Pollock, however, was inclined to discriminate—to protect our friends and to punish our enemies. Whilst supplies were coming in but slowly to his camp, it seemed good to him that another blow should be struck at the hostile chiefs. It was reported to him that Ameen-oollah Khan was in the field at Istaliff, in the Kohistan, endeavouring to bring together the scattered fragments of the broken Barukzye force. It was believed to be the design of the chief to attack the British on their retirement from Caubul; and it was expedient, therefore, at once to break up his force, and to leave some mark of our just resentment on a part of the country which had poured forth so many of the insurgents who had risen against us in the preceding winter. A force taken from the two divisions of the British army was therefore despatched, under General M’Caskill, to Istaliff, to scatter the enemy there collected, and to destroy the place. It was thought, moreover, that Ameen-oollah Khan, dreading the advance of the retributory army, would endeavour to conciliate the British General, by delivering up to him the person of Mahomed Akbar Khan, if he could adroitly accomplish his seizure. The Sirdar had sent his family and his property into Turkistan; and was himself waiting the progress of events in the Ghorebund Pass, ready, it was said, to follow his establishment across the hills, if the British troops pushed forward to overtake him. The hostile chiefs were all now at the last gasp—all eager to conciliate the power that a few months before they had derided and defied. Already had Ameen-oollah Khan begun to make overtures to the British authorities—to declare that he had always at heart been their friend; but that he had been compelled to secure his own safety by siding with the Barukzyes. And now Akbar Khan with the same object, sent into Pollock’s camp a peace-offering, in the shape of the last remaining prisoner in his hands. Captain Bygrave was now restored to his friends. It might have been a feeling of generosity—for generous impulses sometimes welled up in the breast of the Sirdar; it might have been a mere stroke of policy, having reference solely to his own interests; or it might, and it probably was, a mixture of the two influences that prevailed upon him; but he would not any longer make war upon a single man, and upon one, too, whom he personally respected and esteemed with the respect and esteem due to a man of such fine qualities as Bygrave. So he sent the last remaining prisoner safely into Pollock’s camp; and with him he sent a letter of conciliation, and an agent commissioned to treat for him. He was eager to enter into negotiations with the British. It was little likely that so weak a Prince as Futteh Jung would be able to maintain his regal authority in Afghanistan a day after the departure of the British; and it appeared to him not wholly improbable that, wishing to leave behind them a