with

a letter from the camp of the besiegers. It stated that the Shah

had no desire to possess himself of Herat; he only claimed that his

sovereignty should be acknowledged. The answer, sent back on the

following day, was full of compliments and promises. Everything asked

for would be done, if the Persian army would only retire. On the

24th, the negotiations were continued—but with no result. The siege,

in the mean while, proceeded. The garrison continued their sallies

and sorties—sent out foraging parties—carried off large quantities of

wood—and generally contrived to return to the city without suffering

any injury from the activity of the investing force.

On the part of the latter, as time advanced, the firing became more

steady; but the severity and uncertainty of the weather, and the

scarcity of food, which was now beginning to be painfully felt, damped

the energy of the besiegers. Continuing, however, to push on their

approaches, they did at least mischief enough to keep the garrison in

a constant state of activity. Some unimportant outworks were carried;

and on the 8th of March, to the great mortification of the Wuzeer, the

enemy gained possession of a fortified post about 300 yards from the

north-east angle of the fort. The Afghans who manned the post were

found wanting in the hour of danger, and were visited with summary

punishment for this cowardly offence. Their faces were daubed with mud,

and they were sent round the works and through the streets of the

city, accompanied by a crier, commissioned to proclaim their cowardice

to the world.

From the moment that this post fell into the hands of the enemy,

“the investment,” says Pottinger, “began to be really felt.” The

operations of the besiegers were pushed forward with some vigour, but

the constancy of the garrison was not to be shaken.[171] Towards the

end of March, the Asoof-ood-dowlah, whose force had encamped on the

plain to the north-west of the city, sent in a message to the Afghan

minister, offering to be the medium of negotiations for the suspension

of hostilities. The Afghans sent word back that they were prepared to

listen to any reasonable overtures; but that if peace were to be made,

it must be made quickly. Seed-time, it was said, was passing; and once

passed, peace was impossible. Their subsistence would then depend upon

their plunder. After a few days, an interview was arranged between Yar

Mahomed and the Asoof-ood-dowlah, and on the 2nd of April it was held

on the edge of the ditch opposite the north-east tower. But the Wuzeer

returned, hopeless of any arrangement.[172] On the following day a

grand meeting of chiefs was held; but there was an end of all thought

of peace.

On the 6th of April, Mr. M’Neill, the British minister at the Persian

Court, arrived in the camp of Mahomed Shah. He had left Teheran on

the 10th of March; and, in spite of efforts made by the Persian

ministers to arrest his progress at Ghorian, had pushed on with all

possible rapidity to the Persian camp. It was urged that his presence

could not fail to encourage the Heratees in their resistance. But the

British minister pleaded his duty to his sovereign, and was not to be

detained. He was coldly received in the Persian camp; but he demanded

and obtained admittance to the Shah, and having exacted the customary

formalities of reception, presented his credentials recently received

from the Queen. The impression made upon the King, and subsequently

upon the minister, was favourable to the British envoy, and soon his

discreet and conciliatory bearing smoothed down the irritation which

had been engendered by his advance. But the Russian minister, Count

Simonich, was also on his way from Teheran; and Mr. M’Neill felt that

the approach of this man might be fatal to his success.[173]

On the 13th of April, Mr. M’Neill had an audience of the Persian

monarch, in the course of which he stated that the proceedings of

Persia in Afghanistan were an obvious violation of the treaty between

Great Britain and the former state; and that the British Government

would be justified, therefore, in declaring it to be at an end, and in

taking active measures to compel the withdrawal of the Persian army

from Herat. The audience lasted two hours. The Shah solemnly protested

that he had never meditated anything injurious to the interests of

Great Britain; and the minister, with still stronger emphasis, repeated

the declaration. At a subsequent interview, the Shah consented to

accept the mediation of the British mission; and on the 16th of April,

the Persian soldiers proclaimed from the trenches that Mahomed Shah

had determined to send Shere Mahomed Khan into Herat, accompanied by

the British minister. But it was not Mr. M’Neill, but an inferior

officer of the embassy, who was about to present himself on the morrow,

in the character of a mediator, beneath the walls of the beleagured

city.

The 18th of April was one of the most memorable days of the siege. The

Persian batteries opened before noon, with unwonted activity, against

the ramparts behind the great mosque. The walls soon began to crumble

beneath the heavy fire of the enemy. First the thin parapets fell;

then the _terre-plein_ came down; “the old walls sliding into masses

at every round.”[174] Before evening, on the eastern and northern

sides, the breaches were practicable, and that on the west was greatly

enlarged. But the Afghans were in no way disheartened. They saw their

walls crumbling beneath the heavy fire of the Persian batteries, and

were neither alarmed nor discouraged by the spectacle. They had never

trusted, they said, to their walls. The real defence, they declared,

was the _fausse-braie_. About noon the Persians, having pushed on a

gallery at this point, the garrison exploded it with a mine, and taking

advantage of the alarm occasioned by the explosion, the Afghans rushed

upon the besiegers, and at first carried everything before them. But

in a short time the trenches of the enemy were lined with musketeers.

The small-arm fire of the Persians overwhelmed that of the garrison,

whilst the breaching batteries resumed their fire against the wall. Yar

Mahomed and Pottinger were both upon the works. The Wuzeer ordered the

men to cease firing, and to sit down, that they might be sheltered from

the storm of musket-balls; but instead of this they drew their swords,

brandished them over their heads, and calling to the Persians to come

on, rushed down to the attack. They paid dearly for this bravado.[175]

Pottinger himself narrowly escaped a bullet, which entered the lungs of

Aga Ruhem, a favourite and devoted eunuch of Yar Mahomed, and sent him

to his grave.

In the evening, the Persians in the trenches announced that an

Englishman in their camp sought admittance to the city. The

announcement was received with peals of derisive laughter and abuse.

The Englishman was Major Todd, an officer of the Bengal artillery,

who had been for many years employed with the Persian army, and whose

great attainments and estimable personal qualities had won for him

the respect of all with whom he had been associated. When a note was

conveyed to the Wuzeer stating that the officer who sought admittance

was the _naib_ of the English ambassador, Yar Mahomed sent for his

young English ally. Pottinger immediately joined him. The Wuzeer and

many other chiefs were sitting on the _fausse-braie_ near the breach.

