THE BORDERLAND OF AFGHANISTAN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5297, 29 April 1885, Page 3

THE BORDERLAND OF AFGHANISTAN.

The land about the north-western border of Afghanistan is a waste ravaged by the Turkomans. The Times correspondent at ' Bala Murghab thus explains the matter : — But why is it that the rich soil of Badghis lies waste, for except on the banks of the Kushk and Murghab there i 3 no ' cultivation, and until quite lately not even ' nomads to graze their flocks on its rich ' herbage? We know that Badghis was* once a well populated, prosperous country. ! There are remains of canals, aqueducts, ' forts, villages, and even cities. Yet now ! large herds of antelope, wild asses, and : particularly fierce wild boars, which have j given us some exciting spear hunts, ' monopolise its fair surface. Wolves ! and tigers are also said to be found. \ The chief sport of the Turkomans is the wild ' ass, and when we cross the Chasma Sabz • Pass a party of Turkomans were roaming over the plains below in search of it. According to local tradition Badghis was once peopled with Jagatai Tartars, whose gravestones are still to be found in considerable numbers. In the reign of Abbass the Great the country was at its zenith of j prosperity, and when Abbass 11. invaded ! the Herat Valley, the powerful Jagatai ruler of Badghis, Shah Khalil, was selected to oppose his progress to Kuhsan. This he did very successfully, but his victory was cruelly revenged ; for Shah Abbass having at last succeeded against Herat, made his way through the Bund-i-Baba Pass into Badghis, and put to the sword not only Shan Khalil, but the entire population of the district. It is said that Badghis remained desolate until Nadir Shah induced the Char Aiinak tribes, the Jamshidis in particular, to populate it, but in 1838 it was again devastated by the scourge of war. In that year the Persian army invaded Herat and commenced the celebrated siege which the genius and heroism of Pottinger so signally defeated. The Herat Valley and Badghis suffered cruelly j the latter less at the hands of the Persians than from the Khivan army which marched across from Merv to the help of Kamran Shah. A. year or two after, Abbot, Shakespeare and Conolly travelled through Badghis, and found it absolutely deserted, excepting the banks of the Kushk and Pendjeh at its northern extremity. Since then it has remained desolate, and no wonder, for it became the highway of the Turkoman robbers of Merv when out on their man-stealing expeditions, and their hunting-ground when they had leisure to hunt animals instead of men. A cultivator would soon have found himself thrown on a Turkoman horse — his feet fastened together under its belly, his head anywhere — on his way to the slave market of Khiva. My guide, a Jamshidi, indeed, had suffered this fate, and had been sold for about .£2O in the slave market of Khiva. He was employed as a household servant until his old father having at last scraped up a ransom, obtained a safe conduct from the Turkomans — for it would be bad policy to stand in the way of a ransom — and trudged the 700 miles from] Kuhsan to Khiva to buy back his only son. It is extraordinary that patriotism is not overwhelmed and swept away by the gratitude which these people should feel to Russia for emancipating them from the hateful Turkoman. But it is not so.