by Craig Murray
Armed parties began to arrive, totalling fifty men. With Burnes’ permission the customs authorities from Daraji boarded the boats, and searched all goods and stores, listing everything. They suspected the huge wooden crate of the carriage contained artillery, and smaller crates held explosive devices.25 They opened everything, but were again civil. They instructed Burnes to drop back a few miles into salt water, and promised him supplies, while they sent the list of cargo to Haidarabad and awaited orders. Burnes complied.
The following day, three boatloads of armed men arrived from Karachi and insisted that Burnes return to sea. They refused water or provisions, or to allow anyone onshore. Burnes’ party was now being treated ‘grossly and contemptuously’ and ‘with all manner of insult’.26
Pitumba, Pottinger’s old travel companion, discovered that HMS Challenger had indeed just appeared off Karachi; an unfortunate coincidence, but it reinforced Sindian fears concerning Burnes’ appearance. While Burnes was in tense discussion with the armed Karachi men, the customs boat from Daraji returned. The officer in charge showed Burnes orders confirming that the command to turn them back came directly from Amir Murad Ali Khan.
Burnes replied that it was international custom that an Envoy could not be dismissed without a personally addressed instruction from the ruler. The angry retort was that in Sind, customs were different. Tempers flared on the sweltering boat. Matchlocks were fingered, and some of the Karachi men started yelling ‘Hunkar! Hunkar!’ which Burnes translates politely as ‘Move off instantly.’ Burnes offered to be taken hostage, until orders came from Haidarabad. But the Jemadar in charge replied: ‘I have orders to turn you out and all Feringees and you may consider yourself fortunate in being so well treated.’
Burnes had no alternative but to turn back. His requests for water, food, fuel and forage were denied.27 He weighed anchor and dropped another mile downriver, then attempted to stop and gather firewood. The following Karachi dinghies opened fire, causing Burnes to move on: ‘It is evident we must either stand our ground by force or move on in peace.’
Burnes sailed back to Cotasir in British-controlled Cutch, to reprovision. On the way the carthorses had to be fed on the men’s rice, and the oars of the bunder boat cut up for firewood. Pottinger was furious not just with the Amirs, but with Burnes. He wrote to Romer that Burnes ‘from an over-anxiety to avoid anything like a quarrel, was induced to come back’.28
The mission was going horribly wrong. All the correspondence was copied to Bentinck. His Private Secretary wrote to Clare on 11 March that ‘His Lordship awaits with anxiety the receipt of further intelligence.’29 Bentinck had never been keen on this mission, and it now threatened conflict with Sind. Pottinger wrote to the Amirs with the scarcely veiled threat that he hoped ‘they will guard against any of their officers […] committing any act towards the Mission which might compromise the longstanding friendship between the two governments’.30
On 10 February Burnes received from Pottinger a copy of Murad Ali’s letter, in which the Amir did not forbid sailing up the Indus, merely cautioned it was physically impossible. Burnes took this as permission to try, and set out again to sea.
For days the flotilla made little progress in a calm. Then a tempest struck at 2 am on 14 February. Even from the dry account of Burnes’ official journal, it was terrifying as the boats were ‘taken aback’. A sudden fierce wind from the opposite direction exerted force on the sails the reverse way to which the mast stays and tackle were braced. One boat had its mast ripped out. Burnes’ own boat was knocked on its side, the mast dragging in the water. As men, clinging desperately to the vertical deck, sought to cut away the mast, the rowed bunder boat appeared. A line was got across and the bunder boat, assisted by the small rowing boat from Burnes’ own vessel, hauled Burnes’ boat upright, an astonishing operation in ‘mountainous’ seas, and testament to the skills of the Mandvi sailors.31
The full force of the storm lasted thirty-six hours. Burnes’ boat had sprung leaks and was being furiously pumped; its smaller sail was split. But although the winds continued fierce, at noon on the 15th Burnes was able to get a sextant reading through breaks in the cloud, and set a course for Daraji. On the 16th they anchored there, and Burnes sent Pitumba and Mohammed Ali ashore to speak to the authorities. They returned with dispiriting news: the Kinchi of Daraji had replied that he had orders from Murad Ali’s own hand, that he must never allow Burnes an inch up the river. Burnes sent a note to Jetta Ahmed to intercede with the Amir.