Making room for him on the charpoy on which he was seated, Yar Mahomed

laughingly remarked, “Don’t be angry with me. I have thrown ashes on

it (the offered mediation), and blackened its face myself.” Pottinger

asked for an explanation, and was told that the Wuzeer had sent back

word to the Persian camp that the Afghans wanted neither the Turks,

the Russians, nor the English to interfere—that they trusted to their

good swords; that at that hour of the evening they would not allow the

Shah-in-Shah himself to enter; and that no one should be allowed to

enter at that point. But if, they added, the English naib would present

himself on the morrow at the south-east angle, he would be granted

admittance to the city. Much of this was mere bravado. Yar Mahomed

acknowledged that he only wished to impress the Persians with the

belief that he was careless about British mediation.[176]

On the following day, Major Todd made his appearance. A vast crowd

went out to gaze at him. He was the first European who had ever

appeared in Herat in full regimentals; and now the tight-fitting coat,

the glittering epaulettes, and the cocked hat, all excited unbounded

admiration. The narrow streets were crowded, and the house-tops were

swarming with curious spectators. The bearer as he was of a message

from Mahomed Shah, announcing that the Persian sovereign was willing to

accept the mediation of the British Government, he was received with

becoming courtesy by Shah Kamran, who, after the interview, took the

cloak from his own shoulders, and sent it by the Wuzeer to Major Todd,

as a mark of the highest distinction he could confer upon him.[177]

The English officer returned to the Persian camp with assurances of

Kamran’s desire to accept the mediation of the British minister. But

there was no suspension of hostilities. That evening the aspect of

affairs was more warlike than ever. “The Persian trenches were filled

with men. The parties of horse and guards of the line of investment

appeared stronger than usual; and everything betokened an assault of

which at dusk the garrison received intelligence. The Afghans made

all arrangements to meet it; the different chiefs were sent off to

different points either to strengthen the posts or form reserves. Yar

Mahomed’s post was at the gate of Mulik, as the breach close to it was

the most dangerous, and the point was defended by the worst troops.”

It was agreed among the different chiefs that not a shot should

be fired until the enemy reached the counterscarp, on pain of the

immediate loss of the delinquent’s ears.

The assembly had scarcely broken up when intelligence arrived that the

British minister, Mr. M’Neill, had arrived at the edge of the ditch

and sought entrance to the city. The report was presently confirmed

by a messenger who brought letters from the envoy to Yar Mahomed and

Lieutenant Pottinger. Pottinger, who was just composing himself to

sleep, started up and proceeded with all haste to the Wuzeer’s post.

Yar Mahomed mustered the chiefs to receive the Envoy with becoming

respect, and conducted him to his quarters. The greater part of

the night was spent in discussion. It was nearly dawn when M’Neill

accompanied Pottinger to his residence, and they lay down to sleep.

Pottinger rose before seven o’clock, and found M’Neill engaged in

writing. The Wuzeer, having been sent for by the former officer,

soon made his appearance grumbling at, but still honestly commending

the vigilance of the British minister,[178] whom he conducted to the

presence of Shah Kamran. The Shah, with the utmost frankness and

unreserve, placed the negotiations in the hands of Mr. M’Neill, and

said that he would gladly consent to any terms agreed upon by that

officer. After partaking of some refreshment, the British minister took

his departure; and the armistice ceased.

This was on the 21st of April. On the 23rd, Major Todd was despatched

from the Persian camp with intelligence no less surprising than

discouraging. Mahomed Shah had resolutely refused to submit to British

arbitration the disputes between the states of Persia and Herat. In an

abrupt and peremptory manner he had “refused the proposed agreement and

spoke of prosecuting the siege.” “Either,” he said, “the whole people

of Herat shall make their submission, and acknowledge themselves my

subjects, or I will take possession of the fortress by force of arms,

and make them obedient and submissive.”[179] The British minister was

deeply mortified at the result. He had been, however unwittingly, a

party to the deception of the Government of Herat. He had told Yar

Mahomed that the Shah would accept his intervention and abide his

decision; and now his overtures had been peremptorily declined.[180]

It was suggested by some whether it would be expedient to send any

reply to the hostile declaration of Mahomed Shah; but as it had been

forwarded by the British minister, etiquette demanded that an answer

should be returned.[181] That answer was grave and dignified. “If the

Persians,” wrote Yar Mahomed, “will not attend to your words, we must

answer with our bodies and leave the result to God. Be not distressed.

Now that we have suffered so many injuries, and have been kept back

from our tillage and cultivation, and have suffered that loss which

should not have befallen us, what have we now to care for?”[182]

And now the siege was prosecuted with increased activity. A new actor

had appeared on the stage. On the morning of the day which witnessed

Mr. M’Neill’s visit to the city of Shah Kamran, Count Simonich appeared

in camp. He was not one to remain even for a day a passive spectator

of the contest. Freely giving advice and rendering assistance, he

soon began, in effect, to conduct the operations of the siege; whilst

the officers of his suite were teaching the Persian soldiers how to

construct more effective batteries. Nor was Russian skill all that was

supplied, in this conjuncture, to raise the drooping spirits of Mahomed

Shah. Russian money was freely distributed among the Persian soldiers;

and a new impulse was given to them at a time when their energies were

well-nigh exhausted, and their activity was beginning to fail.[183]

Mr. M’Neill remained in the Persian camp, and in spite of the failure

of his endeavours to reconcile the contending parties, determined not

to cease from his efforts, though all hope had well nigh departed of

bringing about a satisfactory arrangement. A strongly worded letter

was addressed to the Persian ministers; and at one time it seemed

likely that the Shah-in-Shah would accede to the terms offered by the

Government of Herat; but the arrival of friendly letters from Kohun-dil

Khan, the Candahar chief, offering to aid him in the prosecution of

the siege, inflated him with new courage, and caused him to rise in

his demands. He demanded compensation for the losses he had sustained;

and the negotiations were again broken off at a time when they seemed

likely, at last, to reach a favourable termination.

Nor was it only in the Persian camp that at this time Russian influence

was making its way. The garrison was beginning to think whether it

would not be expedient for Herat to fling itself into the arms of

the great northern power. On the night of the 23rd of May, there was

a consultation among the chiefs, when it was proposed that an envoy

should be sent to the Russian ambassador, acknowledging the dependence

of Herat upon that State. It was asserted, at the suggestion of M.

Euler, Kamran’s physician, that if such a step as this were taken the

Persians dare not continue the siege, and that the English dare not

interfere. The proposal was favourably received. It was with difficulty

that the chiefs could be induced to listen to a suggestion for delay;

but on the following day intelligence of the energetic course pursued

by Mr. M’Neill found its way into the city. It was announced that the

British minister had threatened Persia with hostilities if Herat should

fall into its hands; that the city would be retaken, at any cost, by

the British, army; and that Major Todd had been sent to India to make

arrangements with the Governor-General for the sustenance of the people

of Herat after the siege.

This intelligence, which was not wholly correct, changed at once the

complexion of affairs. It was plain that the British were, after all,

the best friends of the Afghans, and that it would be folly to reject

their good offices for the sake of the problematical friendship and

good faith of the Russian Government. The announcement, indeed, raised

the spirits of the garrison, and inspired them with new courage. Even

those who, the day before, had been loudest in their support of the

Russian alliance, now abandoned it without reserve.

