The consideration shown to the Amir seemed, to the suspicious minds of the Cabulis, a sign which foreboded his future restoration, or that of his near relatives; and those who were well inclined to us shrank from declaring their partisanship too boldly, for fear of after-consequences, when the Barakzai family should again be all-powerful in the country. There was a slight dissipation of this feeling when the Proclamation of October 28th was issued, announcing Yakub Khan’s voluntary abdication, and ordering all chiefs in Afghanistan to look to the Commander of the British force at Cabul for their authority in future; but we are known to be so eccentric a people that there still lurked uneasiness in many minds, and mouths were sealed that might reasonably have been expected to be open. The actual presence of the late sovereign in our Camp—even though he was known to be under a close guard—was too powerful an influence to be easily swept away: if he had been hurried away to India in disgrace, the atmosphere of doubt and uncertainty would have cleared up. But our ideas of justice are too strict to be warped by passionate anger, and it was resolved to give Yakub Khan as fair a chance of defending himself as he could possibly expect. That he lost his personal liberty by listening to foolish councillors, who thought he might gain something by flight, was nothing to us. One cannot always guard a man against his own stupidity. Having, then, to keep Yakub Khan with us, we had to do as best we could in gaining means of judging what were his relations with the men who stood forth as leaders of the rebel army, and how far he had sympathized with their plans. In endeavouring to trace out the palace intrigues which Nek Mahomed, Kushdil Khan, and others had set on foot, the Commission had often to rely upon men themselves tainted with suspicion; and when this was the case the statements had to be carefully weighed and critically compared with facts which were attested beyond doubt. To dwell, as I have dwelt before, upon the strong point of an Afghan, and the strongest of a Barakzai—the capacity for lying—would be merely to repeat an old story: the lies might contain in them a germ of truth shining out as a silent protest against the mass of falsehood; and many of these germs have, after careful nursing, borne such fruit, that very tangible results have been arrived at. In spite of the religious antipathy always manifested by Mussulmans against Christians, increased a thousandfold when it is thought a Mussulman’s life is in danger; in the face of a strong feeling against the restoration of a Barakzai Amir on the one hand, and of the feudal reverence shown towards the dynasty on the other; in silent but cautious calculation of those opposing influences, the Commission felt its way forward. Such men as professed friendship for us were invited to tell us all they knew, and that _all_ seemed so little that it was disheartening to listen to it; such others