Machine transcription
- 10 -
As soon Zaman Shah after the death of his fathear,
finding his brothers' submission complete discovered that he was
strong enough; he unfortunately slowly began to change his at-
titude, and assumed an autocratic mien. During the course of
these events, it became apparent that Sirdar Payanda Khan, who
had the service of the king at heart, and was the true worker
for his nation as a man of considerable experience and acuemn,
was receding from the favour of the king. Another man, by the
name of Wafadar Khan replaced the great Sirdar Payanda Khan
as a minister of the Afgan monarch. This Wafadar Khan, accor-
ding to a contemporary historian was a man of political craft,
wih soft and soothing manners and voice, which he used to a
fault even on occasions when he acted as a Court Jester. His
attitude towards those who served under him, was full of aro-
gance and haughtiness, and in his behaviour in respect of those
above him in station, he was subservient and cringing. He was
afraid of the least appearance of difficulty or mis-carriage in
events, he loved his appointment considerably, and to safe-guard
his own place in administration, he left nothing undone to severe
the connection or contact between the king and his best to pro-
duce a sense of repugnance towards the people on the part of
their ruler. This man possessing such childish traits, who was impel-
led by no other than his personal interests, had attained such
close attention of the king that the monarch had placed all po-
wer and administration in his hands, and Zaman Shah was just a
tool in the hands of this worthless person. As was but natural,
the ideas of the king were poisoned to such a degree that he
devoutedly set his foot forward to oppose the recognised leaders
of people; and notably was soured towards the Barak Zais. Al-
though the animosity between the Barakzais and the Sadu Zais,
which produced such drastic difficulties both for the people and
the country of Afghanistan, is said to belong to other reasons
the real and the true reason of this conflict is that very do-
ubt and mistake which brought Wafadar Khan to the chair of a
minister of the realm. The King's Favourite, of course, as could
be expected, took advantage of that weekness and of that conflict
and the illtreatment reached to un-bearable extent, in regards to
the well-wishers of the country. Quite naturlly this progress
Roughly two thirds of characters agree with a modern printed edition of the same text. Much of the disagreement is editorial, not misreading. Treat the transcription as a finding aid and read the page image before quoting. How this was measured.
