in Afghanistan the Envoy could not look for much advice from the successive commanders of the Cabul force, even if he had cared to commune with them. Keane, indeed, did save him from the perpetration of one folly. But Cotton appears to have been a respectable nonentity. Sale was a stout, honest soldier, who was not fortunate on the only occasion which called him outside of his restricted _métier_. Poor Elphinstone was an object for pity rather than for censure. It happened fortunately, in the impending misfortunes, that two men of stable temperament and lucid perception were in authority at Candahar. General Nott was a grand old Indian officer, in whom there was no guile, but a good deal of temper. He was not supple, and he had the habit of speaking his mind with great directness, a propensity which accounted, perhaps, for the repeated supersessions he had undergone. A clear-headed, shrewd man, he was disgusted with very many things which he recognised as unworthy in the conduct of the affairs of Afghanistan, and he was not the man to choose mild phrases in giving vent to his convictions. He had in full measure that chronic dislike which the Indian commander in the field nourishes to the political officer who is imposed on him by the authorities, and who controls his measures and trammels his actions. Nott's 'political,' who, the sole survivor of the men who were prominent during this unhappy period, still lives among us esteemed and revered, was certainly the ablest officer of the unpopular department to which he belonged; and how cool was Henry Rawlinson's temper is evinced in his ability to live in amity with the rugged and outspoken chief who addressed him in such a philippic as the following--words all the more trenchant because he to whom they were addressed must have realised how intrinsically true they were:-- 'I have no right to interfere with the affairs of this country, and I never do so. But in reference to that part of your note where you speak of political influence, I will candidly tell you that these are not times for mere ceremony, and that under present circumstances, and at a distance of 2000 miles from the seat of the supreme Government, I throw responsibility to the wind, and tell you that in my opinion you have not had for some time past, nor have you at present, one particle of political influence in this country.' Nott steadily laboured to maintain the _morale_ and discipline of his troops, and thus watching the flowing tide of misrule and embroilment, he calmly made the best preparations in his power to meet the storm the sure and early outbreak of which his clear discernment prognosticated.