Friendly intercourse had already done much towards this end, and tribes who for generations had been at feud with each other now met, when visiting our camp, on common ground, without (much I think to their own astonishment) wanting to cut each other's throats.

What was further required, I conceived, was the opening up of the country by means of roads, which would facilitate intercommunication and give remunerative employment to thousands who had hitherto lived by plunder and bloodshed.
In answering my letter, the Foreign Secretary informed me that the future of Kuram would be settled when I reached Simla, whither I was to proceed so soon as I had seen the British Mission across the frontier.
On the 15th July Major Cavagnari, who had been selected as 'the Envoy and Plenipotentiary to His Highness the Amir of Kabul,' arrived in Kuram, accompanied by Mr.William Jenkins, C.I.E., of the Civil Service, and Lieutenant Hamilton, V.C., Surgeon-Major Kelly, 25 Cavalry and 50 Infantry of the Guides Corps.

I, with some fifty officers who were anxious to do honour to the Envoy and see the country beyond Kuram, marched with Cavagnari to within five miles of the crest of the Shutargardan Pass, where we encamped, and my staff and I dined that evening with the Mission.

After dinner I was asked to propose the health of Cavagnari and those with him, but somehow I did not feel equal to the task; I was so thoroughly depressed, and my mind was filled with such gloomy forebodings as to the fate of these fine fellows, that I could not utter a word.

Like many others, I thought that peace had been signed too quickly, before, in fact, we had instilled that awe of us into the Afghan nation which would have been the only reliable guarantee for the safety of the Mission.