Broadfoot went for information, in the first instance, to Colonel Monteath, who could give him no orders, having received none himself. Monteath declined to apply for details as to the expedition, as he knew 'these people' (the authorities) too well; he was quite aware of the danger of going on service in the dark, but explained that it was not the custom of the military authorities at Cabul to consult or even instruct the commanders of expeditions. Broadfoot then went to the General. Cotton's successor in the chief military command in Afghanistan was poor General Elphinstone, a most gallant soldier, but with no experience of Indian warfare, and utterly ignorant of the Afghans and of Afghanistan. Wrecked in body and impaired in mind by physical ailments and infirmities, he had lost all faculty of energy, and such mind as remained to him was swayed by the opinion of the person with whom he had last spoken. The poor gentleman was so exhausted by the exertion of getting out of bed, and being helped into his visiting-room, that it was not for half-an-hour, and after several ineffectual efforts, that he could attend to business. He knew nothing of the nature of the service on which Monteath was ordered, could give Broadfoot no orders, and was unwilling to refer to the Envoy on a matter which should have been left to him to arrange. He complained bitterly of the way in which he was reduced to a cypher--'degraded from a general to the "Lord-Lieutenant's head constable."' Broadfoot went from the General to the Envoy, who 'was peevish,' and denounced the General as fidgety. He declared the enemy to be contemptible, and that as for Broadfoot and his sappers, twenty men with pickaxes were enough; all they were wanted for was to pick stones from under the gun wheels. When Broadfoot represented the inconvenience with which imperfect information as to the objects of the expedition was fraught, Macnaghten lost his temper, and told Broadfoot that, if he thought Monteath's movement likely to bring on an attack, 'he need not go, he was not wanted'; whereupon Broadfoot declined to listen to such language, and made his bow. Returning to the General, whom he found 'lost and perplexed,' he was told to follow his own judgment as to what quantity of tools he should take. The Adjutant-General came in, and 'this officer, after abusing the Envoy, spoke to the General with an imperiousness and disrespect, and to me, a stranger, with an insolence it was painful to see the influence of on the General. His advice to his chief was to have nothing to say to Macnaghten, to me, or to the sappers, saying Monteath had men enough, and needed neither sappers nor tools.' At parting the poor old man said to Broadfoot: 'If you go out, for God's sake clear the passes quickly, that I may get away; for if anything were to turn up, I am unfit for it, done up in body and mind.' This was the man whom Lord Auckland had appointed to the most