This feeling, however, was but short-lived. It soon appeared that the

intentions of the British Government, as reported to have been set

forth by Mr. M’Neill, had been overstated; and again the chiefs began

to bethink themselves of the advantages of a Russian alliance. Many

meetings were held, at which the terms to be offered and accepted were

warmly debated. At all of these Pottinger was present. Sometimes he was

received and listened to with respect; at others he was treated with

marked discourtesy. Now the value of the British alliance outweighed

that of the Russian in the estimation of the chiefs; now it was held

of far lighter account; and as the scale of their opinions turned,

so varied with intelligible capriciousness their bearing towards

the English officer. A man of temper and firmness, he was little

disconcerted. The whole assembly might be against him; but he was not

to be overawed.

On the evening of the 27th of May, Pottinger sought a private interview

with Yar Mahomed. Telling the Wuzeer that his conduct towards the

Persians had caused him to be suspected by the British ambassador, he

insisted upon the necessity of acting decidedly upon two points—Kamran,

he said, must never submit to be called the servant of Persia; nor must

he on any account admit the interference of the Russians. Yar Mahomed

assented to these conditions—declared that he would never sacrifice

the independence of Herat, and, finally, with Pottinger’s approval,

despatched a letter into the Persian camp, intimating that “he agreed

to the suppression of slavery, and would aid in its extinction; that

he would release from bondage, and send back the people of Jam and

Bakhurs if possible, and he would try to make the Soonee Hazarehs serve

Persia; that he would pay a yearly present after the current year, and

would also give his son and one of the King’s sons as hostages. Persia

should, on her part, restore Ghorian, and when his son joined the

Persian camp, his brother, Shere Mahomed Khan, should be sent back, and

that Mahomed Shah should give them an order for five or six thousand

kurwars of grain on the Governor of Khorassan.” “If these terms be not

accepted,” it was added, “nothing but the possession of Herat will

satisfy you.”

Pottinger had no easy part to play, at the best; but now his

difficulties began to thicken around him. He could only hope to

counteract Russian influence by impressing Yar Mahomed with a

conviction that the British Government would do great things for Herat.

But on the 29th of May he received instructions from Mr. M’Neill on no

account to commit the government by any offers of aid to Herat as he

had received no authority to make them. Startled and embarrassed by

these injunctions, for, seeing that without such promises Yar Mahomed

would have accepted the mediation of Russia, he had already committed

the government, Pottinger went at once to the Tukht-i-pool, where the

chiefs were assembled, and honestly stated that in his anxiety to bring

affairs to a satisfactory adjustment, he had exceeded his powers.

Exasperated by this announcement, the chiefs broke out into violent

reproaches against Pottinger, M’Neill, and the whole British nation,

and then began to discuss the advantages of the Russian alliance.

Firm in the midst of all this storm of invective, the young British

officer declared that he had only spoken the truth—that such were the

instructions of the British minister—that he had no power to disobey

them; but that a representation to Mr. M’Neill of the disappointment

they had occasioned might induce him to depart from this cautious

policy. To this the chiefs were induced to listen; and it was finally

resolved to await the results of another reference to the British

Envoy.[184]

But the influence of Mr. M’Neill at the Persian Court was now rapidly

declining; and his departure was at hand. His position, ever since

his arrival in the camp of Mahomed Shah, had been one of no little

difficulty and embarrassment. Unhappily, at that time, one of those

petty perplexities, which, arising between state and state, often

evolve more serious misunderstandings than affairs of far higher

moment, was constantly obtruding, in the way of a satisfactory

adjustment of differences, an obstruction of a very annoying and

irritating kind. A courier of the British minister, Ali Mahomed Beg

by name, had been making his way from Herat to Teheran, bearing some

letters from Yar Mahomed, Pottinger, and others, to Mr. M’Neill, and

escorting some horses, sent by Futteh Mahomed Khan, the Herat agent, as

presents to the same officer. Without any interruption he had passed

the Persian camp and was within three stages of Meshed, when Berowski

recognised the man and officiously reported him at head-quarters.

Immediately, horsemen were despatched to carry him to the Persian

camp. What followed could not be narrated better or more briefly than

in the language of Mr. M’Neill:-“He was forced,” wrote the minister

to Lord Palmerston, “to return with them; a part of his clothes were

taken from him; the horses which he was bringing for me from Herat

were seized; he was dragged to camp, and there placed in custody. He

succeeded, however, in making his way to the tent of Colonel Stoddart,

and was by that officer conducted to the prime minister, who, after he

had been informed by Colonel Stoddart that the man was in the service

of this Mission, again placed him in custody, while Hadjee Khan, an

officer of the rank of Brigadier in the service of the Shah, not only

used offensive language in addressing Colonel Stoddart in presence

of the prime minister, but after the messenger had been released by

order of his Excellency, seized him again in the midst of the camp;

stripped him to search for any letters he might have concealed about

his person;[185] took from him Lieutenant Pottinger’s letter, which

was sent to the prime minister; used to the messenger the most violent

threats and the most disgusting and opprobrious language, and took from

him a portion of his accoutrements.”[186]

This was, doubtless, a grievous insult; and Mr. M’Neill believed that

it was intended to be one. It was designed, he thought, “to exhibit

to the Afghans and to the Persian army an apparent contempt for the

English, with a view to diminish the moral effect which might have been

produced on either party, by the general belief that we were opposed

to the conquest of Herat by the Persians.” It was an insult for which

reparation, if not offered by one state, might be rightfully exacted

by the other; and Mr. M’Neill was not a man to sit down tamely under

such an outrage as this. But the incident had taken place in October,

and now, in May, though the subject had been repeatedly forced upon

the attention of Mahomed Shah and his ministers, no fitting reparation

had been offered to the British Government. The Persian Government

had, indeed, asserted their right to seize, punish, or put to death,

without reference to the British minister, the Persian servants in his

employment. The breach was thus palpably widening. The Governor of

Bushire, too, had used offensive language towards the British Resident

in the Persian Gulf; and the redress, which had been sought by Mr.

M’Neill, had not been granted by the Persian Government. Then there was

another grievance of which the British minister complained. The Persian

Government had continued to evade the conclusion of the commercial

treaty, which was guaranteed to us in the general treaty of friendship

between the two states.

All these cumulative offences, added to the great subject of

complaint—the conduct of Persia towards Herat—made up such an amount

of provocation, that Mr. M’Neill felt his position at the Persian

Court was little likely to be one of much longer continuance. The Shah

had declared that he would raise the siege, if the British minister

would afford him a pretext for the retrograde movement, satisfactory

in the eyes of his countrymen, by threatening, on the part of his

government, to attack Persia if she continued her offensive operations

against Herat; but from this promise he had receded, or thrown such

difficulties in the way of its fulfilment, as practically to nullify

the pledge. Mr. M’Neill massed all his demands upon the Persian

Government. The Shah required that he should keep the question of Herat

distinct from the others, and, on the British minister refusing to do

so on his own responsibility, declared that he would do it himself, by

acceding to all the demands except that which related to Herat. “The

Shah then,” says Mr. M’Neill, in his report of these proceedings to the

Foreign Secretary, “immediately dismissed me, with an assurance that

he should adopt that course; but before I had left the area on which

the royal tent was pitched, he called after me, that on his agreeing to

the other demands, he should expect me to avoid all further discussion

of the affairs of Herat, and to order Mr. Pottinger to quit that city.

