Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425

Such was the position of affairs in Afghanistan when the government of India, in 1838, was roused to a sense of what seemed immediate danger by the movements in Central Asia. On the one hand, there was a de facto king, who had reigned twelve years, who was now struggling in the grasp of the ruler of the Punjab, and eagerly soliciting the alliance of the British; while the Russians and Persians, leagued before Herat, were already negotiating for a footing in his country. On the other hand, there was a deposed exile, who had tried repeatedly, and in vain, to recover his throne, whose whole life had been a tissue of misfortunes and feeblenesses, and who now lived on the charity of the Company in their own territory. The obvious policy was to secure the independence of Afghanistan and aid her resources. How to do this? To embrace the proffered alliance of Dost Mahomed, or force Shah Soojah upon the country, and prepare for the reception of the Persians and Russians, by kindling a civil war? The latter was the course determined on! A league was formed, known in the history of our time as the Tripartite Treaty—including Runjeet Singh, Shah Soojah, and the British government. By this document, it was agreed that certain large portions of the Afghan territory, including Peshawur, should belong for ever to Runjeet Singh; that the maharajah should likewise possess the passes both of the Sutlej and the Indus, with power to bar the way at his pleasure; that the Afghans and Sikhs should mutually exchange military assistance when required; and that the friends and enemies of any of the three high contracting parties should be the friends and enemies of all.

There was not a word in this treaty, it will be seen, of a British war in Afghanistan; but the Indian government soon came to enlarge its views, and instead of merely patting Shah Soojah on the back, and setting him upon his countrymen, it determined to take the field in such force as would instantaneously settle the whole affair. The celebrated Simlah manifesto was accordingly drawn up, in which the governor-general gave 'his most exquisite reasons,' unpolitely stigmatised by a great portion of the Indian press as a tissue of falsehoods. With this, however, we have nothing to do; our business is with the fact, that before this proclamation had obtained general currency, information had been received that the siege of Herat was raised, and the Persian army on its retreat. This was awkward. The occasion of the intended British invasion of Afghanistan was at an end. No matter. A large and brilliant army was already assembled on the banks of the Indus, and the war must go on! Many persons from the first considered the result doubtful; and Shah Soojah himself had his misgivings, when he found that he was to be forced by Christian bayonets upon a nation of bigoted Mohammedans!

But although the change in the state of affairs in Central Asia made no change in the belligerent resolves of the Indian government, it determined them to reduce the size of the army, and so make a little war instead of a great one. Scarcely had the Army of the Indus, as it was called, begun its march through Scinde, when it was beset with difficulties. 'Between Sukkur and Shikarpoor the camels had dropped down dead by scores. But there was a worse tract of country in advance. The officers looked at their maps, and traced with dismay the vast expanse of sandy desert, where no green pasture met the eye, and no sound of water spoke to the ear. But the season was favourable. Escaping the arid and pestilential blasts of April and May, and the noxious exhalations of the four succeeding months, the column advanced into Cutch. The hard, salt-mixed sand crackled under their horses' feet, as the general and his staff crossed the desert, on a fine bright night of early March—so cool, that only when in a full gallop the riders ceased to long for the warmth of their cloaks. The distance from Shikarpoor to Dadur is a hundred and forty-six miles. It was accomplished by the Bengal column in sixteen painful marches. Water and forage were so scarce, that the cattle suffered terribly on the way. The camels fell dead by scores on the desert; and further on, the Beloochee robbers carried them off with appalling dexterity. When the column reached a cultivated tract of country, the green crops were used as forage for the horses. The ryots were liberally paid on the spot; but the agents of the Beloochee chiefs often plundered the unhappy cultivators of the money that had been paid to them, even in front of the British camp.' The Bolan Pass was more formidable. 'The stream of the Bolan river was tainted by the bodies of the camels that had sunk beneath their loads. The Beloochee freebooters were hovering about, cutting off our couriers, murdering stragglers, carrying off our baggage and our cattle. Among the rocks of this stupendous defile, our men pitched their tents, and toiled on again day after day, over a wretched road, covered with loose flint-stones, surmounting, at first by a scarcely perceptible ascent, and afterwards by a difficult acclivity, the great Brahoo chain of hills. The Bolan Pass is nearly sixty miles in length. The passage was accomplished in six days. They were days of drear discomfort, but not of danger. A resolute enemy might have wrought mighty havoc among Cotton's regiments: but the enemies with which now they had to contend were the sharp flint-stones, which lamed our cattle; the scanty pasturage, which destroyed them; and the marauding tribes, who carried them off. The way was strewn with baggage, with abandoned tents and stores; and luxuries, which a few weeks afterwards would have fetched their weight twice counted in rupees, were left to be trampled down by the cattle in the rear, or carried off by the plunderers about them.'

