Keane marched up the right bank of the Indus to
within a couple of marches of Hyderabad, and having heard of the
rejection by the Ameers of Pottinger's terms, and of the gathering of
some 20,000 armed Belooches about the capital, he called for the
co-operation of part of the Bengal column in a movement on Hyderabad.
Cotton started on his march down the left bank, on January Jeth, with
5600 men. Under menaces so ominous the unfortunate Ameers succumbed.
Cotton returned to Roree; the Bengal column crossed the Indus, and on
February 20th its headquarters reached Shikarpore. Ten days later,
Cotton, leading the advance, was in Dadur, at the foot of the Bolan Pass,
having suffered heavily in transport animals almost from the start.
Supplies were scarce in a region so barren, but with a month's partial
food on his beasts of burden he quitted Dadur March 10th, got safely, if
toilsomely, through the Bolan, and on 26th reached Quetta, where he was
to halt for orders. Shah Soojah and Keane followed, their troops
suffering not a little from scarcity of supplies and loss of animals.
Keane's error in detaining Cotton at Quetta until he should arrive proved
itself in the semi-starvation to which the troops of the Bengal column
were reduced. The Khan of Khelat, whether from disaffection or inability,
left unfulfilled his promise to supply grain, and the result of the
quarrel which Burnes picked with him was that he shunned coming in and
paying homage to Shah Soojah, for which default he was to suffer cruel
and unjustifiable ruin.
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