render the Amír a firm and grateful friend during the whole of his Viceroyalty.
The Amír, on his return to Kábul, initiated English improvements with an amusing promptitude. He forbade his troops and the inhabitants to wear arms between 10 P.M. and 4 A.M. He appointed night watchmen, and a judicial officer to hear petitions from the citizens. He established post offices. He substituted cash payments for the old practice of paying the Government servants by assignments of land or revenue. He ordered the shoemakers of Kábul to sell off all their old stock, and to make boots according to the English pattern! He dressed himself in the English costume of coat and pantaloons, and directed his officers to do the same! He organised a Council of State, composed of thirteen members, as a constitutional body for advising him in all departments of the administration. He remitted the more terrible forms of punishment, and pardoned several ancient enemies. In short, he did what in him lay to establish good government and win the confidence of his people. Rapid reforms, however, are usually short-lived. The most promising of them, namely, the substitution of cash payments for assignments on the revenue, was so violently opposed by the official class in Afghánistán, from the great Sardárs downwards, that, so far as I can learn, it was never really introduced.
’Surround India,' wrote Lord Mayo, shortly after the Ambálá Darbár, 'with strong, friendly, and independent States, who will have more interest in
