Towards the end of August Sir Louis Cavignari received one or two direct
warnings that all was not well. It appears that in the ordinary course
of the relief of various garrisons several of the Amir's Herati
regiments were ordered from Herat to Kabul, and Kabul regiments took
their place. These Herati regiments had seen nothing of the late war:
they had never crossed swords with the British; and they were filled
with the insensate pride and confidence in their own prowess which
abysmal ignorance could alone account for. As they marched through the
streets of Kabul they set up, at the instigation of their officers it is
said, loud cries of insult and abuse of Cavignari by name, of the
British Embassy, and of the whole detested race of Feringhis. When this
was told to Cavignari he merely laughed and replied: "Curs only bark,
they do not bite." In a broad sense he was right, for if British
officers had always lain down wherever stray curs were moved to yelp,
the British Empire's outer frontier of to-day would be the cliffs of
Dover. But a much more weighty warning came from an undoubted
well-wisher, an old retired native officer of our Indian army, and a
firm friend of the envoy. His warning said that a plot was afoot; that
the cupidity of some had been appealed to by stories of large treasure
in the Residency, while the fanatical hatred of others had been secretly
fanned; that it was well therefore to be on guard.
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