Three of Burnes’ boats were storm-scattered. Two returned to Mandvi, with the stallion and two mares. Pottinger sent these back to rejoin Burnes under command of a ‘steady old officer’, Lieutenant Morris of the 24th NI, who returned to Cutch immediately he had delivered the horses.32 On 18 February Burnes was happy to see the missing boat limping towards them. It had cut away its mast and been driven past Karachi, but had survived.
After ten days at sea, they were almost out of fresh water. Burnes noted defensively in his official journal that padlocks had been placed on the water tanks from day one; the men were reduced to a daily ‘pittance’. Burnes could not have expected to be kept at sea so long. But they had encountered serious problems from the Sind authorities over water the first time, and it is difficult to understand why Burnes had not taken more vigorous measures to ensure greater stores when replenishing in Cotasir.33
Burnes sent off the bunder boat, into what was still a storm, with two tanks to get water, noting ‘I expect nothing less than a point blank refusal from the villagers.’ This they got, and it was midnight before the exhausted rowing crew could get back again. Burnes tried giving money to a passing boat, asking them to return from Cutch with water. He never saw it again.
On 21 February the Reis of Daraji, the most senior official yet, summoned Burnes to a meeting on the beach. He stated unequivocally that Burnes was not permitted to enter Sind. The Amir had no confidence in the mission due to the appearance of HMS Challenger. Burnes explained that the party were now in distress for lack of water, but the Reis said his orders were to refuse supplies. Burnes refused to leave, but this was bluff. He wrote: ‘We must sail […] not having a sufficiency of water for one whole day […] much less for a voyage to Mandavie […]’34
Burnes was now in a quandary. They had no water, but a storm force wind still blew in the wrong direction for sailing out over the sandbar at the mouth of the river. The terrifying experience is written up in his journal:
we weighed anchor at daylight and in half an hour both the vessels were given up as lost and we despaired of our lives. The current cast us on the breakers, the sea rolled over us with terrific force sweeping us out of our cabin and inundating the stranded vessel. The tide and waves swept us along rubbing the ground and when the sails had been cast aside as useless and we thought only of saving our lives we were unexpectedly driven beyond the bank and by 7 am were in safe anchorage. The sailors behaved nobly and every hope of escape, had we continued in our situation, was gone for our bunder boat was likewise on shore […]35
Another boat containing two dray horses was firmly stranded on a sandbank. Burnes left Mohammed Ali and the bunder boat crew, with a substantial sum of money, hoping fervently they would not be maltreated. The dray horses were got out to graze by the shore. Burnes then sailed, without water, for Mandvi and by great good luck had perfect conditions, making a five-day journey in thirty-three hours.
