Bands of tribesmen began to cluster around Cabul, and an endeavour to disperse them led to a temporary British reverse not far from the Sherpur cantonments where Roberts held his troops.  The situation was serious.  As generally happens with Asiatics, the hillmen rose by thousands at the news, and beset the line of communications with India.  Sir Frederick Roberts, however, staunchly held his ground at the Sherpur camp, beating off one very serious attack of the tribesmen on December 20-23.  On the next day General Gough succeeded in breaking through from Gandamak to his relief.  Other troops were hurried up from India, and this news ended the anxiety which had throbbed through the Empire at the news of Roberts being surrounded near Cabul.

Now that the league of hillmen had been for the time broken up, it became more than ever necessary to find a ruler for Afghanistan, and settle affairs with all speed.  This was also desirable in view of the probability of a general election in the United Kingdom in the early part of the year 1880, the Ministry wishing to have ready an Afghan settlement to act as a soporific drug on the ravening Cerberus of democracy at home.  Unhappily, the outbreak of the Zulu War on January 11, 1880, speedily followed by the disaster of Isandlana, redoubled the complaints in the United Kingdom, with the result that matters were more than ever pressed on in Afghanistan.

Some of the tribes clamoured for the return of Yakub, only to be informed by General Roberts that such a step would never be allowed.  In the midst of this uncertainty, when the hour for the advent of a strong man seemed to have struck, he opportunely appeared.  Strange to say, he came from Russian Turkestan.

As has been stated above, Abdur Rahman, son of Ufzal Khan, had long lived there as a pensioner of the Czar; his bravery and skill in intrigue had been well known.  The Russian writer, Petrovsky, described him as longing, above all things, to get square with the English and Shere Ali.  It was doubtless with this belief in the exile’s aims that the Russians gave him L2500 and 200 rifles.  His advent in Afghanistan seemed well calculated to add to the confusion there and to the difficulties of England.  With only 100 followers he forded the Oxus and, early in 1880, began to gather around him a band in Afghan Turkestan.  His success was startlingly rapid, and by the end of March he was master of all that district[318].

[Footnote 318:  See his adventures in The Life of Abdur Rahman, by Sultan Mohammed Khan, vol. ii, chaps, v., vi.  He gave out that he came to expel the English (pp. 173-175).]