or the Lakes he gets a mountain chain between Independent Tartary and
China.

WALMAR BARRACKS, _March_, 1846.




A PEEP INTO TOORKISTH[=A]N.[*]

[* Note: A portion of the following pages in their original form has
appeared in the Asiatic Journal.]




CHAPTER I.


During the summer of 1840, the aspect of the political horizon in
Affghanist[=a]n afforded but slight grounds for prognosticating the
awful catastrophe which two short years after befel the British arms.
Dost Mahommed had not yet given himself up, but was a fugitive, and
detained by the King of Bokhara, while many of the principal Sirdars
had already tendered their allegiance to Shah Sooja: and there was in
truth some foundation for the boast that an Englishman might travel
in safety from one end of Affghanist[=a]n to the other. An efficient
force of tried soldiers occupied Ghuzni, Cabul, Candahar, Jellalabad,
and the other strongholds of the country; our outposts were pushed
to the north-west some fifty miles beyond Bamee[=a]n, the Khyber