[Footnote 3:  These letters, as well as my report to the Secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign Department, with an account of my conversation with Yakub Khan, are given in the Appendix.]

[Footnote 4:  Sirdar Ayub Khan was Governor of Herat in 1879.]

[Footnote 5:  There were present at the interview, besides myself, Colonel Macgregor, Major Hastings, Surgeon-Major Bellew, Nawab Sir Ghulam Hussein Khan, and Mr. H.M.  Durand.]

[Footnote 6:  A kind of mantle worn by Afghans.]

[Footnote 7:  As Yakub Khan refused under one pretext or another to deliver up any money, Major Moriarty, the officer in charge of the Kabul Field Force treasure-chest, and Lieutenant Neville Chamberlain, accompanied by an escort, searched a house in the city in which a portion of Yakub Khan’s money was said to be concealed.  Upwards of eight and a half lakhs of rupees, and a certain amount of jewellery and gold coins, tillas and Russian five-rouble pieces, in all amounting to nine and a half lakhs, were found.  This sum was subsequently refunded to the Afghan Government.]

[Footnote 8:  The Nawab had been made a K.C.S.I.]

* * * * *

CHAPTER LIV. 1879

  The amnesty Proclamation—­Strength of the Kabul Field Force
  —­Yakub Khan despatched to India

On the 1st November my Head-Quarters and the 1st division moved into Sherpur, which the Engineers had prepared for winter quarters, and where stores of provisions and forage were assuming satisfactory proportions.  The same day Brigadier-General Macpherson left Kabul with a brigade of about 1,800 men and four guns to join hands with the troops which I had lately heard were advancing from the Khyber, and had reached Gandamak.  I joined Macpherson the following morning at Butkhak, about eleven miles from Kabul, where our first post towards the Khyber had already been established.  It was very important that our communication with India should be by a route good enough for wheeled carriages; I was therefore anxious to see for myself if it were not possible to avoid the Khurd-Kabul Pass, which was said to be very difficult.  I had, besides, a strong wish to visit this pass, as being the scene of Sir Robert Sale’s fight with the tribesmen in 1841, and of the beginning of the massacre of General Elphinstone’s unfortunate troops in 1842.[1] The Afghan Commander-in-Chief, Daud Shah, and several Ghilzai Chiefs, accompanied me; from them I learned that an easier road did exist, running more to the east, and crossing over the Lataband mountain.  Personal inspection of the two lines proved that Daud Shah’s estimate of their respective difficulties was correct; the Lataband route was comparatively easy, there was no defile as on the Khurd-Kabul side, and the kotal, 8,000 feet above the sea, was reached by a gradual ascent from Butkhak.  However, I found the Khurd-Kabul much less difficult than I had imagined it to be; it might have been made passable for carts, but there was no object in using it, as the Lataband route possessed the additional advantage of being some miles shorter; accordingly I decided upon adopting the latter as the line of communication with India.