shots had whistled through the air. The Consul, Captain Macpherson, sent at once a mounted messenger to Robat in Baluchistan to fetch assistance, and the troops sent to Nasretabad were still there on my arrival.
The immediate consequence of the attack was that the distribution of medicine ceased, for the drugs had been destroyed. Before, all the sick who presented themselves had received medicine gratis. The people, therefore, began to see how foolishly they had behaved, and their displeasure was directed against the instigators and leaders of the riot.
After that they had been obliged to look after themselves ; but in the English Consulate preparations had to be made for another attack. The large store of provisions which usually lay in the warehouse, where it could be easily stolen or set on fire, was moved into the main building. This could soon be turned into a fortress, and from the flat roof, surrounded by battlements, the court would be exposed to fire in case of an assault. The guard of the Consulate consisted only of twenty Indian cavalry soldiers, but they were, like the six Sahibs, well armed.
One must, however, forgive the misguided and ignorant people who, brought to despair by famine and plague, knew not what to believe. They could not understand why Europeans, without reward, nay, with considerable sacrifice to themselves, came to their aid with advice and active assistance. They could not believe that it was simply from feelings of humanity and philanthropy. And when their own educated men and priests assured them that Englishmen laid out trade roads in Baluchistan solely to introduce the plague into the country, and that under pretence of distributing medicine they only spread poison, it was certainly no wonder if the poor people were irritated. Moreover, they saw how they themselves were decimated, while the Europeans were immune—not a single European was attacked by the plague. The Governor, Mir Mohsin Khan, ran about like an idiot from village to village, flying from the plague, and the colonel of a regiment intended, it was said, to remove to Kuh-i-Khoja, as if the plague could not reach him just as well there. A recrudescence of the plague and famine might at any moment produce a general
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