The counsellors who went to Candahar with
Timour were returned _emigres_, in whom fitness for duty counted less
than the qualification of companionship in exile. Those people had come
back to Afghanistan poor; now they made haste to be rich by acts of
oppressive injustice, in the exaction of revenue from the people, and by
intercepting from the Dooranee chiefs the flow of royal bounty to which
they had looked forward.
Uktar Khan was prominent among the Dooranee noblemen, and he had the
double grievance of having been disappointed of the headship of the
Zemindawar province on the western bank of the Helmund, and having been
evilly entreated by the minions of Prince Timour. He had raised his clan
and routed a force under a royalist follower, when Nott sent a detachment
against him. Uktar Khan had crossed the Helmund into Zemindawar, when
Farrington attacked him, and, after a brisk fight, routed and pursued
him. The action was fought on January 3, 1841, in the very dead of
winter; the intensity of the cold dispersed Uktar's levies, and
Farrington returned to Candahar.
In reply to Macnaghten's demand for information regarding the origin of
this outbreak, Rawlinson wrote him some home truths which were very
distasteful. Rawlinson warned his chief earnestly of the danger which
threatened the false position of the British in Afghanistan.
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