On the 15th October, at Sibi, he
resigned his command, and taking sick leave to England sailed from Bombay
on the 30th October. His year of hard and successful service in
Afghanistan greatly enhanced his reputation as a prompt, skilful, and
enterprising soldier.
* * * * *
The Pisheen and Sibi valleys are the sole tangible results remaining to
us of the two campaigns in Afghanistan sketched in the second part of
this volume--campaigns which cost the lives of many gallant men slain in
action or dead of disease, and involved the expenditure of about twenty
millions sterling. Lord Beaconsfield's vaunted 'scientific frontier,'
condemned by a consensus of the best military opinions, was rejected by
the Liberal Government which had recently acceded to power, whose
decision was that both the Khyber Pass and the Kuram valley should be
abandoned. On this subject Sir Frederick Roberts wrote with great
shrewdness: 'We have nothing to fear from Afghanistan, and the best thing
to do is to leave it as much as possible to itself. It may not be very
flattering to our _amour propre_, but I feel sure I am right when I say
that the less the Afghans see of us the less they will dislike us. Should
Russia in future years attempt to conquer Afghanistan, or invade India
through it, we should have a better chance of attaching the Afghans to
our interest if we avoid all interference with them in the meantime.
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