In answer, I represented that I could not tie up the hands of my own

government in respect to the question of Herat, and that Mr. Pottinger

was not under my orders.”[187]

There was obviously now little hope of bringing these long-protracted

negotiations to a favourable conclusion. The British Mission was fast

falling into contempt. The Russians were exalted at the Persian Court.

The British were slighted and humiliated. There was not a tent-pitcher

in camp who did not know that the British Mission was treated with

intentional disrespect. It was time, therefore, to bring matters to

a crisis. So, on the 3rd of June, Mr. M’Neill addressed a letter to

the Foreign minister in the Persian camp, announcing his intention to

depart for the frontier on the following day. “I feel myself called

upon,” he concluded, “to inform you that, until the reparation and

satisfaction I have demanded, for the indignities already offered,

shall have been fully given, the Queen of England cannot receive at her

Court any minister who may be sent thither by the Shah of Persia.” The

decisive language of the British minister called forth an evasive reply

from the Persian Government. The Shah professed not to understand “his

Excellency’s object in all these writings,” and declared that there

had been no indignity or disrespect ever offered to him. But M’Neill

was not to be thus appeased. He sent back, in a few plain words,

a statement of his demands. He demanded that Hadjee Khan, who had

outraged the servant of the British minister, should be removed from

office; that Hadjee Meerza Aghassy, who had connived at the outrage,

should go to the British minister’s tent, and apologise for the insult;

that a firman should be issued, commanding the servants of the Persian

Government not to interfere with the dependants of the British Mission;

that the Governor of Bushire should be removed from office for his

insults to the British Resident; and that the commercial treaty should

be forthwith concluded and ratified. All these demands but the last

were to be carried into effect within three days of the date of the

letter.

Again the Persian minister declared, on the part of the Shah, that no

indignities had ever been offered to the British Mission; and again

Mr. M’Neill requested his dismissal. The Shah was not ready to grant

it. “No,” he said; “never shall we consent to the departure of his

Excellency. Let him by all means lay aside his intention, and let him

not allow this idea to enter his mind.” But he was not to be persuaded

to lay aside his intentions. The Persian ministers continued to

declare that no insults had been offered the British Mission. So,

reluctant as he was abruptly to terminate our diplomatic intercourse

with Persia, Mr. M’Neill, on the 7th of June, took his departure from

the Persian camp. From the ramparts of Herat they looked out upon

the striking of the English ambassador’s tents, and a large party of

horsemen were seen making their way across the plain. The rupture was

now complete. Persia was no longer an ally of Great Britain.

In the mean while, as the year advanced, the miseries and privations

of the siege were more and more severely felt by the inhabitants. The

wonder is, that at a still earlier period they had not become wholly

unendurable. Houses were pulled down to supply fuel.[188] Horses were

killed for food. The vast number of people assembled within the walls

had not only created an extreme scarcity of provisions, but was in a

fair way to generate a pestilence. The city was altogether without

sewers or other means of drainage. The accumulations of filth had

therefore become inconceivable, and the stench hardly to be borne.

The decaying bodies of the dead had polluted the air to a still more

horrible extent; so that there was every probability of some fearful

epidemic breaking out among the people.[189] Indeed, at the beginning

of May, famine and sickness pressed so severely upon the inhabitants,

that it was debated whether it would not be expedient to suffer a

number of them to depart out of the city. Fever and scurvy were rife

among them; and it appeared that the enemies outside the gates were

less terrible than the viewless ones within. In this extremity they

mustered in large numbers, and petitioned the Shah to suffer them to

depart. The Shah referred the matter to the Wuzeer; and the Wuzeer

consulted the chiefs. The discussion was long and animated. The

decision was against the departure of the people. The petitioners were

mainly women and children; and to suffer them to depart would be to

throw them into the hands of the licentious Persian soldiery, and to

expose them to a fate more terrible than famine and death.[190]

The Persians now, under Russian direction, continued to prosecute the

siege with increased vigour and judgment. The whole of the investing

force, some portion of which had before been scattered over the great

plain, was now drawn in more closely round the city.

On the 13th of June an assault was attempted at the south-west angle,

but gallantly repulsed by the garrison. Informed by some deserters

from Herat that the defence of the _fausse-braie_ was comparatively

neglected during the mid-day heats, the Persians surprised the guards

at the outer works, and pushed on towards the _fausse-braie_. But a

little party of Afghans—not more than three or four in number—stood at

bay in the passages of the traverses, and heroically defended the post

until assistance was at hand. The relieving party came down gallantly

to the defence. Headed by Sultan Mahomed Omar, they flung themselves

over the parapet of the upper _fausse-braie_, and pouring themselves

down the exterior slope overwhelmed the assailants and dislodged them

with great slaughter.[191]

Another attempt, made at the same time, to effect a lodgment at the

south-east angle, was equally unsuccessful. Twice the storming column

advanced, and twice it was repulsed. The fortune of the day was against

the Persians.

In nowise disheartened by these failures, the besiegers now redoubled

their exertions, and pursued their mining operations with a vigour and

an activity which the garrison could not match. The Afghans were now

becoming dispirited and inert; even the chiefs began to despond, and

the wonted constancy of the Wuzeer forsook him. Everywhere Pottinger

saw with uneasiness signs of failing courage and impaired activity.

He had been deputed by Mr. M’Neill to act as British Agent at Herat,

and now, in his official capacity, he redoubled his exertions. There

was need, indeed, of his best efforts. The siege was being pushed

forward, not only with an energy, but with an intelligence that had

not marked the earlier stages of the attack. The breaches had become

more practicable. The Persians were filling up the ditch at some parts,

and constructing bridges to span it at others. Another assault of a

more formidable character than any before attempted was said to be in

contemplation; and as these rumours were circulated through the works,

and the obscure terms of the future were magnified by the palpable

dangers of the present, the defenders scarcely strove to conceal the

fear which had crept into their hearts.

The threatened assault was at hand. The 24th of June was a memorable

day in the annals of the siege. It opened with a heavy fire from the

Persian batteries on all the four sides of the city. Then there was a

perfect lull, more ominous than the uproar that preceded it. The signs

of the coming assault were plain and intelligible; but strangely were

they disregarded. The Wuzeer was at his quarters. The garrison were off

their guard. Many, indeed, had composed themselves to sleep. The enemy

had been seen assembling in great force; but no heed was taken of the

movement. Suddenly the stillness was broken by the booming of a gun and

the flight of a rocket; another gun—then another—and presently a heavy

fire of ordnance from all sides, supported by a discharge of musketry,

which, feeble at first, grew presently more vigorous and sustained.

