Such are the categories of taxation; and, at the very best, all Affghans viewed it in the light of _chout_ or _black mail_, a tribute to be thrown into the one scale if a gleaming sabre lay in the other. King Soojah levying taxes was to him a Mahratta at the least, if he was not even a Pindarree or a Thug. Indeed it is clear that, where the government does nothing for the people, nor pretends to do any thing, where no courts of justice exist, no ambassadors, no police, no defensive militia, (except for internal feuds,) title there can be none to any but a nominal tribute, as a mere peppercorn acknowledgment of superiority: going beyond _that_, taxation is borne only as robbery is borne. Under these circumstances, and having a motive so strong for reconciling the Affghans to the new government, of all the incidents belonging to sovereignty on our European notions, least and last should we have suffered the Shah to exercise that of taxation. But to exercise it ourselves, that was midsummer madness! If _he_ would have seemed a robber in such a function, what must we have seemed? Besides, it is held by some who have more narrowly watched the Affghan modes of thinking, that, even where they _do_ submit to pay a tax, it is paid as a loan, and on the understanding that the chief receiving it is bound to refund it indirectly, by leading them at some convenient season (which many conceive to be in every alternate year) upon a lucrative foray. But this was exactly what we came to prevent. What we should have done is manifestly this. How much could the Shah have levied on all Affghanistan? A matter of L. 300,000 at most. But this was the _gross_ sum, before deducting any thing for costs of collecting, which costs were often eighty shillings in the pound, besides counting on the _little_ aid of our bayonets as a service wholly gratuitous. The sum netted by the exchequer must have been laughably small; and even in that respect the poor king must often have sighed for his quiet English lodgings on the left bank of the Sutlege. Now, surely this trivial revenue might have been furnished on the following plan. In a country like Affghanistan, where the king _can_ be no more than the first of the sirdars, it is indispensable to raise his revenue, meaning the costs of his courtly establishment, as we ourselves did in England till the period of 1688. And how was _that?_ Chiefly on crown estates, parks, forests, warrens, mines, just as every private subject raised his revenue, reserving all attempt at _taxes_ in the shape of aids, subsidies, or benevolences, for some extraordinary case of war, foreign or domestic. Our kings, English and Scotch, lived like other country gentlemen, on the produce of their farms. Fortunately for such a plan, at that moment there must have been a fine harvest of forfeitures rising to the sickle all over the Affghan land, for rebels were as thick as blackberries. But, if any _deficit_ had still shown itself on the Shah's