Sukkur across the Scinde and northern Belooch provinces by the Bolan and
Kojuk passes to Candahar, thence by Khelat-i-Ghilzai and Ghuznee to
Cabul. This was a line excessively circuitous, immensely long, full of
difficulties, and equally disadvantageous as to supplies and
communications. On the way the column would have to effect a junction
with the Bombay force, which at Vikkur was distant 800 miles from
Ferozepore. Of the distance of 850 miles from the latter post to Candahar
the first half to the crossing of the Indus presented no serious
difficulties, but from Sukkur beyond the country was inhospitable and
cruelly rugged. It needed little military knowledge to realise how more
and yet more precarious would become the communications as the chain
lengthened, to discern that from Ferozepore to the Indus they would be at
the mercy of the Sikhs, and to comprehend this also, that a single
serious check, in or beyond the passes, would involve all but inevitable
ruin.

Shah Soojah and his levies moved independently some marches in advance of
Cotton. The Dooranee monarch-elect had already crossed the Indus, and was
encamped at Shikarpore, when he was joined by Mr William Hay Macnaghten,
of the Company's Civil Service, the high functionary who had been
gazetted as 'Envoy and Minister on the part of the Government of India at
the Court of Shah Soojah-ool-Moolk.' Durand pronounces the selection an
unhappy one, 'for Macnaghten, long accustomed to irresponsible office,
inexperienced in men, and ignorant of the country and people of
Afghanistan, was, though an erudite Arabic scholar, neither practised in
the field of Asiatic intrigue nor a man of action. His ambition was,
however, great, and the expedition, holding out the promise of
distinction and honours, had met with his strenuous advocacy.' Macnaghten
was one of the three men who chiefly inspired Lord Auckland with the
policy to which he had committed himself. He was the negotiator of the