Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎58v] (120/312)

ixouertss column had "got safely past, they;
; would wipe out the remnaht of their weakened
kinsmen. By asking foy simplo neutrality,
the British alliance enables the hill tribes
to lay out the rupees Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf. they pay them
! in compassing each other's destruction, and
does not interfere with the serious business of
the mountaineers' regular life—intertribal ven-,
detta.
The Ameer, on the other hand, cannot
i | afford to ask for mere neutrality. He will
I require from his allies active opposition to the
i advance. But the advancing army will be
armed with Snider rifles, which are an abomina-1
tion to the hillmen. They consider it revolting
that a man should drop another at 600 yards,
while the poor jezail-armed victim had still
I another quarter of a mile's stalking to do before
he could hope to have his shot. That a bold i
mountaineer should hot be allowed to show him
self against the sky-line on one of his own
native peaks without having bullets fired at him
from half a.mile's distance they think barbarous
—but they respect the fact. On severkl ac
counts, therefore, Lord Lytton stands at an ad
vantage as compared with the Ameer in
, his negotiations with the hillmen. Against
this fact there remains the astonishing charac
ter of these mountaineers ; and in estimating
the chances of their services, or the value of
them, this can hardly be sufficiently insisted
upon. Their internal feuds are so constant and
so malignant that the villages, corn fields, and
orchards, as well as the hill sides, are studded with
round towers in which men are at watch all day j
and night. Nothing belonging to their enemies |
| is safe. If even a bullock or a fowl strays o2 |
its own premises it is sure to receive a
bullet from a neighbour's. house. It is a fact /
that the village children are taught never to
. walk in the centre of the road, and so, from the
force of early habit, they creep steathily along
under any cover that offers from point to point.
The natives themselves haVe asked travellers to |
i remark that the cattle, as if by instinct, in-1 .
variably follow . the same example ! Such are
the tribes with whom we have to deal.
Meanwhile, in the history of the past year
there is much to encourage those who believe ,,
that leopards' spots may be effaced by selection j
1 or an Ethiopian, under favouring circumstances,
■ develope a white skin. For the purposes of
S administration, the Indian hill frontier on the
north-west is divided into the six districts of r
Hazara, Peshawur, Kohat, Bannu, Dera Ismail
TThaTij and Dera Ghazi Khan—the last three
composing what is called " The Derajat "—and
the Punjaub Government, reporting upon their
condition, characterises the jear's experiences
along the whole line as being most satisfactory.
The head men of the various tribes continue to
hunt up each other when they are proscribed by
I the authorities with commendable diligence; and
when one family has burnt down the village of
another the aggrieved persons report the outrage
with praiseworthy punctuality. Even this is, for
the hill men, behaving,excellently. Indeed, that
they should refrain from murdering the work
men on British roads in British territory and
from raiding upon British outposts, may be ac
cepted as evidence that they are peaceably in
clined towards us. But this will not be the
ultimate object of our negotiations. By securing
i their neutrality towards ourselves we certainly
deprive Gabul of a handle for annoying,us and
might be well content with this as the sole result of
our " treaty relations." But by bribes and threats
judiciously combined we may not only fairly hope
to make our communications respected, but
also, confiding in the sagacity and experience of |
our political officers on the frontier, we may!
look forward to detaching from troublesome
coalitions the dominant elements, and thus
utilising the whole. The Khyberi, at any rate,
can do as good service, and that we have so often
soundly beaten him on his own ground is a fact
that will not militate against us in our negotia
tions. Not only by the moral influence upon
other tribes that his presence as our escort will
exercise will he be useful. His kinsmen hold
the adversary's strongholds in the pass at their
mercy, and with their co-operation the keeping
open of communications would be immensely fa
cilitated. As a matter of fact, the management of
the hill tribes of our frontier is a fine art that |
has been specially studied by our political depart
ment, and at this moment we have on the spot
several officers who have graduated with honours
in it. Knowing this, and understanding from
recent history the effect which the defection of
one tribe to our service, and to the cause of law
and order, has had and will have on their neigh
bours^ we await with confidence, in spite of all
adverse circumstances of character, the outcome
of Lord Lytton's very sagacious policy.
