CABUL AND THE FRONTIER. QUETTA TO CANDAHAR.

North Otago Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2081, 3 January 1879, Page 3 (Supplement)

CABUL AND THE FRONTIER. QUETTA TO CANDAHAR.

The telegrams we publish this morning jnstify the anxiety with which all Europe has now turned its eyes towards Cabul and the North-Western frontier of India. The kingdom of the Ameer, owing to the Chinese jealousy with which he and his subjects exclude foreigners fromthecountry has had but few explorers, and but little is generally known about it. It is, however, apart from if 3 present political aspect, a country full of interest for the student as the theatre of Arab conquest and Islamite growth, the scene of Tartar invasion and havoc, a very hotbed of Mohammedan bigotry and fanaticism, the arena of Shia and Sunm hostility, the battlefield of Afghans and Persians, the scene of British conquests and disasters. But to the general public it presents itself to-day as a country of which but .«canty information is available, although one which, physical! v and politically, is full of interest to every Englishman. As if nature £^Ane f d it to be the object of the world's attention, Afghanistan stands up from i^j^great plains of India and the KhaDateTas an elevated table-land. The Mountains of the Hindu Koosh tower up on its eastern frontier as a landmark to all Asia, and point out to every invader the way to India. From the great range irregular spurs diverge in every direction, and cover Afghanistan with a network of mountain chains. Between them lie Talleys of surpassing fertility, and watered by perennial streams. Here every enemy of India has recruited his forces, and more than once the hardy monntninteis have themselves poured through the passes of the Sulieman range that separates Afghanistan from India, to ravage the territories ot the infidels of Hindostan. But the India of to-day is not the country that Mahmoud of Ghuzni knew so well how to plunder, and every turn of events seems to conspire to change it more. 'I ime was, and only twenty yearsago, when we were content with the Indus as our western boundary, and the Ameer of Cabul exercised such influence as he could up to that great river. Compared with the Indus, the sacred Ganges is a thing of yesterday. For the Indus, or Siddu, was known to the ancient world from the very earliest days. Rising amidst the desolate grandeur of the northern Himalayas, close to the fountain heads of the other great Asiatic stream:*, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, the river at first wanders westward, reluctant to leave the sublime highlands of its birth. Through scenes of terrific w.ildness, snowclad ranges solemn in their desolation, and dark valleys chaotic with stupendous rocks, the Indus finds its way northward of Cashmere, the rose kingdom, to Gilgit, the borne of and cradle of some of the most curious Bi) ths of Eastern folk lore. Then, turning southward, past the home of the fairy Peri and the awful Harginn, it brawls along past the pine-clad h.lls where the Bear king holds his dread couit — forbidden ground to men — and, forcing its T^ry through the lower Himalaya spurs, , jflSßus upon British India immediately above Peshawur. Keeping south, passes the Khyber defile, receiving from the west the streams that escape from the Afghan hills, and from theEasttheuiuted flood of the five rivers that give the Punjab its name They are all streams of great antiquity in history — the Hydaspes, and Acesines, the Hydrastes, Hyphasis, and Htsudrus — and, combined, cite the Indus a noble volume It then enters Sind as the Nile of Asia, rolling a stately fertilising flood along to th» i¥t, into whiob, amid ghiftiug islands

and levels of green pasturage, it debouches by many mouths. In history and in common talk the Indus is called the western boundary of our Indian Empire. But history lags, and people talking together prefer metaptior to exact fact. " from the Indus to the Bay of Bengal" is a comprehensive, convenient, and symmetrical phrase, but our fate in India — the fate that forbids the conqueror to cease from conquest — has now carried us beyond the great river. When we struck empire from the hand of the Lion of the Punjab, the great Sikh chieftain Runjeet Singh, our frontier outposts reddened the spurs of the Sulieman range far beyond the Indus ; and when, tardily exasperated, we drove tho Ameers of Sind from their capitals, the border line was again carried westward through their principality to the marches of Beluchistan. Yet once again we had to step forward westward, and this time into the very heart of the Beluchis country to Quetta. To make plain the necessity for this advance, we must recall to our readers a striking parallel in Cabul history. For twenty years Afghanistan or Cabul had been an anxiety to the Indian Government. First it was the Persian Court that troubled the outlook, bwt history records how we kept the word of Lord Canuing, that " Great Britain will not allow any attempt on the part of the Shah toeffect'a change in the possession of the countries lying between Persia and British India ;" and when, in 1850, Dost Mahomed Khan, then Ameer of Cabul, asked the Indian Government what would happen when an enemy appeared at his gates, he received the reply, "When the event occurs, it will be dealt with. If the Persian or the Russian should come, it will be ns an enemy of the English, »nd the English will rid you of their own foe?." The clouds thickened, and Cabul asked for help from