He now discovered his error.  The Czar’s Government had been most active in making mischief between England and the Ameer, especially while the diplomatic struggle was going on at Berlin; but after the signature of the Treaty of Berlin (July 13, 1878), the natural leaning of Alexander II. towards peace and quietness began by degrees to assert itself.  The warlike designs of Kaufmann and his officials in Turkestan received a check, though not so promptly as was consistent with strict neutrality.

Gradually the veil fell from the ex-Ameer’s eyes.  On the day of his flight (December 13), he wrote to the “Officers of the British Government,” stating that he was about to proceed to St. Petersburg, “where, before a Congress, the whole history of the transactions between myself and yourselves will be submitted to all the Powers[314].”  But nine days later he published a firman containing a very remarkable letter purporting to come from General Stolieteff at Livadia in the Crimea, where he was staying with the Czar.  After telling him that the British desired to come to terms with him (the Ameer) through the intervention of the Sultan, the letter proceeded as follows:—­

But the Emperor’s desire is that you should not admit the English into your country, and like last year, you are to treat them with deceit and deception until the present cold season passes away.  Then the Almighty’s will will be made manifest to you, that is to say, the [Russian] Government having repeated the Bismillah, the Bismillah will come to your assistance.  In short you are to rest assured that matters will end well.  If God permits, we will convene a Government meeting at St. Petersburg, that is to say, a Congress, which means an assemblage of Powers.  We will then open an official discussion with the English Government, and either by force of words and diplomatic action we will entirely cut off all English communications and interference with Afghanistan, or else events will end in a mighty and important war.  By the help of God, by spring not a symptom or a vestige of trouble and dissatisfaction will remain in Afghanistan.

[Footnote 314:  Parl.  Papers, Afghanistan, No. 7, (1879), p. 9.  He also states on p. 172 that the advice of the Afghan officials who accompanied Shere Ali in his flight was (even in April-May 1879) favourable to a Russian alliance, and that they advised Yakub in this sense.  See Kaufmann’s letters to Yakub, in Parl.  Papers, Afghanistan, No. 9 (1879).]

It is impossible to think that the Czar had any knowledge of this treacherous epistle, which, it is to be hoped, originated with the lowest of Russian agents, or emanated from some Afghan chief in their pay.  Nevertheless the fact that Shere Ali published it shows that he hoped for Russian help, even when the British held the keys of his country in their hands.  But one hope after another faded away, and in his last days he must have come to see that he had been merely the catspaw of the Russian bear.  He died on February 21, 1879, hard by the city of Bactra, the modern Balkh.