Shortly after the departure of Keane with the homeward-bound column, Soojah left the cold of the capital for the milder air of Jellalabad, and with him went Macnaghten, leaving Burnes in charge at Cabul. The winter months were passed in comparative quiet. Macnaghten busied himself with an attempt to win the favour of the turbulent Khyber tribes, and by lavish payments did succeed in lulling them to temporary quiet. There, too, was received news of the fall of Khelat, which had been determined on during the upward march as punishment for Mehrab Khan's treachery, and still more important news from the Bamean of the further flight of Dost Mahomed to the court of the Ameer of Bokhara, where our own envoy Stoddart was then a close prisoner in imminent danger of death. But as a set-off against so much that was good to hear there came from Burnes the disquieting intelligence of the advance of a large Russian force from Orenberg on Khiva, ostensibly to release certain Russian merchants from captivity, and to punish the Khan, not too severely, for general misconduct--a pretext which, it will probably be remembered, was used with great effect on a subsequent occasion. Macnaghten was inclined at first to make light of the news, on which Burnes had, on the contrary, laid the greatest stress; but as rumour grew he consented at last to despatch a mission to the Russian camp. Conolly and Rawlinson were selected--Burnes, when the post was offered to him, having only replied "that he would willingly go if he was ordered"--when, on the eve of their departure, the welcome news arrived that there was no longer a Russian camp for them to visit. Snow, pestilence and famine had done the work that neither Tartar sabres nor English diplomacy would have probably availed to do then, any more than they have availed since, and of Peroffski's 6000 men scarcely a man found his way back to Orenberg.