Note 112 — Chapter I

And doubtless, very absurd and uncalled for the jealousy was considered in those days. As Burnes ascended the Indus, a Syud on the water’s edge lifted up his hands, and exclaimed, “Sindh is now gone, since the English have seen the river, which is the road to its conquest.” Nearly twenty years before, Sir James Mackintosh had written in his journal: “A Hindoo merchant, named Derryana, under the mask of friendship, had been continually alarming the Sindh Government against the English mission. On being reproved, he said that although some of his reports respecting their immediate designs might not be quite correct, yet this tribe never began as friends without ending as enemies, by seizing the country which they entered with the most amicable professions.” “A shrewd dog,” said Mackintosh; but he did not live to see the depths of the man’s shrewdness.