There was no longer any doubt of the intentions of the besieging force.

The enemy had braced themselves up for a general assault upon the city,

and were moving to the attack of five different points of the works.

At four of these points they were repulsed.[192] At the fifth,

gallantly headed by their officers, the storming column threw itself

into the trench of the lower _fausse-braie_. The struggle was brief,

but bloody. The defenders fell at their post to a man, and the work

was carried by the besiegers. Encouraged by this first success, the

storming party pushed up the slope. A galling fire from the garrison

met them as they advanced. The officers and leading men of the column

were mown down; there was a second brief and bloody struggle, and the

upper _fausse-braie_ was carried. A few of the most daring of the

assailants pushing on in advance of their comrades gained the head of

the breach. But now Deen Mahomed came down with the Afghan reserve.

Thus recruited, the defenders gathered new heart. The Persians on the

breach were driven back. Again and again, with desperate courage, they

struggled to effect a lodgment, only to be repulsed and thrown back in

confusion upon their comrades who were pressing on behind. The conflict

was fierce; the issue was doubtful. Now the breach was well-nigh

carried; and now the stormers, recoiling from the shock of the defence,

fell back upon the exterior slope of the _fausse-braie_. It was an hour

of intense excitement. The fate of Herat was trembling in the balance.

Startled by the first noise of the assault, Yar Mahomed had risen

up, left his quarters, and ridden down to the works. Pottinger went

forth at the same time, and on the same errand. There was a profound

conviction in his mind that there was desperate work in hand, of

which he might not live to see the end. Giving instructions to his

dependents, to be carried out in the event of his falling in the

defence, he hastened to join the Wuzeer. It was a crisis that demanded

all the energy and courage of those two resolute spirits. The English

officer was equal to the occasion. The Afghan Sirdar was not.

As they neared the point of attack, the garrison were seen retreating

by twos and threes; others were quitting the works on the pretext of

carrying off the wounded. These signs of the waning courage of the

defenders wrought differently on the minds of the two men who had

hitherto seemed to be cast in the same heroic mould—soldiers of strong

nerves and unfailing resolution. They saw that the garrison were

giving way. Pottinger was eager to push on to the breach. Yar Mahomed

sat himself down. The Wuzeer had lost heart. His wonted high courage

and collectedness had deserted him in this emergency. Astonished and

indignant at the pusillanimity of his companion, the English officer

called upon the Wuzeer again and again to rouse himself—either to move

down to the breach or to send his son, to inspire new heart into the

yielding garrison. The energetic appeal of the young Englishman was

not lost upon the Afghan chief. He rose up; advanced further into the

works; and neared the breach where the contest was raging. Encouraged

by the diminished opposition, the enemy were pushing on with renewed

vigour. Yar Mahomed called upon his men, in God’s name, to fight; but

they wavered and stood still. Then his heart failed him again. He

turned back; said he would go for aid; sought the place where he had

before sat down, and looked around, irresolute and unnerved. Pointing

to the men, who, alarmed by the backwardness of their chief, were

now retreating in every direction, Pottinger in vehement language

insisted upon the absolute ruin of all their hopes that must result

from want of energy in such a conjuncture. Yar Mahomed roused himself;

again advanced, but again wavered; and a third time the young English

officer was compelled, by words and deeds alike, to shame the unmanned

Wuzeer. The language of entreaty was powerless; he used the language

of reproach. He reviled; he threatened; he seized him by the arm

and dragged him forward to the breach. Such appeals were not to be

resisted. The noble example of the young Englishman could not infuse

any real courage into the Afghan chief; but it at least roused him into

action. The men were retreating from the breach. The game was almost

up. The irresolution of the Wuzeer had well-nigh played away the last

stake. Had Yar Mahomed not been roused out of the paralysis that had

descended upon him, Herat would have been carried by assault. But the

indomitable courage of Eldred Pottinger saved the beleaguered city.

He compelled the Wuzeer to appear before his men as one not utterly

prostrate and helpless. The chief called upon the soldiery to fight;

but they continued to fall back in dismay. Then seizing a large staff,

Yar Mahomed rushed like a madman upon the hindmost of the party, and

drove them forward under a shower of heavy blows. The nature of the

works was such as to forbid their falling back in a body. Cooped up

in a narrow passage, and seeing no other outlet of escape, many of

them leapt wildly over the parapet, and rushed down the exterior slope

full upon the Persian stormers. The effect of this sudden movement was

magical. The Persians, seized with a panic, abandoned their position

and fled. The crisis was over; Herat was saved.[193]

But no exultation followed a victory so achieved. The bearing of the

Afghans was that of men who had sustained a crushing defeat. The

garrison were crest-fallen and dispirited. A general gloom seemed to

hang over the city. Yar Mahomed, long after the danger was past, moved

about as one confused and bewildered. There were few of the chiefs

whose minds were not so wholly unhinged by the terrors of that great

crisis as to be unable, for days afterwards, to perform calmly their

wonted duties. A complete paralysis, indeed, descended upon men of all

ranks. The loss on both sides had been severe; but if half the garrison

had fallen in the defence of the breach, Herat could not have been

more stunned and prostrated by the blow. The Persian camp was equally

dispirited; and a week of inaction supervened.[194] Even the work of

repairing the damaged fortifications was slowly recommenced by the

garrison; and when at last the men returned to their accustomed duties

it was plain that they had no heart. Nor was there anything strange

and unaccountable in this. The Afghans had repulsed the Persians on the

24th of June; but they felt that nothing but a miracle could enable

them to withstand another such assault. The resources of the government

had failed them. Food was scarce; money was scarce. The citizens could

not be fed. The soldiers could not be paid.

In all of this there was much to disquiet with painful doubts and

misgivings the mind of Eldred Pottinger. To protract the siege was

to protract the sufferings of the Heratees. The misery of the people

was past counting. The poor were perishing for want of food; the rich

were dying under the hands of the torturers. The soldiers clamoured

for their pay; and wherever money was known or suspected to be, there

went the ruthless myrmidons of Yar Mahomed to demand it for their

master, or to wring from the agonised victim the treasure which he

sought to conceal. To tear from a wretched man, at the last gasp of

life, all that he possessed; then, demanding more, to torture him anew,

until, sinking under the accumulated agony, the miserable victim was

released by death; and then to fling his emaciated corpse, wrapped in

an old shawl or blanket down at the threshold of his desolated home,

was no solitary achievement of the Wuzeer. Even ladies of rank were

given over to the torturers. The very inmates of the Shah’s Zenana

were threatened. A reign of terror was established such as it sickened

Pottinger to contemplate. He felt that he was the cause of this. Many

reproached him openly. The despairing looks and gaunt figures of

others reproached him more painfully still. All that he could do to

redress the wrongs of the injured and alleviate the sufferings of the

distressed he did in this fearful conjuncture. Men of all kinds came

to him imploring his aid and importuning him for protection. Some he

was able to save, stepping between the wrong-doer and the wronged;

but from others he was powerless to avert by his intervention the ruin

that was impending over them. Every day brought palpably before him

new illustrations of the unsparing cruelty of the Wuzeer. But dire

political necessity compelled him to protract a conjuncture laden with

these terrible results. It is impossible to read the entrances in his

journal at this time without feeling how great was the conflict within

him between the soldier and the man.

