Arzbegi stands between, in readiness to represent whatever he is
desired, and everybody has his cause decided at once: bribery is not
so much as known here. He has particular information given him of
every thing that passes; all criminals, great and small, rich and
poor, meet with immediate death. He sits till noon, after which he
dines, then reposes a little; when afternoon prayers are over he
sits till the evening prayers, and when they are over he shoots five
arrows into the _Khak Tudah_, and then goes into the women's
apartments." [Footnote: Fraser's "Nadir Shah."]

The splendor of the Robber King has departed, but his deeds of blood
and treachery have often been repeated in the country of the
Afghans.

A succession of struggles between Afghan and Persian leaders for the
control of Afghanistan marked the next fifty years.

When the project of Russian invasion of India, suggested by
Napoleon, was under consideration in Persia, a British envoy was
sent, in 1809, to the then Shah Sujah, and received the most cordial
reception at Peshawur. But Shah Sujah was, in 1810, superseded by
his brother, Mahmud, and the latter was pressed hard by the son of
his Wazir to such an extent that Herat alone remained to him. In
1823 his former kingdom passed to Dost Mohammed, who in 1826
governed Kabul, Kandahar, Ghazni, and Peshawur. The last-named place
fell into the hands of Runjeet Singh, the "Lion of the Punjab." Dost
Mohammed then applied to England for aid in recovering Peshawur,
failing in which he threatened to turn to Russia.

That Power was (1837) engaged in fomenting trouble in the western