[82] Shah Soojah, when on his way to Shikarpoor, in 1833, had entered into a treaty with Runjeet Singh, by one of the articles of which he ceded Peshawur to the Sikhs. But Runjeet Singh was by no means inclined to wait until the Shah had established his title to give away any portion of the Afghan dominions; so he sent his grandson, Nao Nehal Singh, a boy, who then “took the spear into his hand” for the first time, to take possession of the place.
[83] He had been recommended by some to assume the titles of royalty, but he replied, that as he was too poor to support his dignity as a Sirdar, it would be preposterous to think of converting himself into a King.
[84] General Harlan.
[85] Harlan originally went out to China and India as supercargo of a merchant vessel. He left his ship at Calcutta, and obtained service, as a supernumerary, on the medical establishment of the Company. He was posted to the artillery at Dum-Dum, and afterwards accompanied Major (now Sir George) Pollock to Rangoon. He does not appear to have earned a very good name during his connexion with the Company’s army, which he soon quitted, and obtained service with Runjeet Singh—afterwards to seek the patronage of Dost Mahomed, whom he had so foully betrayed.
[86] It would appear that Dost Mahomed, instigated by Meerza Samad Khan, seized Mr. Harlan, as well as the Fakir Aziz-ood-een, who was also sent as an ambassador into the Ameer’s camp. The Ameer endeavoured to throw the odium of the act upon Sultan Mahomed, hoping thereby to ruin him utterly in the opinion of the Sikhs; but Sultan Mahomed, after having taken a number of oaths on the Koran, pledging himself to compliance with the Ameer’s wishes, sent back the prisoners (or hostages, as Dost Mahomed called them) to the Maharajah’s camp. Mr. Harlan himself, however, says nothing about this. Mohun Lal says that “the appalling news (of the treachery of Sultan Mahomed) wounded the feelings of the Ameer most bitterly. There were no bounds to the sweat of shame and folly which flowed over his face, and there was no limit to the laughter of the people at his being deceived and ridiculed. His minister, Meerza Samad Khan, was so much distressed by this sad exposure of his own trick, and still more by the failure of his plan in losing the Fakir, that he hung down his head with great remorse and shame, and then, throwing away his state papers, he exclaimed, that he would avoid all interference in the government affairs hereafter.”
[87] The authorities consulted in the preparation of this chapter are the published works of Burnes, Conolly, Vigne, Masson, Mohun Lal, Harlan, &c.; the autobiography of Shah Soojah; and the manuscript reports of Colonel Rawlinson. To the latter I am indebted for much valuable information relative to the Douranee tribes.
[88] Russia refused to accept the formal mediation of Great Britain; but the good offices of the ambassador were employed with success.
[89] “Poor Captain Christie and Lieutenant Lindsay,” says Sir Harford Jones, “by their indefatigable perseverance had brought, when I left Persia, the one, several of the regiments of the Prince’s infantry, and the other, the corps of horse artillery, considering the shortness of the time they had been employed, to a state of perfection that was quite astonishing. And what is equally to the credit of these gallant officers, they were both adored by the officers and men under their tuition; though in the beginning they had often been obliged to treat the latter with a degree of severity that could not then have been practised with safety at Constantinople. The Prince Royal, however, had much merit in this respect, for whenever a punishment was inflicted and complained of to him, he invariably gave the offender a double portion of it, and by this means soon put an end to complaint.”—[Sir Harford Jones’s Account of the Transactions of His Majesty’s Mission to the Court of Persia, 1807-1811.] Malcolm took with him to Persia, as a present from the Indian Government to the Shah, twelve field-pieces, with harness and all necessary equipments for horse artillery.
[90] Captain Christie was an officer of the Bombay army, selected for employment in Persia, by General Malcolm, on account of his high reputation for gallantry and personal activity, and his thorough acquaintance with the native character. Associated with Pottinger, on their first entry into Beloochistan, he afterwards diverged to the northward, and, in the guise of a horse-dealer, penetrated through Seistan to Herat, and thence, by the way of Yezd and Ispahan, reached the northern regions of Persia. A great part of the line which he thus traversed had never before, and has never, I believe, since been explored by an European traveller. Stories of Christie’s extraordinary personal strength and prowess, are current to the present day in the north of India and in Persia. In the latter country, indeed, he was adored by the soldiery, and his name is still a household word among the old officers of the Azerbijan army. He was killed at the head of his famous Shegaughee brigade, in the night attack which was made by the Russians on the Persian camp at Aslandooz, in November, 1812.
Lieutenant Lindsay was an officer of the Madras Horse Artillery, and, to scientific attainments of no ordinary extent, added the most imposing personal appearance. He was six feet eight inches in height (without his shoes), and thus realised, in the minds of the Persians, their ideas of the old heroes of romance. After many years’ service in Persia, he resigned his appointment in the Indian service, and, succeeding to the estate of Kincolquhair, settled in Scotland as Lindsay Bethune. In 1834 he was again sent to Persia by the British Government, with a view to his employment in the expected war of the succession, and was thus enabled, in the following year, to add to his former laurels, by leading (on the death of Futteh Ali Shah) the advanced division of the Persian army from Tabreez to Teheran, and subsequently quelling a very serious rebellion against the authority of Mahomed Shah, that was set afoot in the south of Persia by the Prince of Shiraz and his sons. For this service, on his return to England, he was rewarded with a baronetcy, and in 1836 he was a third time sent out with a Major-General’s commission, to take command of the Persian army. Owing, however, to the misunderstanding which arose out of the advance upon Herat, the Persian Government on this occasion declined to employ him, and he finally retired from military life in 1839. He lived more than ten years after this; and at the close of his life, again travelled in Persia, revisiting the scenes of his former exploits. But death overtook him before he could return.