We had expressed to our old guardian a wish to get some money from Meshid, with which to reward him for his kindness, (and to get) him privately to buy (us) a few necessaries in the event of our further detention, and, liking the idea, he, on the 19th instant (May), brought secretly to see us his son-in-law Budub, employed as a caravan-bashee between Bokhara and the Holy City, who agreed to act as agent in the business after another week. Inquiring the news from Budub, we heard that Kamran was said to be confined in Herat by Yar Mahomed Khan—that the English remained as before at Candahar and Caubul—and that four Elchees, English, Russian, Persian, and Turkish, had gone together to Khiva, each displaying his national flag, and told the Khan Huzrut that he had the choice of quietly giving up plundering and slave-dealing, or of meeting the Shah of Persia, who had assembled a large army for the redress of his people. * * * * * Our old friend now informed us, on the authority of his Afghan acquaintance, Meer Hyder, that all our people had left Bokhara on hearing that they had been inquired about.... Possibly the Ameer really did mean to send us away at the time of his marching, but deferred to do so on hearing that we had no servants left here, or from one of his incalculable caprices. I had noted, in a detailed report of our proceedings after leaving Kokund, which when we were seized I was waiting the Ameer’s permission to despatch by a courier to Caubul, an expression which the Naib heard his Majesty had uttered in his camp after my arrival, to the effect that he would give the English a few rubs more, and then be friends with them again. Though we were not sure that the Amer had so spoken, the plan seems one likely to be entertained by an ignorant and weak man, anxious to give an imposing impression of his greatness and confidence; and to it I partly attributed the ungraciousness of my public reception in camp, though I was the Naib’s honoured guest; the failure of the Huzrut to recover the horses and the property of my servants which had been plundered at his outposts, when bringing letters to him, and the hauteur with which, at the first joint reception of Stoddart and myself here, he caused it to be signified to us that as in old times there had been friendship between the Mussulmans and infidels, there existed no objection to the establishment of friendly relations between the states of Bokhara and England; but that the Huzrut desired to know whether we (the English) had been travellers over all Toorkistan to spy the land with a view to take it, as we had taken Caubul, or for other purposes; and wished all our designs to be unveiled, in order that if they were friendly they might become apparent, and that if hostile, they might still be known. The Government of India, knowing what communications it has sent to