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154 hoped for. At the same time the appearance of a Russian agent, Capt. Vikovich, at Kabul alarmed the British and Burnes left Kabul empty-handed. The failure of Burnes' mission gave the Governor-General of India, Lord Auckland, a pretext to invade Afghanistan, with the object of restoring Shah Shuja to the throne of Kabul. Thus the First Anglo-Afghan War began at the end of 1838 with the British invasion of the country. A British army under General Keane assembled at Ferozepur. Shah Shuja was supplied with the necessary funds to raise an army of his own. As the Sikhs did not allow the British to go through their country, it was decided that the army should march along the Sutlej down to the Indus and then via Sukkur and Shikarpur and through the Bolan Pass, advance on Kandahar. In April 1839, after suffering terrible privations and heavy losses amongst their transport animals from predatory attacks of Baluchs, Kakakrs and Achakzais, Keane's army reached Kandahar, and Shah Shuja was crowned in the mosque of Ahmad Shah. On the 27th of June the forced moved northwards, and on the 21st of July, after a severe encounter, the citadel of Ghazni was carried by storm. In August, 1839, the British took Kabul and installed Shah Shuja on the throne. Dost Mohammad, finding his army thinned by treachery, fled across the Hindu Kush, and although hotly pursued, escaped to Balkh. A little later he was offered asylum by Nasrullah Khan of Bokhara, but later treacherously put in prison by him. How-ever, the Afghans did not take kindly to the occupation of their capital by a foreign force, nor would they tolerate being governed by a sovereign who was a mere puppet of the British. Shah Shuja was supported entirely by British bayonets.