[189] An amusing illustration of the unsavoury condition of the city at this time is given in Pottinger’s Journal. He had made the acquaintance of a magician, and wished to have a specimen of his art. “People of his class,” he writes, “are very careful of exposing themselves; and are excessively suspicious and bigoted. It was therefore a long time before I could venture to request a turn of his art. However, I at last did so, but was disappointed at finding he was not a regular practitioner; and as we had got now intimate he told me that he as yet had not commenced the practice; that he wanted to pursue the science allowed by the Hudyth; not the accursed magic—Sihr Malown; that he wished but for power to summon the gins and angels to his aid. Though this was not exactly what I wanted, I should have been most happy of an introduction to either of these classes; and, therefore, not to lose my labour, I used my utmost endeavours to get my friend to commence his incantations at once. He made many excuses. First, he had not got clean clothes to change, as the scarcity had obliged him to part with everything extra to buy grain whilst it was tolerably cheap. This and sundry other excuses were easily overcome; but he evidently wished to avoid the employment, or to make excuses for use when he failed. As soon as one objection was overruled another was raised; but I overcame all except that the stench of the dead bodies from the city would prevent these spirits from venturing, except under extraordinary strong incantations, within its walls; as angels and gins are said to be particularly fond of sweet odours, and excessively angered by the contrary. The argument was a clencher, and no ingenuity could overturn it, for certainly the smell was abominable, and in a calm, or when the wind came from the southward, in which direction the greatest number had been buried, the human kind could scarcely withstand the horrible effluvia of putrid flesh.”—[Eldred Pottinger’s MS. Journal.]
[190] A few days afterwards, however, a party of some 600 or 700, mostly old men, women, and children, were put out of the gates. “The enemy,” says Pottinger, “opened a heavy fire on them until they found out who they were, when they tried to drive them back with sticks and stones; but Naib Dustoo, to whom the business was entrusted, liker a fiend than a man, opened a fire upon the wretched citizens from the works, and the Persians thus let them pass. From the besiegers’ fire no one suffered, as a rising ground was between, but from that of the garrison it is said several fell.”
[191] It was said that Mahomed Shah had come down in person to witness the assault; but the Royal amateur was only the Shah’s brother, who, attended by a party of idlers, and a small body of horse, was a spectator of the defeat of his countrymen.
[192] “The assault on the gate of Candahar was repulsed, and the Persians chased back into their trenches; but the danger at the south-east angle prevented them following up the advantage. At the south-west angle, or Pay-in-ab, the Persians can scarcely be said to have attacked, as they never advanced beyond the parapet of their own trenches. It was evidently a mere feint. At the western, or Arak gate, a column composed of the Russian regiment, and other troops under Samson, and those under Wully Khan, marched up to the counterscarp; but Wully Khan being killed, and Samson carried off the field wounded, the men broke and fled, leaving an immense number killed and wounded. The latter were nearly all shot by idlers on the ramparts, or murdered by the plunderers, who crept out to strip the slain. The other attack, on the centre of the north-west face, was repulsed in like manner, after reaching the counterscarp.”—[Eldred Pottinger’s MS. Journal.] Wully Khan’s body was found on the following day, and his head was brought into the city. On his person were found several letters relating to the plan of assault, which satisfactorily proved that it had been designed by the Russian officers in the Persian camp. There were two letters among them from Mahomed Shah himself—one addressed to Wully Khan, ordering him to conform to the plan of the Russian ambassador, and another to Hadjee Meerza Aghassy, directing him to give similar instructions to Wully Khan.
[193] There is nothing finer in the annals of the war in Afghanistan than the heroic conduct of Eldred Pottinger on this 24th of June. But I should as little discharge my duty as an historian, as I should gratify my inclinations as a man, if I were not to say that I have extracted, with some difficulty, from Pottinger’s manuscript journal, the real history of the service that he rendered to his country on this memorable day. The young Bombay artilleryman was endowed with a rare modesty, which made him unwilling to speak or to write about himself. In the copy of the journal before me he has erased, throughout the entire record of this day, every entrance made in the first person; and only by giving rein to a curiosity, which I should not have indulged, or considered pardonable in any ordinary case, have I succeeded in extracting the real history of an incident which has already, in one or two incorrect shapes, been given to the world. Wherever Pottinger had written in the original copy of his journal “I,” he had erased the egotistical monosyllable, and substituted the words, “the people about the Wuzeer,” or had otherwise disguised the record of his own achievements. For example, the words, “I had several times to lay hold of the Vizier, and point to him the men, who turned as soon as he did,” are altered into, “the people about abused, and several times had to lay hold of the Vizier, &c. &c.” What was thought of Pottinger’s conduct beyond the walls of Herat, may be gathered from the fact, that a few days afterwards a man came in from Kurookh, bringing some important intelligence, who immediately on his arrival, went up to Pottinger, seized his hands, kissed them, said he was indeed “rejoiced that he had made so great a pilgrimage,” and spoke with enthusiastic praise of the repulse of the Persian stormers.
[194] The loss upon the Persian side was very heavy. A large number of officers, including several chiefs of note, were killed and wounded. Mr. M’Neill wrote from camp near Teheran, to Lord Palmerston: “The number of the killed and wounded of the Persian army is variously stated; but the best information I have been able to obtain leads me to believe that it cannot be less than 1700 or 1800 men. The loss in officers, and especially those of the higher ranks, has been very great in proportion to the whole number killed and wounded. Major-General Berowski and Sirteps Wully Khan and Nebbee Khan, have been killed; Sirteps Samson Khan, Hossein Pasha Khan, and Jaffier Kooli Khan, have been wounded; and almost all the field-officers of these brigades have been killed or wounded.” There is little doubt, however, that the entire number of casualties is greatly overstated in this passage.
[195] “The Wuzeer told me the whole business hung upon me; that the Persians made a point of obtaining my dismissal, without which they would not treat. They were so pressing, that he said he never before guessed my importance, and that the Afghan envoys who had gone to camp had told him they had always thought me one man, but the importance the Persians attached to my departure showed that I was equal to an army. The Afghans were very complimentary, and expressed loudly their gratitude to the British Government, to the exertions of which they attributed the change in the tone of the Persians. They, however, did not give the decided answers they should have done, but put the question off by saying I was a guest. The Persians offered to be security for my safe passage to any place I chose to go to.”—[Eldred Pottinger’s MS. Journal.]
[196] At one of these consultations, held on the 18th of July, “Deen Mahomed,” said Pottinger, “proposed that each chief should bring what he had to the Wuzeer. The Wuzeer proposed that each chief should retain his own men. The Topshee-Bashee said: ‘As the Shah has money, and won’t give it, we cannot force him; but if you allow me to seize whom I like, and the chiefs give me their promise that they will not interfere in favour of any one, I will undertake to provide the expense of the men for two months.’ The chiefs immediately said ‘Done!’ and had an agreement made out, and those present sealed it.... They were, or appeared well satisfied with me; and the Wuzeer quoted my anxiety and efforts as an example to those who had their women and children to defend.”—[Eldred Pottinger’s MS. Journal.]
[197] Colonel Stoddart to Mr. M’Neill. Correspondence relating to Persia and Afghanistan.
[198] Eldred Pottinger’s MS. Journal.