In calculating the military resources of Af
ghanistan at any period of its history, it has
always been found necessary to leave a wide |
margin to cover the possible vagaries of the Sir
dars. These chiefs are the virtual rulers of the
Ameer, the ruler of Cabul, They openly assert
their independence at all times, and the tribdl
jealousies by which the population is always
split up into factions favour their disrepect of
the central authority. The Sirdars Leader of a tribe or a polity; also refers to a military rank or title given to a commander of an army or division. , or provin
cial governors, affect to be responsible
to the Ameer not only for the revenues
of the districts under their charge in times of
peace, but also for the efficiency of the military
contingent which those districts are bound to
provide to the national army in times of war.
In the neighbourhood of the capital, where the
I Ameer always holds his own regiments in readi
ness, and where he keeps stored all the arms pre
sented to him by the Indian Government, this
responsibility is something more than nominal.
; But in the outlying districts, on the east, west,
and south, not only are the Sirdars Leader of a tribe or a polity; also refers to a military rank or title given to a commander of an army or division. independent
in a great measure of the Ameer's authority, but |
the tribes over whom they are placed disregard
as they choose both the Sirdar Leader of a tribe or a polity; also refers to a military rank or title given to a commander of an army or division. at hand and the
Ameer at a distance. The revenue in these parts of
the country is collected by force, andherds, stand
ing crops, and hostages are as regular items in
the revenue accounts as customs and taxes in j
| more settled countries. Where it is so difficult
1 to collect money, it might be thought that the
I collection of men would be no easy matter ; but
| the character of the people, which makes the one
I almost impossible, facilitates the other, for the
I Afghans will rally to any standard provided that I
. pay in the present and plunder in the future
are promised. Against Shere Ali, in 1868, one
i disaffected chief collected over a hundred thou-
sand men in the neighbourhood of Can-
dahar alone, while another seized pos
session of the province of Balkh, at
the head of nearly seventy thousand
soldiers. " He who possesses a little money
will soon have a sufficient number of partisans to
assist in raising him to power," says the author
of the " History of the Afghans;" and Elphin-
I stone, in his " Account of the Kingdom of
■ Cabul," says " the tribes will desert one patty
and attach themselves to another without feel
ing any compunction or incurring any disgrace;"
ar d an Afghan has thus concisely stated the na-
J: tional feeling as to loyalty : " We are content
with discord, with alarms, with bloodshed, but
! will never be content with a master," Con-
' certed rebellion is, however, as impossible to this
divided people as concerted loyalty, and, having
therefore only to oppose and chastise one sec- j
. tion at a time, the Ameer has managed 1
• to keep the upper hand of all. But
| on every occasion that he has had to
make a general appeal to the country for
support he has been notably deserted. Against
Persia the late Ameer could not rally a sufficient
, army until he had obtained British assistance,
and when threatened by Kussia he had to seek
' the same aid to suppress pro-Russian agitation
i on the frontier. The present Ameer, Shere ;
! Ali, when a rival appeared in the field, found j
| half his amy in the rebel camp, and after the
i first defeat was left without any army at all.
Three forces were operating independently at
once. Again, when his son Yakub Khan broke j
out into rebellion he collected at once' a
sufficient army to seize Herat and most seri
ously endanger his father's tenure of power.
Even theAmeer's nephew, Abdul Rahman Khan, i
I returning from exile to dispute Shere Ali's pos-
session of the throne, raised 25,000 men against '
U him in the centre of bis kingdom. The actual
number, therefore, of the Ameer's army at the ;
present day cannot be accurately calculated, and
no figures yet published have been set forth or *
accepted as authoritative. Meanwhile it is known
that Shere Ali entertains on more or less i
regular pay twenty regiments of infantry, seven j
of cavalry, and a small force of artillery. The j
; Afghans form the bulk of the infantry, Persians j
I and Moghuls of the cavalry, and Hindustanis of
| various kinds the artillery. Besides this—the '
so-called standing army—there is the vast body
j of militia, which includes,'probably, nearly every
j adult male of the kingdom. They receive no
; pay in times of peace, and find their own arms,
and, as might be expected, consider they owe
very little to the Ameer. But they are bound
by tribal ties to their chiefs ; and, as these hold
from the Ameer rent-free lands in military fief,
i they deem themselves responsible for their