These disagreeables were surmounted; Soojah was installed at Candahar; Ghuznee was captured in gallant style—when fifty prisoners were hacked to pieces by orders of the shah; Dost Mahomed was beaten wherever he shewed himself; and, finally, our victorious army arrived at Cabool. Glorious victories are always highly appreciated in England. The chief actors in this expedition were rewarded with titles of earl, baron, baronet, and knight; and 'all went merry as a marriage-bell.' Not, however, but that there were moments of misgiving among the conquerors at Cabool. Dost Mahomed, though beaten, was not subdued, and his repeated small successes made him almost formidable. But even this was at an end, and the Dost surrendered himself prisoner.

The British force remained in Cabool two years, where officers and men alike misconducted themselves, as soldiers always do in a conquered country. The exasperation of the natives became more and more manifest: Akbar Khan, a son of Dost Mahomed, hovered about the country, the evil genius, as it is supposed, of the rising storm; and at length an insurrection broke out in the city. In this tissue of surprising blunders, perhaps none is more remarkable than the facts, that the general selected to command an army so critically placed was a poor old man, feeble in body and mind, and that the wives and children of many of the officers were present with their husbands and fathers, as if the causeless invasion of a country, and the massacre of thousands of its inhabitants, had been a party of pleasure! The moment of retreat at length came; snow covered the ground; the dreary passes of Khoord-Cabool were before them; and as they turned their backs upon the city, they were saluted with farewell volleys of musket-bullets.

The story of this fatal retreat has been often told. The result was communicated in the following manner to the British troops shut up in Jelalabad: 'At last, on the 13th of January, when the garrison were busy on the works, toiling with axe and shovel, with their arms piled and their accoutrements laid out close at hand, a sentry on the ramparts, looking out towards the Cabool road, saw a solitary white-faced horseman struggling on towards the fort. The word was passed; the tidings spread. Presently the ramparts were lined with officers, looking out, with throbbing hearts, through unsteady telescopes, or with straining eyes tracing the road. Slowly and painfully, as though horse and rider both were in an extremity of mortal weakness, the solitary mounted man came reeling, tottering on. They saw that he was an Englishman. On a wretched, weary pony, clinging, as one sick or wounded, to its neck, he sat or rather leant forward; and there were those who, as they watched his progress, thought that he could never reach, unaided, the walls of Jelalabad. A shudder ran through the garrison. That solitary horseman looked like the messenger of death. Few doubted that he was the bearer of intelligence that would fill their souls with horror and dismay. Their worst forebodings seemed confirmed. There was the one man who was to tell the story of the massacre of a great army. A party of cavalry were sent out to succour him. They brought him in wounded, exhausted, half-dead. The messenger was Dr Brydon, and he now reported his belief that he was the sole survivor of an army of some 16,000 men!'3 From this wholesale butchery, which we are not disposed to detail, the women and children, the general, and the husbands of the ladies, were rescued by Akbar Khan. They were held for a time by the son of Dost Mahomed in a sort of captivity; where some of them had leisure to write narratives of their adventures, while others, with an inconsistence common and entertaining in melodramatic pieces, amused themselves with fun and frolic!

And what became of Shah Soojah? 'Rising early on the morning, he arrayed himself in royal apparel, and, accompanied by a small party of Hindostanees, proceeded under a salute, in a chair of state, towards his camp, which had been pitched at Seeah-Sungh. But Soojah-ool-dowlah, the son of the Newab, had gone out before him, and placed in ambush a party of Jezailchees. As the shah and his followers were making their way towards the regal tent, the marksmen fired upon them. The volley took murderous effect. Several of the bearers and of the escort were struck down, and the king himself killed on the spot. A ball had entered his brain. Soojah-ool-dowlah then rode up; and as he contemplated his bloody work, the body of the unhappy king, vain and pompous as he was to the very last, was stripped of all the jewels about it—the jewelled dagger, the jewelled girdle, the jewelled head-dress—and it was then cast into a ditch.'

