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For the sake of argument, rather than with any hope of influencing things in my favor, I reply:" All right, I don't ask the Ameer's protection; I will go to Kandahar and Quetta alone, on my own responsibility; then if I get murdered by the Ghilzais, nobody but myself will be to blame."
Supplies were scarce in a region so barren, but with a month's partial food on his beasts of burden he quitted Dadur March 10th, got safely, if toilsomely, through the Bolan, and on 26th reached Quetta, where he was to halt for orders. Shah Soojah and Keane followed, their troops suffering not a little from scarcity of supplies and loss of animals.
I tell this to the Chota Sahib" he meant Hitchcock "and he laughs." "No matter, Peroo. Another year thou wilt be able to build a bridge in thine own fashion." The Lascar grinned. "Then it will not be in this way with stonework sunk under water, as the Quetta was sunk. I like sus-suspen-sheen bridges that fly from bank to bank, with one big step, like a gang-plank. Then no water can hurt.
As regards interference from the Legation of Teheran, thank goodness I am now three hundred miles from the nearest telegraph-pole, and shall enter Afghanistan at a point so much nearer to Quetta than to the Boundary Commission Camp that the chances seem all in favor of reaching the former place if I only succeed in reaching the Dasht-i-na-oomid and the Harood.
Before long a strong garrison was posted at Quetta, and we gained the right to enlist Baluchee troops of excellent fighting powers. The Quetta position is a mountain bastion which strengthens the outer defences of India, just as the Alps and Juras, when under Napoleon's control, menaced any invaders of France. This great advantage was weighted by one considerable drawback.
It is, however, scarcely correct to say that Roberts had no line of retreat assured in case of defeat . No serious fighting was to be expected before Candahar; for the Afghan plundering instinct was likely to keep Ayub near to that city, where the garrison was hard pressed. After leaving Ghazni, the Quetta route became the natural way of retirement.
After the acquisition of Quetta by the English, he began to side with the Russians. Roberts, who took Cabul, and installed as ameer Abdurrahman Khan . The English then decided to evacuate the territory. On their march they were attacked by Ayub Khan of Herat. Later he was defeated by Roberts, and driven back to that place.
"Tell them I am going down to Beerjand to consult with Heshmet-i-Molk, the Ameer of Seistan, and see if it is possible to get through to Quetta via Beerjand." "Ever hear of Dadur?" queries Mr. Gray. "Ever hear of Dadur, the place of which the Persians tritely say: 'Seeing that there is Dadur, why did Allah, then, make the infernal regions? That is somewhere in Beloochistan.
The route was certainly far easier; for, thanks to the toil of engineers, the railway from the Indus Valley towards Quetta had been completed up to a point in advance of Sibi; and the labours of Major Sandeman, Bruce, and others, had kept that district fairly quiet . But the troops at Quetta and Pishin were held to be incapable of facing a superior force of victorious Afghans.
The scheme of operations was as follows: three columns of invasion were to move simultaneously, one through the Khyber Pass to Dakka, another through the Kuram valley, south of the Khyber, with the Peiwar Pass as its objective, and a third from Quetta into the Pisheen valley, to march forward to Candahar after reinforcement by a division from Mooltan.
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