It was a bitter blow to Burnes to return to Mandvi after the failure of this second attempt. He reported back to Pottinger, ‘It is with much concern that I proceed to make you acquainted with our return to Cutch.’36 The great career opportunity was receding. Alex wrote anxiously ‘I trust, most respectfully, that the line of procedure which I adopted will be judged fitting and correct [. . ,] I had to encounter obstacles that never entered my contemplation […]’ On 27 February 1831 Pottinger wrote defending Burnes to Clare, stating that ‘no argument or exertion has been left untried to secure the success of the mission
’.37
There could now be no doubt that the mission had been blocked by Murad Ali Khan in person. Pottinger suggested withdrawing Jetta Ahmed and again a naval blockade.38 He also recommended that Ranjit Singh be informed of the delay to his presents; this was to prove the most practical step. Pottinger still resented his personal experience of being detained by the Sind authorities on the Indus in 1808. He now wrote in fury to one of the Amirs, Ishmael Shah:
I am perfectly acquainted with the state of the roads and rivers of Sindi […] the Ameers have needlessly […] laid the foundations of falsity and unfriendliness equally with the British Government and that of Maharaja Runjeet Sing […] the fact of twice turning back a vakeel charged with Royal presents is […] an act of barbarous incivility […]39
An enclosed memorandum, addressed to Murad Ali, was incandescent:
Captain Burnes was absolutely refused fresh water and food for himself and his people, and was forced to come away the second time from the want of the necessaries of life […] Is it the way to receive a vakeel from a friendly state by keeping him on board a boat in the open seas amidst storms and quicksand for days, to refuse to supply his urgent wants for water and food and finally to drive him out?40
Pottinger told Clare that, in view of the brazen behaviour of the Amirs, ‘I considered it unnecessary to disguise my sentiments’ in drafting this memorandum which he characterised as not ‘strictly official’. He justified not consulting Clare as trying to solve the matter ‘in a manner that should neither compromise the dignity, nor yet call for the interference, of my superiors’.41 Clare ignored Pottinger’s suggestions about naval blockades, and firmly rejected the idea of withdrawing Jetta Ahmed.42
Ranjit Singh was impatient to see his horses. He had moved troops from Derajat to threaten Shikarpur, the commercial centre of Sind. This town, reputedly harbouring enormous treasure, was a major goal for Ranjit. His troop movement was unrelated to the passage of his presents, but it certainly reminded the Amirs that it was unwise to provoke the Sikh ruler. Ranjit summoned the Sindian ambassador and urged him to explain to his masters the ‘necessity’ of assisting Burnes.43 He sent an accredited Sikh envoy into Shikarpur to make pointed enquiries about Burnes’ progress and express the Maharaja’s ‘disappointment and surprise’.44
While Burnes had been stuck off Pitti, Jetta Ahmed had been trying to argue the British case with the Amirs. Ahmed was a prosperous Hindu merchant. He took on the role of British Agent for the prestige and access it gave him, more than for the honorarium. Now he was the focus in Haidarabad of intense suspicion that threatened to ruin his business and endanger his safety. Murad Ali was ominously referring to him as a ‘Hindu intriguer’. In the circumstances, Jetta’s loyalty and the coolness of his reports are commendable. So was his persistence. For a week he tried every day and every route to get to the Amir, constantly being rebuffed with excuses that the Amir was getting his hair dyed or fingernails painted. Finally Jetta managed to see him, and he reported that Murad was in a dilemma:
the Ameer of Sindh avoids giving any reply lest he should be involved in perplexity; he has stopped his ears with the cotton of absurdity, and taken some silly notions into his head that if Captain Burnes should now come he will see thousands of boats on the River Indus and […] will conclude that it is the custom of the Ameers of Scinde to deceive […]45
Having said passage was physically impossible, how could Murad now say yes? Pottinger thought this vacillation sufficient to try again, and wrote a further letter on 1 March. That crossed with another from Jetta dated 22 February 1831, recording that the Daraji authorities had reported that they had turned Burnes away, but received orders by return that they should let him come upriver to Lucput. Furthermore Murad Ali’s cousin, Amir Rustam Khan of Khairpur, had written to Murad to say it was wrong to block an ambassador.46
At last, the wind seemed to be changing in Burnes’ favour. A letter from the Governor’s office, stating that Clare approved of the ‘judgement and temper he displayed in the difficult situation in which he was placed in negotiating with the Scind authorities’47 must have eased his career worries.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Dray Horse Mission
In Orenburg, across the Hindu Kush, Jan Prosper Witkiewicz had survived six years in the frontier garrison as a soldier of the Russian Imperial Army. Like Burnes, he had devoted himself to the study of native languages. He could speak Kazakh and Kirghiz fluently, and had a good grasp of Persian. He had also gained a thorough understanding of local customs, living in nomadic encampments. How he had managed to accomplish all this as a common soldier in penal service, is not entirely clear.
An important Russian colonist, Count Khotkiewicz, had secured the services of Witkiewicz on his huge estate, and knew his background. Khotkiewicz used him to negotiate with Kazakh and Kirghiz nomads whom he wished to exclude from his land, and appreciated Witkiewicz’ skill. He recommended him to the Governor-General, Count Pavel Sukhtelen, and Witkiewicz was attached to the Governor’s office and the Frontiers Commission. In 1829 the natural philosopher Alexander von Humboldt visited Orenburg and was impressed by the young soldier’s talents, which he pointed out to Sukhtelen.1 In October 1830 Witkiewicz was made a Warrant Officer, and in 1831 commanded a small force which routed a tribe of 2,000 Kazakhs.