Calcutta. It was made a condition of this assistance that British officers should be deputed to the chief towns of Afghanistan to advise the Ameer and his provincial governors on emergencies, and to keep the Indian Government apprised of events. The Ameer agreed, and, in return for the money and arms to be furnisiied, two military officers and one doctor were to be stationed at Cabul, and a similar staff at Candahar. This very important fact, so pertinaciously denied by the ill-informed, acquires a peculiar interest to-day. The more bigoted Afghans, headed by their spiritual chiefs, detested the project of British presence, and hardly had the promise been given before it was partially withdrawn. The Ameer, at any rate, begged that at Cabul itselt we might only have a native representative. At Candahar we might have whom we chose. In deference to this appeal, the British officers deputed to Cabul were recalled, but the treaty signed in the camp near Peshawur, in 1857, contains the lollowing important clause : that "British officers, with suitable native establishments, shall be deputed, at the pleasure of the British Government, to Cabul, Candahar, or B<jlkh, or all three places, or wherever an Afghan army may be assembled to act against the Persians. " That this clause applied, by implication, only to the period of the Persian disturbances does not weaken the fact that the request of ths Indian Government to have its representatives in Afghanistan was agreed to, if only for a time,' by the last Ameer, and that the importance attached to the measure by the Indian Government was thoroughly understood by both the Ameer and his subjects. Major Lumsdeu Lieutenant Lumsden, and Dr. Bellew were deputed to Candahar, wlere they arrived in April, 1857. The instructions then issued illustrate excellently the constant and unvarying policy of Britain towa ds Cabul, for it wa? to be the 6rs>t ot'ject of the mission to assure the Afghan*, great or smaii, that we haO no da-ire to send a single man, armed or unarmed, across the border except with the goodwill of the Afghan nation : that wh.it we most desired was that the Afghans should govern themselves in freedom and independence, defending themselves effectually against aggression from e\er)' side: that all we a'-ked in return for our help was the confidence of Cabul. Meanwhile the religious part}' in Afghanistan did not abate its detestation of the British alliance, and it is a matter of history that a body of Ulemas, or Doctors of the Law, visited the Ameer with the avowed object of inciting him to a Holy War against the infidels of Hindustan. The Sepoy Mutiny was then at its height, and the Ameer had it in his power to inflict a fearful injury upon us. But old Dost Mahomed, in return for our help in the past, had given us in return what we had asked — hts confidence, nuci remained staunch to his British allies. In July, 1858, the heir-apparent to the Cabul Throne died suddenly. Shcre Ali Khan was nominated heir, and thus for a second time the elder brother wus passed over. The Indian Government evaded recognition of the nominee, feaiing to be committed to either side in the struggle that was certain to ensue on Dost Mahomed's death. The remarkable histoncal parallel will strike ever) reader. With a foieign enemy on its fionticr, Cabul enter* into treaty relations with India; the chief point insisted on by the British is a British mission ; a crisis in Eastern history supervenes ; the heir apparent dies ; the elder brother is again passed over ; the British Government evades formal recognition of the heir elect. As it was in 1858, so is it 1878. But the cowning coincidence follows. In the autumn of 1858 a Russian Embassy arrived at Herat, was welcomed and entertained there for a lon[i period. M. Khanikoff then asked permission to visit Cabul it*elf; but here the parallel rea«es, for Dost Mahomed, though he received the Russian herald courteously, firmly and promptly declined. The Indian Government, in acknowledging the intelligence of the event, appioved the Ameer's refusal, as it could not, the Viceroy said, permit the presence of Russians in Cabul after the opposition made by the Ameer, in 1837, to the presence of British officers there. This chapter of history is instinct to-day with interest and importance for states- | man and student alike. Events, it will be j seen, have marched exactly step by step during the past few months with the events of the corresponding months just twenty yeais ago. But the character of the ruler ! of Afghanistan of those days was not the character of his son, the Ameer of to-day, the faithless, boastful Shere Ali Khan. Old Dost Mahomed was true to us, and, with the same current setting towards him that has now o^el whelmed his son, he stemmed the flood of Russian intrigue by the barrier of his plighted word. But Shere Aii, recklet-s of all his spoken and all his written promises, has cleared the channel for the advancing tide that threatens now to sweep away his broken sceptre with his bioken faith. But the tieachcry of Shere Ali has not taken the Indian Government by surprise. .Five 3'ears ago it suspected, and three veaisugo was assured of the fact. The Peshawur conference was the last chance offi-red tt> Shere Ali tfe recover his loit

