He meditated
strange enterprises, and proposed that Keane should support his project
of sending a force toward Bokhara to give check to a Russian column which
Pottinger at Herat had heard was assembling at Orenburg, with Khiva for
its objective. Keane derided the proposal, and Macnaghten reluctantly
abandoned it, but he demanded of Lord Auckland with success, the
retention in Afghanistan of the Bengal division of the army. In the
middle of September General Willshire marched with the Bombay column,
with orders, on his way to the Indus to pay a hostile visit to Khelat,
and punish its khan for the 'disloyalty' with which he had been charged,
a commission which the British officer fulfilled with a skill and
thoroughness that could be admired with less reservation had the
aggression on the gallant Mehrab been less wanton. A month later Keane
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.
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