Sukhtelen recommended Witkiewicz for promotion to full officer – but included the caveat that Witkiewicz was sometimes very secretive.2 In 1830 the Polish rose against Russian rule. There were many Poles in Orenburg, including a substantial number like Witkiewicz condemned as nationalist sympathisers. Rather than promoted, Witkiewicz was imprisoned as one of the suspected ringleaders of a proposed local Polish insurrection. But there was no hard evidence against Witkiewicz and he was cleared in November 1833. Whether he had been in close confinement for these two years is uncertain; it seems unlikely as he was immediately deployed on missions of great trust.
* * *
On 29 March 1831 Burnes decided he must leave the boats and travel overland to Haidarabad in order to negotiate with the Amirs. He set out with only Pitumba. Arriving at the city of Tatta, he was met by an Envoy from the Amirs who told him that permission had been obtained for the entire party to come to Haidarabad and proceed overland through Sind to Lahore. Burnes declared this unacceptable, and remained at Tatta a week in negotiation.3 On 8 April Burnes reported to Pottinger triumphantly that the Amir had agreed to the mission travelling up the river right to Lahore.4 To the Amir he wrote with great tact, thanking him for playing the part of a true friend in pointing out the dangers of the river, but then assisting him to overcome them.5
Burnes rejoined his boats on 10 April. They now transferred from the Mandvi sea-going vessels into six dundis, large flat-bottomed sailing barges used widely on the Indus, ‘not unlike Chinese junks – very capacious, but most unwieldy’.6
On April 18 at 10am, Burnes’ flotilla finally anchored at Haidarabad. They were immediately greeted by representatives of the Amirs, and that evening Burnes and Leckie were lodged next to the house of the absent Nawab, Mohammed Khan Logari, whose son Ahmed acted as host. Frequent messages of goodwill poured in from the Amirs. Burnes was surprised by one from Murad Ali Khan, asking him to bring all the presents straightaway, and not tell any of the other Amirs about them.7
The next morning there was a diplomatic misunderstanding. Ahmed Khan arrived at daybreak to conduct Burnes to a durbar with Murad Ali, but Burnes explained the appointment had been fixed for after lunch. Burnes chose to regard the dawn summons as an insult, while Ahmed explained that it was an honour that Murad was anxious to see him. Other Ambassadors waited days for an audience. Burnes refused to go; Murad Ali sent apologies for the misunderstanding along with fruits and sweetmeats.
Murad behaved the more gracefully, but Burnes felt he had made a point:
There is nothing more necessary, I observe, in dealing with the authorities of this country, than to meet insolence and pride with their own weapons. It is certainl
y disagreeable but I find that civility certainly follows. The Khan was in pretty good humour before he left, but I learned afterwards that he declared his astonishment at being so sharply answered, as he said, by a ‘koodak’ (youth).8
Burnes had been embittered by his experience on the boats. But a combination of his youthful charm, and the genuine gratitude Murad felt for James’ medical services, helped overcome the frost, and next day discussions were rattling along.
At the durbar Murad Ali was with his nephews Sobdar Khan and Mohammed Khan. Murad called Alexander forward to sit on his cushion, and much admired Burnes’ dress uniform, particularly his cocked hat.9 He then apologised for all the difficulties Burnes had encountered, referring to himself as a ‘simple soldier’ who had to react to the fact that Burnes’ coming up the river – and Murad made plain that he realised Burnes was surveying – was a breach of treaty obligations. However, now there would be friendship between them. Murad would provide his own state barge for Burnes to travel through Sind. Boats, camels, palanquins and elephants would be at the party’s disposal. Britain would understand that the Amir of Sind was a firm friend. On the ostensible reason for negotiation, he readily agreed to station forces for the suppression of banditry from Thar and Parkar.