Burnes, Alexander: Travels into Bokhara: containing the narrative of a voyage on the Indus from the sea to Lahore, ... and an account of a journey from India to Cabool, Tartary and Persia ; performed by order of the supreme government of India, in the years 1831, 32, and 33 (Band 3) (London, 1835)

CHAP. I.

CAPTURE OF CASHMERE.

247

property, and had been sent privately to the Shah,
who conferred it with all the pomp and display of
royalty. Several of the young princes who aspired
to the throne were delivered over to Eyoob, and
put to death. Shooja was immediately driven from
Peshawur, and retired to Shikarpoor in Sinde, which
the Ameers of that country agreed to cede to him.
A series of intrigues, set on foot by his enemies,
expelled him even from this retreat; and he fled by
the circuitous route of the desert and Jaysulmere
to Lodiana. The conduct of Shooja while at
Shikarpoor was ill calculated to support his falling
fortunes. He forgot the dignity of a monarch in
low intrigues with his subjects, in which he tarnished
their honour as well as his own. The fitness of
Shooja ool Moolk for the station of sovereign seems
ever to have been doubtful. His manners and
address are highly polished ; but his judgment does
not rise above mediocrity. Had the case been
otherwise, we should not now see him an exile from
his country and his throne, without a hope of re-
gaining them, after an absence of twenty years;
and before he has attained the fiftieth year of his
age.

The death of Futteh Khan, which had drawn his
brother, with the greater part of his troops, from
Cashmere, left that rich province without protection.
The Seiks availed themselves of the critical mo-
ment ; routed the Afghans, and captured the valley,
ivhich they have ever since retained. The civil
wars which followed in Afghanistan exhausted the
power of the state; nor was it to be supposed that

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