Macnaghten did not take alarm at this significant demonstration,
regarding the outbreak merely as 'provoking,' and writing to Rawlinson
that 'the rascals would be well trounced for their pains.' Yet warnings
of gathering danger were rife, which but for his mood of optimism should
have struck home to his apprehension. Pottinger had come down from the
Kohistan, where he was acting as political officer, bent on impressing on
him that a general rising of that region was certain unless strong
measures of prevention were resorted to. For some time before the actual
outbreak of the Ghilzais, the Afghan hatred to our people had been
showing itself with exceptional openness and bitterness. Europeans and
camp followers had been murdered, but the sinister evidences of growing
danger had been regarded merely as ebullitions of private rancour. Akbar
Khan, Dost Mahomed's son, had moved forward from Khooloom into the Bamian
country, and there was little doubt that he was fomenting the
disaffection of the Ghilzai chiefs, with some of whom this indomitable
man, who in his intense hatred of the English intruders had resolutely
rejected all offers of accommodation, and preferred the life of a
homeless exile to the forfeiture of his independence, was closely
connected by marriage.
The time was approaching when Sale's brigade was to quit Cabul on its
return journey to India.
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