Yet, for all this optimism among the Shah’s supporters, an event took place immediately after this durbar that is not referred to in a single British source, but which according to all the Afghan accounts was crucial in beginning the process of discrediting Shah Shuja in the eyes of his new subjects. Mohammad Husain Herati gives the earliest as well as the fullest account of what happened. “At this time, an unfortunate incident occurred,” he wrote. A girl from a good family was going about her business when an inebriated foreign soldier crossed her path, grabbed her and dragged her into a
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