DOST MOHAMMED KHAN, (1,5st mid 1793- I si;:3 . .lower of .1fgh:utistau from 1S:26 to 1S63, and founder of the present reigning dynasty. Ile was a son of Poyndah an able man. prominent in the civil and military life of Afghanistan. To avenge the as sassination 44 his eldest brother. Futteli 1:11an, at the behest of the - 1111•1•1* host .\10 hammed and two of his brothers headed a rebel confined Mahnind to the Province of Herat, and divided the remainder of the country. Dis cord arose between the brother:. and Dust 1\lo hammed, in 1`;426. made himself master of the country. .1lealrwhile Bunject Singh. the Sikh Rajah, had occupied Peshawar. and Shah Sujah. who had been driven from the throne in P:09, had sought English aid to restore him to power. Dust attempted to win the friendship of the Anglo-Indian Government but that body rejected his advances :Ind entered upon a costly course of blundering in regard to Afghan affairs. t'aptain Burnes was sent to in 1.:37, where the Ameer acknoNvIedged frankly that. despairing of English support, he was looking toward Ibis sin and Persia. :IA the same time he declared his wish to he on friendly terms with England. 'Meanwhile Lord .kitchdand, Governor-General of had adopted a policy of interference. and now undertool: to restore Shah Sujah. in IS:19 an .1ngleelnilian army invaded Afghanistan and occupied 1:.abul, Shah Sujah hieing nominally placed on the throne, and in Do:t. .‘loliant ined delivered himself up to the British. There
upon the .Afghan tribes rose under .1kbar, the son of the captive _louver. In January, the British army left 1:alml to return to India. and was trapped in the Afghan defiles and annihi lated. The advance of an artily under General Pollock by way of the Khyber Pass enabled the British to recover from their defeat and over throw Akbar: but Shalt Sujah had been assassi nated soon after the English left him at In IS12 l)ost INIoliannited was allowed to return to his country and resume his uninterrupted reign. Ile assisted the Sikhs during their war with the British, but after the occupation of the Punjab lie e•imeluded a treaty with the Anglo Indian Government in In ISt1:3 host hammed added to his dominions the Province of Ilerat, which had remained independent since the expulsion of ..\loimmined from Kabul. lie died fla• 29, IS(13, having directed that his son Shore Ali should succeed him. Dost )1ohainined had a certain rugged barbaric honesty not al .ways found in Oriental primps. In spite of his hard experience with the Anglo-Indian Govern ment, he always leaned to the English side in the frontier politics which 11M/11'1'11 Russia. Persia. Great Britain. a nil Afghanistan. Ile showed statesmanlike qualities in external :tad internal atlairq, and brought 11 measure of order into the Afghan chaos. ('enisnit Mohan Lal, /,ife of the tin ir 1)os( .1/oniantnird, Khan of Kabul (London, 1S-16). Syr NISTAN.