The events of the 24th of June, though they had raised Pottinger’s

character, as a warrior, in the Afghan city, in the Persian camp,

and in the surrounding country, had, greatly indeed, diminished his

popularity in Herat and increased the difficulties of his position.

In the negotiations which followed, Mahomed Shah insisted upon

Pottinger’s dismissal. The young English officer had excited the

measureless indignation of the Persian King; and the Afghan Wuzeer was

not disinclined to reproach him with presenting a new obstacle to the

adjustment of the differences between the two states. The Afghan envoys

said that they had always thought Pottinger was one man, but that the

importance the Persians attached to his departure showed that he was

equal to an army.[195] Pottinger was always ready with a declaration

that no thoughts of personal safety or convenience should ever suffer

him to stand in the way of an arrangement conducive to the safety

of Herat and the welfare of his country, and that if these objects

were to be gained by his departure, he was willing to depart. But Yar

Mahomed, whilst unwilling to retain him, was unwilling to persuade him

to go. The dismissal of the man who had saved Herat from the grasp of

the Persians, would have been an act that might have fixed a stain

upon the character of the Wuzeer, prejudicial to the success of his

after-career. Moreover, it was possible that Pottinger’s assistance

might be wanted at some future time—that the Persians, having obtained

his dismissal, might hesitate to perform their promises, and rise in

their demands on the strength of the advantage which they had thus

gained.

The month of July was not distinguished by any great activity on the

part of the besiegers. The siege, indeed, now began to assume the

character of a blockade. The question of surrender had become a mere

question of time. It seemed impossible much longer to protract the

defence. Yar Mahomed, with all the resources of unscrupulous cruelty

at his command, could not extort sufficient money from his victims to

enable him to continue his defensive operations with any prospect of

success. But it appeared to him, as it did to Pottinger, expedient

to postpone the inevitable day of capitulation, in the hope that

something might yet be written down in their favour in the “chapter of

accidents,” out of which so often had come unexpected aid. Yar Mahomed

looked for the coming of an Oosbeg army. He had long anxiously expected

the arrival of a relieving force from Toorkistan; and scarcely a day

had passed without some tidings, either to elevate or depress him,

of the advent or delay of the looked-for succours. Pottinger, though

unwilling to encourage in others expectations which might not be

realised, was inwardly convinced that something of a decisive character

respecting the intentions of his own government must soon be heard, and

that the knowledge of those intentions would have an effect upon the

Afghan garrison and the Persian camp very advantageous to the former.

With the object, therefore, of gaining time, the Wuzeer renewed his

exertions to raise money for the payment of the troops. Assemblies of

the chiefs were held, at which every practicable method of recruiting

their exhausted finances was discussed. The Sirdars addressed

themselves to the discussion as men wholly in earnest, determined to

do their best.[196] The resolutions of the chiefs in this conjuncture

surprised and delighted Pottinger, who was little prepared for the

unanimity with which they determined on protracting the defence. “With

open breaches, trembling soldiery, and a disaffected populace, they

determined to stand to the last. How I wished,” exclaimed Pottinger,

“to have the power of producing the money!”

The plan which was at last resolved upon—one which threw into the hands

of a single chief the power of seizing the property of whomsoever he

thought fit to mulct for the service of the state—under a written

pledge from the other chiefs not to interfere, as had been their wont,

for the protection of their own friends, threw the city into such

confusion, and produced so many appeals to the assembly of chiefs, that

Pottinger, anxious to establish a less arbitrary system of levying

contributions, suggested that all who voluntarily brought their money

would be reimbursed, at his recommendation, by the British Government.

But money came in slowly. The difficulties of the garrison seemed to

thicken around them. Negotiations were, therefore, again resumed, with

a determination at last to bring them to an issue; and messengers were

constantly passing and repassing between the city and the Persian camp.

But in the mean while, far beyond the walls of Herat, events were

taking shape mightily affecting the issue of the contest. Lord

Auckland, who had watched with much anxiety the progress of affairs in

the West, had, in the course of the spring, determined on despatching

an expedition to the Persian Gulf, to hold itself in readiness for

any service which Mr. M’Neill might deem it expedient to employ it

upon, “with a view to the maintenance of our interests in Persia.”

Instructions to this effect were forwarded to Bombay. In conjunction

with Sir Charles Malcolm, the chief of the Indian navy, the Bombay

Government despatched the _Semiramis_ and _Hugh Lindsay_ steamers,

and some vessels of war, with detachments of the 15th, 23rd, and

24th Regiments, and the Marine battalion, to the Persian Gulf; and

instructed the resident, Captain Hennell, to land the troops on the

island of Karrack, and concentrate the squadron before it. On the 4th

of June, the _Semiramis_ steamed out of the Bombay harbour, and on the

19th anchored off Karrack. The troops were immediately landed. The

governor of the island, greatly alarmed by the coming of the steamer

and the fighting men, but somewhat reassured by the appearance of

Captain Hennell, said that the island and everything it contained,

himself and its inhabitants, were at the disposal of the British

Resident; and at once began to assist in the disembarkation of the

troops.

The demonstration was an insignificant one in itself; but by the time

that intelligence of the movement had reached the Persian camp, the

expedition, gathering new dimensions at every stage, had swollen into

bulk and significance. The most exaggerated reports of the doings and

intentions of the British soon forced themselves into currency. The

Persian camp was all alive with stories of the powerful British fleet

that had sailed into the gulf, destroyed Bunder-Abassy and all the

other ports on the coast, taken Bushire, and landed there a mighty

army, which was advancing upon Shiraz, and had already taken divers

towns in the province of Fars. Nothing could have been more opportune

than the arrival of these reports. Mr. M’Neill was making his way

towards the frontier, when intelligence of the Karrack expedition met

him on the road. About the same time he received letters of instruction

from the Foreign-office, issued in anticipation of the refusal of

Mahomed Shah to desist from his operations against Herat; and thinking

the hour was favourable, he resolved to make another effort to secure

the withdrawal of the Persian army, and to regain for the British

Mission the ascendancy it had lost at the Persian Court.