ground ; but, in tbe madness that it said to preceed destruction, he rejected it. Sir Lewis Pelly had it in Iris gift to make the Ameer both strong nnd rich ; but the Ameer had lost his reason, so the Ipdian Government, careful of the coming storm occupied Quetta. In the days of his friendship with us Shere Ali had agreed to that step, expressed himself pleased at it ; but to-day lie would give away hit own crown jewels — aye, and his Russian alliance too — if he could only dfive the red line back from Quetta to the Indus, aud shut the poitern that lays his capital open to our advance mid his power at our feet. But the knocking is already heard at the gate, and he may well despair of his hold on the fori-crowned hills and orchardcrowded valleys of his kingdom of Afghanistan. Yet it is f, kingdom worth his utmo.it care, for, though seen now in the lowest depth of its poverty, it has a past history of some grandeur, and the vast architectural remains that heap many of the valleys and strew the plains bear witness to a prosperous age that has gone. Thus from Gbnzni westward, all along the valleys of the Tarnak and the Hclmund, down to the basin of Seistan, tke whole country is covered, so modern travellers tells us, with the ruins of former towns, obliterated canals and deserted cultivation, the sad memories of the Tartar devastations under GhengizKhan and Timour in the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Tho^e scourges ot Asia swept away the Arab civilisation that had possessed the land, for the Afghans, during the great Arab invasions that followed the death of Mahomet, had been e.\j»er converts to Islam, and, profiting by the example set them by their conquerors, grew B f ron>f in arms and arts, founded a kingdom at Ghuzni, and subsequently conquered Hindustan. But the wave of Tartar invasion swept over the provinces, and Afghaniftnn has never recovered from the havoc. Since then it has been cursed »vith constant change* of government, and the nation has became a proverb in A«i«i for lawless intrigue and anarchy. It is, however, the last word of those who have studied its resources that Afghanistan requires only a settled government to regain its past power and wealth. Its mineral resources are great ; for, though the jealousy of the people has hitherto forbidden scientific exploration, enough is known to assure us that gold, silver, iron, and lead ate among the indigenous metals, and that salt, saltpetre, sulphur, air! antimony abound. In vegctab! • products it is notoriously rich, for here the flora of the East and West meet as on neutral ground. Besides all the Indian cereals and the hundred varieties of the melon and cucumber kinds known to Asia, the cmtor oil, tobacco, cotton, madder, and other valuable economic plants of the East, there are found the fruits and flowers of Europe also. The olive, mulberry, oak. cedar, walnut, and pine flourish, with all the orchard trees and garden shrubs. English vegetable are in every bazaar, and in the country side the roae, jessamine, and hyacinth grow wild. A complete catalogue wouldalmostexhaust botany ; but sufficient varieties have already been cited to denote the vast ranije of the vegetable world of C.ibul. From this may be inferred corresponding variety of climate. Though lying between ! the 29 th and 35 bh degrees of latitude, Afghanistan, taken as a whole, escapes ! the heat that should characterise it by its | olovnfcion. The temperature is further mo'lified locally by the presence on the one side of the snow-clad Hindu Koosh, and on the other of barren sand tracts. The periodical winds sweeping over the onebring a sharp bracing air ; over the other come the dry parching blasts so well known in the Kast. > has, the plain of Jellalabad during summer ia intolerably hot ; while to the south the Safed Koli lifts up its snowy peaks, and to the west lies the table-land of Cabul, enjoying the coolness and verdure of a temperate climate Again, the low plains of Ddinauu, ruiiuiu'^ along the Indus, are oppressed during summer with scorching heat ; hut the shepherds retire to tho mountains and find for their flocks cool retreat and grassy valleys. At Candahar tho temperature in summer isexcessivo, but proceeding north towards tho HeJmund River the cold increases, and, leaving heat behind him, the traveller h'mlshimself ad vancingintoa country still covered with snow. At Cabul itself tlio winter is more regular in its severity than in England, and in mminer the heat is greater. The inhabitants, therefore, wear at one time clothes of felt, with cloaks of sheepskin, sleeping at night under rugs before a fire ; and at another thin chintz or muslin robes, and have their beds out under the trees. Bub whatever the changes, the climate, judged by the people, must bo eminently healthy, for, ns a race, there are few to compare with the Afghans in physique and energy cf character. They are all stalwart, active, and brave. This does not hold true of all the inhabitants of Afghanistan, but of the Afghans or Pukhtuns proper only — for the country is peopled by an infinite diversity of races. The Tajik, of Persian origin, and the Mazani, the residue of T.irtar invasion, Uzbegs and Turkomans of various tribes, Kuzzilbash Moguls, and a bewildering variety of Hindi and Kashmiri colonists all combine to form the population, while southward, but still subjects of the Ameer of Cabul, are the Brahoes aud Beluchis, descended from different stock and speaking different languages, and a medley of emigrant communities from Hindustan and Persia. In one or two respects, how1 ever, all these diverse people resemble each other — their lawless indedendence of character and their poverty. They are all equally ready to join in plunder, and murder if need be, and may be all