Akbar had full and timely intimation of the mutual intention of the
British generals at Jellalabad and Candahar to march on Cabul, and did
not fail to recognise of what value to him in extremity might be his
continued possession of the prisoners. They had been warned of their
probable deportation to the remote and rugged Bamian; and the toilsome
journey thither was begun on the evening of August 25th. A couple of
ailing families alone, with a surgeon in charge of them, were allowed to
remain behind; all the others, hale and sick, had to travel, the former
on horseback, the latter carried in camel panniers. The escort consisted
of an irregular regiment of Afghan infantry commanded by one Saleh
Mahomed Khan, who when a subadar serving in one of the Shah's Afghan
regiments had deserted to Dost Mahomed. The wayfarers, female as well as
male, wore the Afghan costume, in order that they might attract as little
notice as possible.
Bamian was reached on September 3d, where the wretchedness of the
quarters contrasted vividly with the amenity of those left behind on the
Cabul plain. But the wretchedness of Bamian was not to be long endured.
An intimacy had been struck up between Captain Johnson and Saleh Mahomed,
and the latter cautiously hinted that a reward and a pension might induce
him to carry his charges into the British camp.
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