Fortified by these instructions from the Foreign-office, Mr. M’Neill

despatched Colonel Stoddart to the Persian camp, with a message to

the Shah. The language of this message was very intelligible and very

decided. The Shah was informed that the occupation of Herat or any part

of Afghanistan by the Persians would be considered in the light of a

hostile demonstration against England; and that he could not persist in

his present course without immediate danger and injury to Persia. It

was stated, that already had a naval armament arrived in the Persian

Gulf, and troops been landed on the island of Karrack, and that if the

Shah desired the British Government to suspend the measures in progress

for the vindication of its honour, he must at once retire from Herat,

and make reparation for the injuries which had been inflicted upon the

British Mission.

On the 11th of August, Colonel Stoddart arrived in the Persian camp.

Repairing at once to the quarters of the minister, he found the son

of the Candahar chief and a party of Afghans waiting in the tent. The

Hadjee, on his return, received him with courtesy and friendliness,

and fixed the following day for an interview with the Shah. Stoddart

went at the appointed hour. The King was sitting in a raised room, up

six or seven steps. Beckoning to the English officer to come up more

closely to him, he welcomed him with much cordiality, and listened to

the message from the British Government. Taking advantage of a pause

in the recital, the King said: “The fact is, if I don’t leave Herat,

there will be war, is not that it?” “It is war,” returned Stoddart;

“all depends upon your Majesty’s answer—God preserve your Majesty!”

The message, written in the original English, was then given to

the King. “It is all I wished for,” he said. “I asked the minister

plenipotentiary for it; but he would not give it to me. He said he was

not authorized.” “He was not authorized then,” returned Stoddart; “but

now he has been ordered to do it. No one could give such a message

without especial authority from his Sovereign.” The Shah complained

that the paper was in English, which he could not understand; but said

that his Meerzas should translate it for him, and then that he would

give a positive answer to its demands. Two days afterwards Stoddart

was again summoned to the royal presence. “We consent to the whole of

the demands of the British Government,” said the Shah. “We will not

go to war. Were it not for the sake of their friendship, we should

not return from before Herat. Had we known that our coming here might

risk the loss of their friendship, we certainly would not have come at

all.”[197] The English officer thanked God that his Majesty had taken

so wise a view of the real interests of Persia; but hinted to the

Foreign Minister as he went out, that although the Shah’s answer was

very satisfactory, it would be more satisfactory still to see it at

once reduced to practice.

Whilst, in the Persian camp, Mahomed Shah was promising the English

diplomatists to withdraw his army from Herat, an officer of the Russian

Mission—M. Goutte, who had approved himself an adept in intrigue—was

busying himself in Herat to bring about an arrangement that would

give a colour of victory to the achievements of the investing force.

If Kamran could have been persuaded to come out and wait upon Mahomed

Shah in token of submission, the army might have been withdrawn with

some show of credit, and the Russian Mission might have claimed a

diplomatic victory. The Afghans were not, in their present reduced

state, disinclined to acknowledge the supremacy of Mahomed Shah, and to

consent that Kamran should visit the Persian monarch at Ghorian: but

the Russian envoy demanded that he should come out of Herat, and make

his obeisance to the King of Kings, as a preliminary to the withdrawal

of the Persian army.[198]

This was on the 17th of August. On the morning of the 18th, Yar

Mahomed sent a messenger to Pottinger, requesting his attendance at

the Wuzeer’s quarters. The English officer was received with coldness

almost amounting to discourtesy. Scarcely a word was spoken to him

whilst the levee lasted; but when the assembly broke up, Pottinger, in

a tone of voice that showed he was not to be trifled with, asked him

why he had sent for him if he had nothing to communicate and nothing to

ask. The Wuzeer took him by the hand and was about to leave the room;

when Pottinger, arresting his progress, demanded a private interview.

The room was cleared. The young English officer and the Afghan Sirdar

sate down together, and were soon in friendly discourse. Yar Mahomed,

the most plausible and persuasive of men,[199] soon stilled the tempest

that was rising in Pottinger’s breast. All patience and gentleness now,

he was ready to submit to any rebuke, and to utter any apology. They

were soon in earnest conversation, as friends and brothers, regarding

the general condition of the garrison and its available resources.

The Wuzeer declared that “he regretted much the step he was obliged

to take, but that indeed no alternative was left him—that every

resource which even tyranny commanded was exhausted—that he dared not

lay hands on the property of the combatants, though many of them had

large funds.” The chiefs, he declared, were misers. The eunuch, Hadjee

Ferooz, he said, could easily contribute two lakhs of rupees towards

the expenses of the war, and the Shah might contribute ten; but neither

would advance a farthing. “They are all,” he said, “equally niggardly.

They have money, but they will not advance it. When their wives are

being ravished before their faces, they will repent of their avarice;

but now it is impossible to convince them of the folly and the danger

of the course they are pursuing. With such people to deal with, and the

soldiery crying out for pay and subsistence, how can I hold out longer

by force?” He consented, however, to protract the negotiations to the

utmost—to amuse the Persians—and to gain time. And in the mean while,

he extracted from the weak and unresisting all that he could wring from

them by torture. On the night after this conference with Pottinger, the

Moonshee-Bashee died under the hands of the torturers.

The struggle, however, was now nearly at an end. The movements in the

Persian camp appear, at this time, to have been but imperfectly known

within the walls of Herat. Whilst Mahomed Shah was making preparations

for the withdrawal of his army, Yar Mahomed and the Afghan Sirdars

were busy with their financial operations for the continuance of the

defence. A Finance Committee was appointed. Kamran was told that he

must either provide money for the payment of the soldiery, or authorise

the Committee to set about their work after their own manner. Eager

to save his money, he sacrificed his people, and armed the Committee

with full powers to search the houses of the inhabitants, to order

the expulsion of all who had less than three months’ provisions, and

to take from those who had more all that they could find in excess.

The Topshee-Bashee, or chief artilleryman, to whom the executive

duties of the Committee were entrusted, contrived to extort from the

inhabitants several days’ food, and a large supply of jewels, with

which he enriched the Wuzeer and himself. It was always believed that

the former had amassed large sums of money during the siege; that

he had turned the scarcity to good account, by retaining in his own

coffers no small portion of the coin which he had wrung by torture from

the wretched inhabitants. Now when the soldiery, lacking the means

of subsistence, entered upon a course of plundering that threw the

whole city into confusion, the Wuzeer, whilst issuing a proclamation

forbidding such irregularities, and declaring severe penalties for the

offence, allowed a continuation of the license to his own people, that

he might avoid the necessity of paying them at his own cost. It is

not strange, therefore, that when reports were circulated throughout

the city that the Persian army was about to move, the _Soonee_

Parsewans, scarcely less than the _Sheeahs_, should have received the

intelligence, some with sorrow, and some with a forced incredulity,

“preferring the miseries of the siege with the ultimate prospect of

the city being taken and sacked, to the raising of the siege and the

prospect of Kamran’s and Yar Mahomed’s paternal government.” “All I

wonder,” said Pottinger, recording this fact, “is, that not a man is

to be found among them bold enough to terminate their miseries by the

death of their oppressors.”[200]

But it was now becoming every day more obvious that Mahomed Shah

was about to break up his camp. Some countrymen came into Herat and

reported that the Persians were collecting their guns and mortars,

and parking them as though in preparation for an immediate march.

