started for India by the Khyber route, which Wade had opened without
serious resistance when in August and September he escorted through the
passes Prince Timour, Shah Soojah's heir-apparent. During the temporary
absence of Cotton, who accompanied Keane, Nott had the command at
Candahar, Sale at and about Cabul, and the troops were quartered in those
capitals, and in Jellalabad, Ghuznee, Charikar and Bamian. The Shah and
the Envoy wintered in the milder climate of Jellalabad, and Burnes was in
political charge of the capital and its vicinity.

It was a prophetic utterance that the accomplishment of our military
succession would mark but the commencement of our real difficulties in
Afghanistan. In theory and in name Shah Soojah was an independent
monarch; it was, indeed, only in virtue of his proving himself able to
rule independently that he could justify his claim to rule at all. But
that he was independent was a contradiction in terms while British troops
studded the country, and while the real powers of sovereignty were
exercised by Macnaghten. Certain functions, it is true, the latter did
permit the nominal monarch to exercise. While debarred from a voice in
measures of external policy, and not allowed to sway the lines of conduct
to be adopted toward independent or revolting tribes, the Shah was
allowed to concern himself with the administration of justice, and in his
hands were the settlement, collection and appropriation of the revenue of
those portions of the kingdom from which any revenue could be exacted. He
was allowed to appoint as his minister of state, the companion of his
exile, old Moolla Shikore, who had lost both his memory and his ears, but
who had sufficient faculty left to hate the English, to oppress the
people, to be corrupt and venal beyond all conception, and to appoint
subordinates as flagitious as himself. 'Bad ministers,' wrote Burnes,
'are in every government solid ground for unpopularity; and I doubt if
ever a king had a worse set than has Shah Soojah.' The oppressed people