It was of course impossible for the Company to suffer the blot upon their arms to remain: indeed, their safety in India required that no tarnish of defeat should rest permanently upon their name. The British troops at Candahar and Jelalabad were ordered to march upon Cabool, where, as an enduring mark of the retributary visit, in addition to pillaging the shops, setting fire to the houses, and murdering the unresisting inhabitants, they destroyed—not the fortress—but the bazaar, the great commercial depôt of Central Asia!

The objects of the war were now accomplished. But Shah Soojah was dead. The king we had driven from the throne, however, was still alive: Dost Mahomed, therefore, was restored; and nothing remained to be done, since the grand drama had been brought to a conclusion, but to celebrate the happy dénouement by a fête. This, accordingly, came off at Ferozepore. 'Then there was feasting and festivity in the gigantic tents, hung with silken flags, on which, in polyglot emblazonments, were the names of the actions that had been fought; many complimentary effusions, in the shape of after-dinner harangues; and in the mornings grand field-days, more or less, according to the "skyey influences." The year—a most eventful one—was closed with a grand military display. The plain was covered with British and Sikh troops, and in the presence of Pertaub Singh, the heir-apparent of Lahore; Dhyan Singh, the minister; the governor-general, the commander-in-chief, and others of less note, some 40,000 men, with 100 guns, were man[oe]uvred on the great plain. On this grand tableau the curtain fell; and the year opportunely closed in gaiety and glitter—in prosperity and parade.'

We have now concluded our task, but without having been able to convey even a faint idea of the stores of information that are contained in these valuable volumes. They are destined, however, to retain a permanent place among the books of reference which enrich our national literature, and contribute to its advancement.

OCCASIONAL NOTES

TENACITY OF LIFE IN INSECTS

However useful insects may be in the general economy of nature, it is but too true that farmers and gardeners often find them a pest, and with each returning summer the pages of agricultural journals abound with remedies, offensive and defensive, against the obnoxious invaders. In such cases, it becomes desirable to know what remedial means are the most efficacious, and we are glad to find that the question has been taken up by persons competent to discuss it. Among these, Dr J. Davy has given the results of his inquiry in a paper, 'On the Effects of certain Agents on Insects,' which has just been published in the Transactions of the Entomological Society, and is well worth reproduction in a condensed form. The experiments were begun in the winter of 1850, the season, as will be remembered, being so mild that insects were readily met with. Their objects were threefold—to test the effects of temperature, of gases, and of vapours. In the former, recourse was had to extremes of heat and cold. A bee placed in a temperature of 32° became at first more active, but the next morning was found torpid, as if dead; a register-thermometer shewing that 25° had been the lowest temperature during the night. Transferred to a temperature of 52°, the bee revived in half an hour, and on the following day exhibited the same results under the same conditions. A fly which, on December 8, was lively on the wing, in a temperature of 52° indoors, was disinclined to move at 40°; and still more so, stirring only when touched, at 33°, but did not become torpid, as in the case of the bee, even at 23°, signs of life being distinctly visible. Several trials made with different species of flies all gave the same result—a remarkable power of sustaining life. The method adopted was to enclose the insects in a glass tube, and place them out of doors all night; and though the tube was frequently covered with frost, they soon revived in the warm temperature of a room. It is perhaps scarcely possible to estimate the degree of cold which insect life will bear without destruction, since many of these creatures survive the terrible winters of the arctic regions. Still, a knowledge of the effects of reduction of temperature will be valuable, as affording data by which to judge of the effects and probable duration of visitations of insects, and of the nature of the precautionary measures to be adopted. In an experiment of alternate temperature from 40° to 65° tried for five days on a bee, the creature at last 'ceased to give any sign of vitality.'