Parties of horsemen also had been seen moving out of camp. Others

brought in word that the enemy had destroyed their 68-pounders, were

assembling their carriage-cattle, and were about to raise the siege.

The English, it was said, had taken Shiraz; but the Persians in the

trenches, declaring that they were ready for another assault, cried

out, that though the English army had advanced upon that city, the

Prince-Governor had defeated it. All kinds of preposterous rumours

were rife. Some asserted that the Russians had attacked and captured

Tabreez; others that the Russians and English had formed an alliance

for the overthrow of Mahomedanism, and the partition of the countries

of the East between the two great European powers. But amidst all these

rumours indicating the intended retrogression of the Persian army,

the garrison was kept continually on the alert by alarming reports

of another attack; and it was hard to say whether all these seeming

preparations in Mahomed Shah’s camp were nor designed to lull the

Heratees into a sleep of delusive security, and render them an easier

prey.

But the month of September brought with it intelligence of a more

decided character. There was no longer any doubt in Herat, that Mahomed

Shah was breaking up his camp. Letters came in from the Persian

authorities intimating the probability of the “King-of-Kings” forgiving

the rebellion of Prince Kamran on certain conditions which would give

a better grace to the withdrawal of the Persian monarch. To some of

these, mainly at Pottinger’s suggestion, the Heratees demurred; but on

the 4th of September, the Persian prisoners were sent into camp; and

the Shah-in-Shah promised Colonel Stoddart that the march of the army

should commence in a few days. There was, indeed, a pressing necessity

for the immediate departure of the force. “The forage in camp,” wrote

Colonel Stoddart to Mr. M’Neill, “will only last for five or six days

more, and as messengers have been sent to turn back all cafilas, no

more flour or grain will arrive. The advanced guard under Humza Meerza

leaves camp on Friday evening.”

Everything was now ready for the retreat. The guns had been withdrawn

from their advanced positions, and were now limbered up for the march.

The baggage-cattle had been collected. The tents were being struck. The

garrison of Herat looked out upon the stir in the Persian camp, and

could no longer be doubtful of its import. The siege was now raised.

The danger was at an end. Before the 9th of September, the Persian army

had commenced its retrograde march to Teheran; and on the morning of

that day the Shah mounted his horse “Ameerj,” and set his face towards

his capital.

To Mahomed Shah this failure was mortifying indeed; but the interests

at stake were too large for him to sacrifice them at the shrine of his

ambition. He had spent ten months before the walls of Herat, exhausting

his soldiery in a vain endeavour to carry by assault a place of no real

or reputed strength. He had succeeded only in reducing the garrison to

very painful straits; and had retired at last, not as one well-disposed

to peaceful negotiation and reasonable concession, submitting to the

friendly intervention of a neutral power, and willing to wave the

chances of success; but as one who saw before him _no_ chance of

success, and was moved by no feeling of moderation and forbearance,

but by a cogent fear of the consequences resulting from the longer

prosecution of the siege. On the whole, it had been little better than

a lamentable demonstration of weakness. The Persian army under the

eye of the sovereign himself, aided by the skill of Russian engineers

and the wisdom of Russian statesmen, had failed, in ten months, to

reduce a place which I believe, in no spirit of national self-love, a

well-equipped English force, under a competent commander, would have

reduced in as many days.

The real cause of the failure is not generally understood. The fact

is, that there was no unity in the conduct of the siege. Instead

of devising and adhering to some combined plan of operations, the

Sirdars, or Generals, under Mahomed Shah, to whom the prosecution of

the siege was entrusted, acted as so many independent commanders,

and each followed his own plan of attack. The jealousy of the chiefs

prevented them from acting in concert with each other. Each had his

own independent point of attack, and they would not even move to the

assistance of each other when attacked by the Heratees in the trenches.

Except when Mahomed Shah insisted on a combined assault, as on the

24th of June, and the Russian minister directed it, there was no union

among them. Each had his own game to follow up; his own laurels to

win; and was rather pleased than disappointed by the failures of his

brethren. It was not possible that operations so conducted should have

resulted in anything but failure. But it was the deliberate opinion of

Eldred Pottinger, expressed nearly two years after the withdrawal of

the Persian army, that Mahomed Shah might have taken Herat by assault,

within four-and-twenty hours after his appearance before its walls, if

his troops had been efficiently commanded.[201]

Whether Mahomed Shah ever rightly understood this matter I do not

pretend to know, but he felt that it was necessary to make an effort

to patch up the rents which this grievous failure had made in his

reputation. So he issued a firman, setting forth all the great results

of his expedition to the eastward, and attempted to demonstrate, after

the following fashion, that he gained a victory, even at Herat:-“At

last,” so ran the royal proclamation, “when the city of Herat

existed but in name, and the reality of the government of Kamran was

reduced to four bare walls, the noble ambassadors of the illustrious

British Government, notwithstanding that three separate treaties of

peace between the two governments of England and Persia, negotiated

respectively by Sir Harford Jones, Sir Gore Ouseley, and Mr. Ellis,

were still in force, disregarding the observance of the conditions of

these treaties, prepared to undertake hostilities, and as a warlike

demonstration, despatched a naval armament with troops and forces to

the Gulf of Persia. The winter season was now approaching, and if

we protracted to a longer period our stay at Herat, there appeared

a possibility that our victorious army might suffer from a scarcity

of provisions, and that the maintenance of our troops might not be

unaccompanied with difficulty; the tranquillity of our provinces was

also a matter of serious attention to our benevolent thoughts; and

thus, in sole consideration of the interest of our faith and country,

and from a due regard to the welfare of our troops and subjects, we set

in motion our world-subduing army upon the 19th of _Jumady-al-Akber_,

and prepared to return to our capital.... During the protracted siege

of Herat, a vast number of the troops and inhabitants had perished, as

well from the fire of our cannon and musketry as from constant hardship

and starvation; the remainder of the people, amounting to about 50,000

families, with a large proportion of the Afghan and Persian chiefs, who

had been treated with the most liberal kindness by the officers of our

government, and who being compromised, could not possibly, therefore,

hold any further intercourse with Yar Mahomed Khan, marched away with

us, with zealous eagerness, to the regions of Khain and Khorassan, and

there was no vestige of an inhabited spot left around Herat.”