Dost Mahomed had maintained his sway by politic management of
the chiefs, and through them of the tribes. Macnaghten would have done
well to impress on Shah Soojah the wisdom of pursuing the same tactics.
There was, it is true, the alternative of destroying the power of the
barons, but that policy involved a stubborn and doubtful struggle, and
prolonged occupation of the country by British troops in great strength.
Macnaghten professed our occupation of Afghanistan to be temporary; yet
he was clearly adventuring on the rash experiment of weakening the nobles
when he set about the enlistment of local tribal levies, who, paid from
the Royal treasury and commanded by British officers, were expected to be
staunch to the Shah, and useful in curbing the powers of the chiefs. The
latter, of course, were alienated and resentful, and the levies, imbued
with the Afghan attribute of fickleness, proved for the most part
undisciplined and faithless.
The winter of 1839-40 passed without much noteworthy incident. The winter
climate of Afghanistan is severe, and the Afghan, in ordinary
circumstances, is among the hibernating animals. But down in the Khyber,
in October, the tribes gave some trouble. They were dissatisfied with the
amount of annual black-mail paid them for the right of way through their
passes. When the Shah was a fugitive thirty years previously, they had
concealed and protected him; and mindful of their kindly services, he had
promised them, unknown to Macnaghten, the augmentation of their subsidy
to the old scale from which it had gradually dwindled.
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