The influence of heat appears to be much more rapid than that of cold: a fly exposed to a temperature of 120°, died in two or three minutes; and 113° proved fatal to another; while a third, placed in a temperature increased gradually to 96°, remained alive for more than an hour. Others bore from 80° to 90° for two hours; and in one instance, a fly survived from 86° to 100° for several hours, but became uneasy with a slight rise, and died at 105°. A bee, taken on March 15, from a temperature of 45°, was exposed to 80° without any apparent diminution of activity; at 90° it ceased to buzz; and at 96°, ceased altogether to move, and did not revive. Although these results are too few to enable us to determine the laws with respect to the influence of temperature on insects, they may serve a purpose, in shewing that the effect is not that gradual one of hybernation, where activity and torpor succeed each other but slowly.

In the series of experiments with gas, it was found that flies placed in carbonic acid gas became instantly motionless, and died if left for any length of time. Some revived after an hour's immersion; others, after two or three hours—the revival being slow in proportion to the time of exposure to the gas. Somewhat similar results were obtained with flies and bees in hydrogen and azote. To try the effect of deprivation, a fly was shut up in a tube with but a small quantity of common air, on the 5th February, in a temperature varying from 52° to 60° during the whole time of the experiment. The insect manifested no uneasiness until the 25th day, and was found dead on the 28th. Another fly, enclosed in a similar tube, with a quantity of air not more than a few times its own volume, became languid on the second day, and motionless on the twelfth, but revived on being taken out.

Flies immersed in oxygen were found dead the second day, with a diminution of the quantity of the gas. Coal-gas produced almost immediate insensibility, with a few feeble attempts at revival, but in no case effectual. Sulphuretted hydrogen also proved especially fatal—an instant's immersion was sufficient to destroy life; though withdrawn at once, not one of the flies recovered. It was the same when the portion of gas diffused in the air of the tube was so minute as to be scarcely appreciable. On bees, too, the effect was similar; the deadly nature of the gas on their delicate organisation being invariably destructive. Like results were obtained with chlorine.

In the class of vapours, ammonia proved fatal in one case, and harmless in another; muriatic acid stupified in two, and killed in twenty-four hours. The vapour of nitric acid was equally fatal with sulphuretted hydrogen; and, in alcoholic vapour, at a temperature of 74°, 'for a few minutes the fly shewed increased activity; in a few more, it became nearly motionless; after about a quarter of an hour, it appeared to be torpid. Now, exposed to the air of the room, in a few minutes a slight motion of its feet was seen; after a couple of hours, it was nearly as active as before the experiment; two hours later, it was found dead.' The same effects, with slight variations, were produced on other flies. With ether, cessation of motion was almost instantaneous, followed, however, by revivification, except in one instance: brief immersion in chloroform did not prevent revival, but an exposure of eight minutes killed: camphor and turpentine were both fatal: with attar of roses, musk, or iodine, no ill effect was perceptible.

The experiments with prussic acid are worthy the attention of entomologists, with whom it is often a matter of importance to kill an insect with the least possible amount of injury. In these instances, the plan pursued was to charge a small tube with the acid, and place it inside that containing the insects. The vapour of 1-16th of a grain was sufficient to destroy bees and flies; and that of seven grains proved fatal to large beetles, and the largest kind of bees. Although as yet the investigation has taken but a limited range, it will be seen that it opens a wide field of research: the next step will be to group or class those agents which appear to have produced similar effects. It is remarkable, as Dr Davy observes, 'that most of the substances which, even in minute portions mixed with common air, prevent the slow combustion of phosphorus, as indicated by its shining in the dark, have the effect, on the insects on which they were tried, of suspending animation.'

He says further: 'Some of the results may not be undeserving notice for practical purposes—as those in the instances of sulphuretted hydrogen, oil of turpentine, and camphor, in relation to the destruction of parasitical insects, whether infesting plants or minerals, or to the preservation of substances from the attacks of insects. To be applicable to the preservation of plants, of course it is necessary that the agents to be used should not exercise on them any materially injurious effects. This must be determined by experiments made expressly for the purpose. The few trials I have yet made on seeds seem to shew, that the steeping them in a solution in water of sulphuretted hydrogen has not prevented their germination. The seeds tried were mignonette, cress-seed, and that of a Nemophila: analogy—namely, that of steeping the seed of the cerealia in a solution of the white oxide of arsenic, is in favour of the same conclusion. Further, for the preservation of articles, whether of clothing or furniture, it is hardly less necessary that the substances to be employed should have no offensive odour. Judging from the effects of attar of roses, and from what we know of scented woods not being liable to be attacked by insects, the probability is, that any volatile oil of agreeable perfume will answer the purpose required, and prove a true instance of the utile et dulce combined.

