with him, and on my arrival awoke my master, who dressed quickly, and went to the Wuzeer, and talked to him some time.” As this man speaks of what he saw, and what he did on the morning of the 2nd of November, I conceive that his evidence is the best that is now obtainable. He states that “Sir Alexander Burnes was duly informed by his Afghan servants, the day previous to his murder, that there was a stir in the city, and that if he remained in it his life would be in danger; they told him he had better go to the cantonments; this he declined doing, giving as his reason that the Afghans never received any injury from him, but, on the contrary, he had done much for them, and that he was quite sure they would never injure him.” A statement of a directly contrary tendency has, however, been made by Lieutenant Mackenzie, late of the 41st Regiment, who has illustrated the melancholy history of our Caubul disasters in a poem of twelve cantos. “I am enabled,” he says, “to state positively, on the authority of a letter from Sir Alexander Burnes himself (one of the last he ever wrote, and addressed to an officer of high rank, and one of his most intimate friends), that poor Burnes had long foreseen the crisis which had arrived; for, in the letter alluded to, he states his conviction in the most solemn terms that he was a marked man and would inevitably be the first victim;—but, nevertheless, he would never flinch from what he conceived to be his duty, although all his warnings had been disregarded.” INDECISION OF GENERAL ELPHINSTONE. [_Book V., chapter 2, p. 187._] The following is the letter alluded to in the text; written by General Elphinstone to the Envoy on the 2nd of November:— MY DEAR SIR WILLIAM, Since you left me, I have been considering what can be done to-morrow. Our dilemma is a difficult one. Shelton, if re-inforced to-morrow, might, no doubt, force in two columns on his way towards the Lahore gate, and we might from hence force in that gate and meet them. But if this were accomplished, what shall we gain? It can be done, but not without very great loss, as our people will be exposed to the fire from the houses the whole way. Where is the point you said they were to fortify near Burnes’s house? If they could assemble there, that would be a point of attack; but to march into the town, it seems, we should only have to come back again; and as to setting the city on fire, I fear, from its construction, that is almost impossible. We must see what the morning brings, and then think what can be done. The occupation of all the houses near the gates might give us a command of the town, but we have not means of extended operations. If we could depend on the Kuzzilbashes, we might easily reduce the city. Yours, truly, W. K. ELPHINSTONE. DEATHS OF LIEUTENANT RATTRAY AND CAPTAIN CODRINGTON. [_Book V., chapter 4, pages 227-231._]