reckoned upon to join the leader that promises most. To a force invading C.ibul from the south they will afford the exact material wanted for scouring ravines and reconnoitring bills, for collecting forage and keeping open communications. Such a foice would enter it most easily from Jacobabad in Sindh, and, proceeding by Gandava to Khelat, thence reach Quetta by the Bolan Pass, sixty miles in length, already patrolled by British troops. From Quetta to Candahar the advance would meet with few obstacles if the inhabitants were well disposed. The valley northwards, looking from Quetta, is overshadowed by the Zurghun rango infested by the Kakarr tribe, the most hardy mountaineers of a country where all are hardy, and hopelessly lawless. The freebooting Domarr again make unsafe for travellers and even caravans the direct road to Candabar, but to an armed force could offer little molestation. These tribes muster in all some 70,000 households, but they are scattered over so wide an area that when recently their suzerain the Khan of Khelat organised a punitive expedition against them no trouble was found in reducing them in detail to submission. In December snow falls, and often after that the road, though never I impassable, is rendered difficult. The Murghi Pass leads by an ea«y route down I to the Feihin dittticfr, »Dd at.KuthUc,

fourteen miles from Quetta a small stream of that name is passed, which demarcate* the frontier of Khelat and Cdbul. Another eighteen miles of practicable road brings the traveller by the Surmaghazi Pass to Hykalzai, situated on a plain of red clay soil — a farorite rendezvous of the nomad Sarins, and marked by numerous ruins and several inhabited Tillages. From Hykalzai a march of fifteen miles attaint Araubi Karix, several streams being crossed en route, and a fair sprinkling of inhabitants encountered. Excellent roadway obtains thence past the spurs of the Toba range, the populous villages of the Dihsuri Glen, to the Khojak Pass, at all times practicable in spite of its narrrowness. On the southern side the elovation has been recorded to be 7,000 fet, at the top of the Pass 7,410, and at Chaokah, on the* northern cud, 5,600, and here as everywhere else along the road, pasture is abundant for three-fourths of the year. From Chaokah to Chaman, and thence to Gatai, some twenty -five miles, the route lies north-westerly along a gradual slope on to the undulating sweep of the plain ; and from Gatai, a march of fourteen miles reaches a plain and rolling downs, without inhabitants, as pasturage isvery scanty and water brackish. After eighteen miles further M<iku Karcz is mado ; the B^rghana Past, which lies midway at an elevation of 4,100 feet, presenting no difficulty to the traveller. Thencj a winding ravine leads to the village \)f Maku, and sixteen miles further across and undulating plain as far as the Arghesan river (a very shallow stream though of considerable width), anu thence across broken country, lies Mnnd Hissar. From there to Candahar is twelve miles. The whole route, it will be seen, is as easy as an invading army has any right to expect, and from end to end water and pasturage abound, while in the numerous j flocks of sheep that are driven into the J district to graze an abundant source of meat is at hand. The only apprehensiou I therefore, is from the inhabitants themselves ; but from the well-established popularity of the British at Quetta, and j the general friendliness of the Boluch towards us, there seems no ground for suspecting interference with the advance Even, however, should such hostility be evinced by any tribe, their neighbors are J at all times willing, for a pecuniary consideration, to undertake there punishment Should it, therefore, be necessary for a British force to invade Cabul from the south, Nature, by providing so easy a route to Candahar, has supplemented the political sagacity that acquired Quetta. To an army invading Cabul from the east, the Khyber Pass presents itself as the most obvious avenue of advance. That famous defile is -ilready so well known that no descripiion is needed. Suffice it to say that from end to end the Khyberiu territory is 180 miles in length, and that, held by a determined for», its may passage be serious undertaking. But, as we pointed out in our issue of yesterday, the Khyberses are to-day more peaceably disposed toward* us than they have ever been since we pushed our frontier up to the font of their bills They are an independent trib' 5 , owing allegiance to none, and willing to sell their services in the best market. For many yeats they have been anxious to attain the dignity of treaty relation*) with us, and in the telegram from our Special Correspondent nt Simla, which we pubMsh to-day, it will be seen that Lord Lytton, with the same sagacious promptitude that has marked bis direction of affairs, is prepared to accede to their wishes. With the Khyberees" in ourt-ervice, Cabul becomes ai British asPeMmwur. Thai (or Thull), which our telegram inform us has acquired a sudden importance as n strategic point, is situated about midway between the frontier outposts of Kohat and Bannu. It comni uuls the entrance to that Kuruin "Valley the occupation of which we suggested in our issue of yesterday, nnil a force mtirching along it would strike the rood to Cabul nt a point about fifty miles from that city. Supposing therefore that the Khybtr were by any unexpected circumstances closed against an advancing force, the route Irom That would be always open to us as the alternative.