296 A HISTORY OF PERSIA. Persia, with the double view of putting a limit to the Shah's plans of conquest in Affghanistan, and of securing his aid in future struggles with Shuja-ul-Mulk. Haji Hussein AH Khan was empowered by the Barukzye Sirdar to negotiate a treaty of offensive and defensive alliance between him and Mahomed Shah, on the conditions that a joint attack should be made on the territories of Prince Kamran, and that in the event of success, a partition of conquests should take place, by which Herat, and the districts lying to the west of the river of Ferrah, should belong to Persia, and the country on the eastern side of that river, with Sebzewar, to Dost Mahomed. The Affghan nobleman found reason to doubt whether the conclusion of such a treaty would really be of advantage to his master, and he seems to have been superseded in his capacity of Affghan pleni- potentiary, by the arrival at Tehran of Azeez Khan ; who had been sent thither by the chiefs of Kandahar, brothers of Dost Mahomed, and who agreed with the Persian Government on the terms of a league against Prince Kamran, the Shah acknowledging the independence of the Barukzye Sirdars. In the summer of the year 1836, Mahomed Shah put his army in motion towards the east. His Majesty's operations were in the first instance directed against the Turkomans, and they were not distinguished by any remarkable result. Prince Feridoon was detached with a division of the army to attack the fortified town of Karakillah, which place he found on his arrival to have been evacuated by the tribes in whose possession it had been. They had retired to the mountain fastness of Sooknak, from which the Persian general now endea-
