Eyoob was but a puppet king, the tool of the family who raised him to the government; Azeem Khan, who was appointed his vizier, being in truth the ruler.  Several of the young princes who aspired to the throne were delivered over to Eyoob, who put them to death.

Shooja, driven from Peshawur, retired to Shikarpoor, which the Ameers of Sinde ceded to him; where, in place of conducting himself with prudence, he was so addicted to low intrigue with those about him, that his enemies availed themselves of this propensity to effect his ruin, and drove him from Shikarpoor, when, crossing the Indus, he fled through the desert by Juydalmeer, and returned to Loodiana.  “The fitness,” says Lieut.  Burnes, “of Shah Shooja-ool-Moolk for the station of a sovereign seems ever to have been doubtful.  His manners and address are highly polished, but his judgment does not rise above mediocrity; had the case been otherwise, we should not now see him an exile from his country and his throne, without a hope of regaining them, after an absence of twenty years, and before he has attained the fiftieth year of his age.”

The civil wars which had thus so frequently occurred in Afghanistan weakened the resources of the country and its means of defence.  Runjet Sing availed himself of the advantage which this state of affairs presented to him, and obtained possession of Cashmere; when, continuing his conquests, he crossed the Indus, and made himself master of Peshawur, burning its palace, and laying the country under tribute.  Azeem Khan made a precipitate retreat before the army of the Sikhs towards Cabool, without attempting to arrest their progress, and was so stung with remorse at the weakness of his conduct that he died on reaching that city.  With the death of Azeem the royal authority was extinguished.  The king fled to Lahore, and lived under the protection of his conqueror.  Herat alone remained in the possession of one of the Suddoozye family.  The brothers of the late vizier seized his son, and deprived him of his treasure and his power.  The kingdom was then divided between them.  Cabool fell into the hands of Dost Mahomed; Peshawur and Candahar were held by two of his brothers; the Sindeans threw off their yoke, and refused to pay tribute; Balk was annexed to the dominions of the King of Bokhara; the richest portion of the provinces having fallen into the possession of the Sikhs.  In seventy-six years from the time that Ahmed Shah was crowned at Candahar, the Dooranee monarchy again ceased to exist.

As I have given the character of Shah Shooja, it will be interesting to quote that of Dost Mahomed, from the same author.  “He is unremitting in his attention to business, and attends daily at the courthouse, with the Cazee and Moollahs, to decide every cause according to law.  Trade has received the greatest encouragement from him, and he has derived his own reward, since the receipts of the customhouse of the city have increased fifty thousand rupees,