al
Election were heard in India early in January. Afghan affairs were
being made a party question, and the policy of the Beaconsfield
Government with regard to them was being severely and adversely
criticized. Lord Lytton was, therefore, most anxious that a definite
conclusion should be arrived at as to the administration of
Afghanistan, and a period put to our occupation of the northern
province before the meeting of Parliament should take place.

The difficulty was to find the right man. Abdur Rahman, who I had
reason to believe would be acceptable to the army, was far away, I
could not find out where, and I could think of no one else at all
suitable. Under the circumstances, I deemed it advisable to open
negotiations with the several leaders of the late combination against
us, who were congregated at Ghazni, and had with them the young
Heir-apparent, Musa Khan. In the middle of January I had received two
communications from these people, one ostensibly written by Musa Khan
himself, the other signed by seventy of the most influential
chiefs; the tenor of both was the same; they demanded Yakub Khan's
restoration, and asserted his innocence as to the massacre of the
Embassy. I replied that Yakub Khan's return was impossible, and that
they must consider his abdication final, as he himself had declared
that he wished it to be,[2] and a few days later I deputed the
Mustaufi[3] to visit Ghazni, in the hope that he might be able to
induce the leaders to make some more feasible suggestion for the
government of the country.

The Mustaufi had scarcely started, before what seemed to be a reliable
report reached me that Abdur Rahman was at Kanduz, on his way to
Badakhshan, and I immediately communicated this news to Lord Lytton.

A fortnight later Abdur Rahman's mother, who resided at Kandahar,
informed Sir Donald Stewart that Ayub Khan had received a letter from
her son, in answer to an offer from Ayub to join him at Balkh and
march with him against the British. In this letter Abdur Rahman had
replied that he would have nothing to do with any of Sher Ali's
family, who had deceived him and dealt with him in the same
treacherous manner that characterized Sher Ali's dealings with the
British; further, that he had no intention of opposing the British,
knowing full well he was not strong enough to do so; that he could not
leave Russian territory without the permission of the Russians, whose
pensioner he was; and that, even if he