440 INDIA UNDER THE CEOWN

retaliated by a demand for the immediate admission of a British envoy at Kabul; but Sir Neville Chamber- lain's mission was forcibly turned back at the Afghan outposts, whereupon an ultimatum, insisting upon the reception of a British envoy, and requiring a reply by a fixed date, was dispatched to the Amir. By that date no reply came, so war was declared in November, 1878, and three columns of troops entered Afghanistan from different points. The column which advanced from the south by Quetta occupied Kandahar almost without opposition; the two northern columns threatened Kabul from Kuram and Jalalabad; and when General Roberts had dispersed the Afghan troops at the Peiwar Kotal, the Amir, leaving Kabul, took refuge in his upper prov- inces near the Oxus, whence he appealed for succour to the Russian authorities in Transcaspia. But the in- terest of Russia in his affairs had ceased with the sig- nature of the Berlin treaty; he was advised to make peace with the British government, and early in 1879 he died in great distress. His son, Yakub Khan, offered to negotiate for the cessation of hostilities, conditionally upon his own recognition, with British support, as suc- cessor to the Amirship. After considerable discussion, the treaty of Gandamak was concluded with him, whereby he ceded certain outlying tracts that would facilitate our command of the routes leading into Af- ghanistan, and agreed to receive a British envoy at Kabul. To this post Sir Louis Cavagnari was deputed in July, 1879. But the whole country had been thrown into con-