THE ARMAMENT OP SHERE ALl'S ARMY. 
145 
It is worth noticing that no information could be got as to whence 
the English rifled carbines, Brunswick rifles. Tower muskets, and 
cavalry pistols were obtained. The Brown Besses were, perhaps, part 
of those taken in 1841-2. This estimate of arms, it should be remem¬ 
bered, takes no account of the many thousands of jliezaih, native pistols, 
&c., in the hands of tribesmen. The totals are sufficiently great to 
prove that the late Shere Ali had placed Afghanistan on such a military 
footing that he may have well believed he could, with the mountain 
barriers between Cabul and India, defy any force the British could 
spare to send against him. He was grievously mistaken : his weakness 
lying in the want of discipline among his troops, and the incapacity of 
their leaders. The cost of the army which he bad raised and equipped 
was a serious item in his exchequer accounts, if he ever kept any. 
Lieut. Chamberlain computes it at 19,21,195 Cabuli rupees, of which 
17,81,233 Rs. went for pay to the army, 1,20,235 Rs. for arsenal 
expenses (not including Herat and Turkistan), and 19,727 Rs. for 
uniform. Considering that Major Hastings, chief Political Officer here, 
has calculated the whole revenue of Afghanistan at only 79,82,390 Rs., 
it will thus appear that nearly one-fourth of the revenue was lavished in 
military expenditure. The Ameer ought reasonably to have expected 
his army to have made a better defence of his kingdom against invasion 
than the weak struggle at Ali Musjid and the Peiwar Kotal. After the 
present campaign, Afghanistan can never hope to rise to the position 
it occupied under Shere Ali. The easy capture of Cabul and 214 guns 
is a blow that even a Dost Mahomed would find hard to recover from; 
and we have yet to destroy the Bala Hissar before we return to India, 
