Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎26v] (53/312)

the Indian Government apprised of events.
The Ameer agreed, and, in return fop the money
and arms to be furnished, 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
I 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 with
drawn. The Ameer, at any rate, begged that at
Cabul itself we might only have a native repre
sentative. 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 Pe-
shawur, in 1857, contains the following impor
tant clause : that " British officers, with suitable
native establishments, shall be deputed, at the
pleasure of the British Government, to Cabul.
Candahar, or Balkh, 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 the 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 mea
sure by the Indian Government was tho
roughly understood by both the Ameer and his
subjects. Major Lumsden, Lieutenant Lums-
den, and Dr. Bellew were deputed to Can
dahar, where they arrived in April, 1857. The
instructions then issued illustrate excellently
the constant and unvarying policy of Britain
towards Cabul, for it was to be the first object
of the fission to assure the Afghans, great or
small, that we had no desire to send a single
man, armed or unarmed, across the border
except with the goodwill of the Afghan
nation ; that what we most desired
was that the Afghans should govern them
selves in freedom and independence, de
fending themselves effectually against aggression,
from every side ; that all we asked in return for
our help was the confidence of Cabul. Mean
while the religious party in Afghanistan did not
: abate its detestation of the British alliance, and
I 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 Holj
War against the infidels of Hindustan. The
Sepoy Term used in English to refer to an Indian infantryman. Carries some derogatory connotations as sometimes used as a means of othering and emphasising race, colour, origins, or rank. 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
—hia confidence, and remained staondi to
his British allies. In July, 1858, the heir-
apparent to the Cabul Throne died suddenly.
sShere Ali Khan was nominated heir,, and thus
f&is^a second time the elder brother was passed
overS^The Indian Government evaded recogni
tion of the nominee, fearing to be committed to
either side in the struggle that was certain to
ensue on Dost Mahomed's death. . The remark
able historical parallel will strike every reader.
With a foreign enemy on its frontier, Cabul
enters into treaty relations with India ; the chief
point insisted on by the British is a British mis
sion ; 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 in 1878.
But the crowning coincidence follows. In
the autumn of 1858 a Kussian Embassy ar
rived at Herat, was welcomed and entertained
there for a long period. M. Khanikoff then
asked permission to visit Cabul itself ; but here
the parallel ceases, for Dost Mahomed, though
he received the Russian herald courteously,
firmly and promptly declined. The Indian
Government, in acknowledging the intelligence
of the event, approved the Ameer's refusal, as it
j could not, the Viceroy said, permit the presence
of Russians in Cabul after the opposition made
by the Ameer, in 1857, to the presence of British
officers there. This chapter of history is in-
stinct to-day with interest and importance for
j statesman and student alike. Events, it
1 will be seen, have marched exactly step
by step during the past few months with
the events of the corresponding months just
twenty years 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
curfent setting towards him that has now over
whelmed his son, he stemmed the flood of
Russian intrigue by the barrier of his plighted
word. But Shere Ali, reckless 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 broken
faith.
But the treachery of Shere Ali hag not taken
the Indian Government by surprise. Five
years ago it suspected, and three years ago was
Assured of the fact. The Peshawur conference
/was the last chance offered to Shere Ali to re
cover his lost ground ; but, in the madness thai
is said to precede destruction, he rejected it. Sir
Lewis Pelly had it in his gift to make the Ameer
both strong and rich ; but the Ameer had lost
his reason, so the Indian Government, careful of
the coming storm, occupied Quetta. In they
days of his friendship with us Shere Ali haA
agreed to that step, expressed himself pleased ^at
it; but to-day he would give away his crown
jewels—aye, and his Russian alliance too—if he
could only drive the red line back from Quetta
I to the Indus, and shut the postern that lays his
capital open to our advance and his power at our
: feet. But the knocking is already heard at the
gate, and he may well despair of his hold on the
fort-crowned hills and orchard-crowded valleys
of his kingdom of Afghanistan.
Yet it is a kingdom worth his utmost 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
Ghuzni westward, all along the valleys of the
Tarnak and the Helmund, down to the basin
of Seistan, the whole country is covered, so
modern travellers tell us, with the ruins
!of former towns, obliterated canals and de
serted cultivation, the sad memories of the
Tartar devastations under Chengiz Khan and
Timour in the thirteenth and fifteenth cen
turies. Those scourges o£ Asi& 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 eager converts to Islam, and, profiting
by the example set them by their conquerors,
i grew strong in arms and arts, founded a king-;
| dom at Ghuzni, and subsequently conquered
[ Hindustan. But the wave of Tartar invasion
swept over the provinces, and Afghanistan has
never recovered from the havoc. Since then it
ha? been cursed with constant changes of go
vernment, and the nation has become a proverb '
in Asia 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 are among the indigenous metals, and that
salt, saltpetre, sulphur, and antimony abound.
In vegetable 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 castor oil,
tobacco, cotton, madder, and other valu
able • 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 vegetables are in
every bazaar, and in the country side the rose,
jessamine, and hyacinth grow wild. A com
plete catalogue would almost exhaust botany ; |
but sufficient varieties have already been cited !■
to denote the vast range of the vegetable world I
of Cabul. From this may be inferred corre
sponding variety of climate. Though lying!
between the 29th and 35th degrees of latitude, i
Afghanistan, taken as a whole, escapes the heat
that should characterise it by its elevation. The
temperature is further modified 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
one bring a sharp bracing air ; over the other
come the dry parching blasts so well known in
the East. Thus, the plain of Jellalabad during
summer, is intolerably hot; while to the south
the Safed Koh 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 Damaun, running
along the Indus, are oppressed during summer