NARRATIVE OF VARIOUS JOURNEYS IN BALOCHISTAN, AFGHANISTAN, AND THE PANJAB 1826-1838 by Charles Masson
Volume 3 [142 of 332]
CHAPTER IX [5 of 11]
The Nawāb Māhomed Zemān Khān had been for some time busy in renewing the defences of Jelālabād. The dilapidated walls, originally of some width, were repaired, and on an eminence, a little south of the town, called Koh Bacha, he erected an intrenchment and placed a piece of ordnance in battery. He had summoned the īljarī, or militia of the country, and the saiyad petty chiefs of Khonar, with Sādat Khān, the Momand chief of Lālpūra. He could scarcely, however, have expected to withstand a siege, notwithstanding his preparations, but must have depended on the arrival of the Peshāwer army to his assistance, when, if no actual collision took place, the usual routine of intrigues and negotiations would have been carried on; and if Dost Māhomed Khān had been foiled, he for the present would have preserved his authority. A confidential agent from the Peshāwer sirdārs, Nazīr Morād Alī, was with him, urging, him by resistance, to give the army time to join him, as also striving to obtain the cession of Bishbūlāk, which the nawāb, formerly promising to yield, now scrupled to make over.