'As carbonic acid gas, and some of the other agents mentioned, produce merely a temporary torpor, it may be a question whether this gas, or simple immersion in water, may not be advantageously substituted for the fumes of burning sulphur, destructive of life, at the yearly gathering of honey; the former, indeed, may be said to be in use in the Levant, where the smoke of the fire of leaves, in which the carbonic acid generated may be considered as chiefly operative, is employed to stupify the bees preparatory to the spoiling of their hives.'

CHILDREN SUCKLED BY WOLVES

This subject is one which will not be unwelcome to those whose faith in the myths of Roman history has been dissipated by Niebuhr and others: they may still believe the story of Romulus and Remus and the wolf. The Honourable Captain Egerton, in a communication from India, says: 'Colonel Sleeman told me one of the strangest stories I ever heard relating to some children, natives of this country (Oude), carried away and brought up by wolves. He is acquainted with five instances of this, in two of which he has both seen the children and knows the circumstances connected with their recapture from the animals. It seems that wolves are very numerous about Cawnpore and Lucknow, and that children are constantly carried off by them. Most of these have, of course, served as dinners for their captors, but some have been brought up and educated by them after their own fashion. Some time ago, two of the king of Oude's sowars (mounted gendarmes), riding along the banks of the Goomptje, saw three animals come down to drink. Two were evidently young wolves, but the third was as evidently some other animal. The sowars rushed in upon them, captured the three, and to their great surprise found that one was a small naked boy. He was on all-fours; like his companions; had callosities on his knees and elbows, evidently caused by the attitude in moving about; and bit and scratched violently in resisting the capture. The boy was brought up in Lucknow, where he lived some time, and may, for aught I know, be living still. He was quite unable to articulate words, but had a dog-like intellect—quick at understanding signs, and so on. Another enfant trouvé, under the same circumstances, lived with two English people for some time. He learned at last to pronounce the name of a lady who was kind to him, and for whom he shewed some affection; but his intellect was always clouded, and more like the instinct of a dog than the mind of a human being. There was another more wonderful, but hardly so well-authenticated, story of a boy who never could get rid of a strong wolfish smell, and who was seen, not long after his capture, to be visited by three wolves, which came evidently with hostile intentions, but which, after closely examining him—he seeming not the least alarmed—played with him, and some nights afterwards brought their relations, making the number of visitors amount to five—the number of cubs which composed the litter from which he had been taken. There is no account of any grown-up person having been found among the wolves. Probably, after a certain time, the captives may have got into a set of less scrupulous wolves, not acquainted with the family: the result is obvious.'

ELECTRO-MAGNETIC MACHINE

The electro-magnetic machine invented by Professor Page, has from time to time been noticed in our Journal, and we have now to give a further account of this interesting mechanism, as furnished by an American periodical. It appears that several of these machines have lately been submitted to critical examination by competent authority at Washington, and with very favourable conclusions. The principle has already been explained—namely, the alternate rising and falling of an iron rod within a helix through which an electro-magnetic current is made to pass: when the current is on, the rod rises, and remains, as it were, self-suspended, equidistant from all parts of the surrounding helix; and falls as soon as the current ceases by breaking contact with the battery. The 'rod' of one of the machines submitted to the examination weighs 350 lbs.: no sooner, however, was contact made, than it rose into its position. 'Dr Page then stood on the top of the rod, which not only sustained his weight, in addition to its own, but he pushed with his hands against the ceiling, increasing the downward pressure on the rod, which was only acted upon as a powerful spring would have been, but still maintaining its perpendicular position concentric to the inner surface of the helices. I held,' says the reporter, 'an iron rod in my hand, with the end of which I touched that of the suspended rod. I could not detach it by pulling or jerking, and could only alter its position so as to cause the annular space to become eccentric instead of concentric. The instant the battery was disconnected, the rod fell to the floor with its full force.'