On the 1st of April an
Afghan force entered Candahar, followed presently by Mahomed Hassan Khan,
the Governor nominated by the Ameer. General Hume soon after marched out,
and after halting for a time in the Pisheen valley to watch the course of
events in Candahar, he continued his march toward India. The restless
Ayoub did not tamely submit to the arrangement which gave Candahar to
Abdurrahman. Spite of many arduous difficulties, spite of lack of money
and of mutinous troops, he set out toward Candahar in July 1881. Mahomed
Hassan marched against him from Candahar, and a battle was fought at
Maiwand on the anniversary of the defeat of General Burrows on the same
field. Ayoub was the conqueror, and he straightway took possession of the
capital and was for the time ruler of the province. But Abdurrahman,
subsidised with English money and English arms, hurried from Cabul,
encountered Ayoub outside the walls of Candahar, and inflicted on him a
decisive defeat. His flight to Herat was followed up, he sustained a
second reverse there, and took refuge in Persia. Abdurrahman's tenure of
the Cabul sovereignty had been at first extremely precarious; but he
proved a man at once strong, resolute, and politic. In little more than a
year after his accession he was ruler of Shere Ali's Afghanistan;
Candahar and Herat had both come to him, and that without very serious
exertion.
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