receipt. While this creditable transaction was under consideration, Uktar Khan was again making himself very unpleasant; so much so that Macnaghten was authorising Rawlinson to offer a reward of 10,000 rupees for his capture, which accomplished, Rawlinson was instructed to 'hang the villain as high as Haman.' The gallows was not built, however, on which Uktar was to hang, although that chief sustained two severe defeats at the hands of troops sent from Candahar, and had to become a fugitive. The Ghilzais, who had gathered again after their defeat under the 'Gooroo,' had made little stand against the detachment which Colonel Chambers led out from Candahar, and they were again temporarily dispersed. The 'Gooroo' himself was in our hands. If the disaffection was in no degree diminished, the active ebullitions of it were assuredly quelled for the time. It was true, to be sure, that Akbar Khan, the fierce and resolute son of Dost Mahomed, had refused the Envoy's overtures to come in, and was wandering and plotting in Khooloom, quite ready to fulfil Macnaghten's prophetic apprehension that 'the fellow will be after some mischief should the opportunity present itself'; that the Dooranees were still defiant; that an insurgent force was out in the Dehrawat; and that the tameless chief Akram Khan was being blown from a gun by the cruel and feeble Timour. But unquestionably there was a comparative although short-lived lull in the overt hostility of the Afghan peoples against Shah Soojah and his foreign supporters; and Macnaghten characteristically announced that 'the country was quiet from Dan to Beersheba.' To one of his correspondents he wrote: 'From Mookoor to the Khyber Pass, all is content and tranquillity; and wherever we Europeans go, we are received with respect, attention and welcome. I think our prospects are most cheering; and with the materials we have there ought to be little or no difficulty in the management of the country. The people are perfect children, and they should be treated as such. If we put one naughty boy in the corner, the rest will be terrified.' General Nott at Candahar, who 'never interfered in the government of the country,' but regarded the situation with shrewd, clear-headed common sense, differed utterly from the Envoy's view. The stout old soldier did not squander his fire; it was a close volley he discharged in the following words: 'The conduct of the thousand and one politicals has ruined our cause, and bared the throat of every European in this country to the sword and knife of the revengeful Afghan and bloody Belooch; and unless several regiments be quickly sent, not a man will be left to describe the fate of his comrades. Nothing will ever make the Afghans submit to the hated Shah Soojah, who is most certainly as great a scoundrel as ever lived.'