uctantly[306].

[Footnote 306: For details see _Russia's Advance towards India_, by "an
Indian Officer," vol. ii. pp.109 _et seq._]

A perusal of Skobeleff's plan will show that he relied also on a
diplomatic Mission to Cabul and on the despatch of the Afghan pretender,
Abdur Rahman, from Samarcand to the Afghan frontier. Both of these
expedients were adopted in turn; the former achieved a startling but
temporary success.

As has been stated above, General Stolieteff's Mission entered Cabul on
July 22. The chief himself returned on August 24; but other members of
his Mission remained several weeks longer. There seem to be good grounds
for believing that the Ameer, Shere Ali, signed a treaty with
Stolieteff; but as to its purport we have no other clue than the draft
which purports to be written out from memory by a secret agent of the
Indian Government. Other Russian documents, some of which Lord Granville
afterwards described as containing "some very disagreeable passages . . .
written subsequently to the Treaty of Berlin," were found by Lord
Roberts; and the Russian Government found it difficult to give a
satisfactory explanation of them[307].

[Footnote 307: The alleged treaty is printed, along with the other
documents, in Parl. Papers, Central Asia, No. 1 (1881), pp. 17-30. See
also Lord Roberts' _Forty-one Years in India_, vol. ii. p.477.]

In any case the Government of India could not stand by and witness the
intrusion of Muscovite influence into Afghanistan. Action, however, was
very difficult owing to the alienation of the Ameer. His resentment had
now settled into lasting hatred. As a test question Lord Lytton sought
to impose on him the reception of a British Mission. On August 8 he
received telegraphic permission from London to make this demand. The
Ameer, however, refused to allow a single British officer to enter the
country; and the death of his son and heir on August 17 enabled him to
decline to attend to affairs of State for a whole month.

His conduct in this matter was condoned by the champions of "masterly
inactivity" in this country, who proceeded to accuse the Viceroy of
haste in sending forward the British Mission to the frontier before the
full time of mourning was over[308]. We now know, however, that this
sympathy was misplaced. Shere Ali's grief did not prevent him seeing
officers of the Russian Mission after his bereavement, and (as it seems)
signing an alliance with the emissaries of the