on the river Heri-rúd, at a point where the Keshef rud joins that river, the name of Pul-i-Khátun.* The Heri-rúd, whether under its own name or as the Tejend, constitutes to the south and to the north-west as far as Sarakhs the boundary of the province of Herát. The principal of the posts on its banks as it flows northward are Kuhsan, the Zulfagar pass, and Pul-i-Khátun. These posts have long been recognized as belonging to Herát. Yet, in a time of profound peace, whilst the British Commissioner appointed to mark out the boundary was waiting for his Russian colleague, Russian troops crossed the line then recognized as the boundary and seized a post, thirty-two miles to the south of it! Not content even with that they proceeded likewise to occupy the pass of Zulfagar, some twenty-eight miles still nearer to Herát!

There was no excuse for these acts: Pul-i-Khátun is merely a good place for a new departure; it is not even a village; it never belonged to, and has nothing in common with, the Turkomans, whether Sarik or other; it is simply an open ground covered to the east by high mountains. Of the ground immediately to the west of it Sir Charles MacGregor, who made the journey from Meshed to Sarakhs in 1875, gives the following account. I should premise that the road follows the Keshef-i Rud as far as Shor--jah, just beyond Ak-i-Durbend, and branches at a right angle northwards, just before reaching Pul-i-Khátun :†—“ On

* Literally "The Lady's Bridge."

+ To the number of the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, for September, 1881, is attached an excellent map of this part of the country, of Northern Khorasán and the Kara-Kúm Desert, compiled from Colonel C. E. Stewart's survey of that country, from maps by Major the Hon. G. E. Napier, from the Surveyor-General of India's maps, and from the Russian Typographical Department of 1881. It is noteworthy that, in all these maps, the Afghan frontier extends from Sarakhs, by way of Imam-Bakhsh and Robat-Abdullah Khán, in a straight line to a point above Andkhoi.

Saturday the 24th of July, we marched 16 miles to Ak Durbend. The road leads down the valley almost the whole way, only occasionally leaving it to go over spurs to the left, which here and there impinge on the river. It is quite practicable everywhere for field artillery. At the eighth mile we passed a newly built fort called Bughbughoo, occupied by thirty wretched creatures, who looked at us passing with the longing of prisoners afforded a glimpse of the outer world.

"At the fourteenth mile we descended to the bed of the river and crossed to the right bank by a very nasty, because very muddy, ford. Thence the road went over an open plain for one mile, when it ascended over a spur by a steep, but otherwise easy pass, to another little opening, which was again divided from Ak Durbend by another similar pass.

"The river here is confined between hills, so that the valley is not more than 300 yards across, and beyond this it gradually gets narrower and narrower, till it becomes a regular defile, and continues thus till it emerges from the hills at Pul-i-Khátun where the ground becomes much more open. All access from the east is closed by towers placed on commanding positions overhanging the defile, so that the position of Ak Durbend becomes one of very considerable importance in considering the defence of this border, as by it is the only practical road between Múzduran and the southern side of the ridges which bound the Ab-i-Meshed on the south."

Four miles beyond Ak Durbend is Shorjah, where, as stated, the road branches northwards to Sarakhs. Pul-iKhátun is about eight miles to the east by south from Shorjah. In his book (Journey through Khorásán in 1875) MacGregor gives sketches of Ak Durbend and of the gorge of the Ab-i-Meshed above Pul-i-Khátun.

On the subject of the sudden sweep of Russia upon that post, Professor Vambéry thus writes (March 1885)* :— "To this fact I reckon," that is, to the fact that Russia has a settled design to annex Herát, "before all, that lawless and unjust aggression of Russia on the north-eastern frontiers of Persia, an appropriation of a large tract of country to the occupation of which the Government of the Shah has not given its consent, and the annexation of which has been only made with the obvious purpose to approach the district of Herát and to swoop down upon this important place in order to seize the Key of India, and so become the undisputable master of the country lying between the Paropamisus and the Oxus. I fully admit, as I stated in my previous paper on the Russo-Afghán Boundary Commission, that the country extending between the middle course of the Heri-rúd and the Murgháb, respectively, the Kushk (rectius Khushk = dry) river has formed, in the course of the present century, a debatable ground between. Afghánistán and Persia, but since the last-named country was unable to clear this highway of the Turkoman Alamans (forays) on their inroads into the eastern part of Khorásán and Sëistan, the de facto possession must be, and can be, only accorded to the Afgháns, as to the Power able to put a check on the devastating incourse of the reckless freebooters of the north. If Russia had the sincere intention not to meddle with Herát, as her statesmen assert, the encroachment upon Sarakhs, whether the new or the old one, which is almost the same, would have been quite superfluous, and she could have easily avoided to rouse the just suspicion of England. But we see that quite the contrary has happened. Encouraged by the vague threats. coming from the unofficial quarters of London and Cal

cutta, Russia hurriedly fell down still further to the south, and laid hand upon Pul-i-Khatún (the Lady's Bridge), at the very moment when the English Boundary Commission, headed by Sir Peter Lumsden, arrived at the spot. The object in view was to prove to the English that the place where the Keshef-rúd joins the Heri-rúd is Russian territory, and cannot be made the object of further discussion. But we beg leave to ask what are the reasons which have necessitated this step? There are no Turkomans subject to Russia in this outlying district, there is no interest to defend, and the whole movement is nothing else but a badly-concealed attempt against Herát."

The Zulfagar Pass is even stronger for aggressive purposes: I shall speak at greater length of this further on. Writing on the subject from Bála Murgháb, forty-six miles below Panjdeh, the correspondent of the Times (March 12, 1885) writes as follows:-" You will see from the map that both the roads to Herát run through Badghis," the districts to the north and north-west of the city of Herát, "which comprises the valleys of the Heri-rúd, Kushk, and Murgháb. That is why it is so valuable to us and to Russia. If Russia had no designs on Herát she would not care whether her frontier were at Sarakhs or Pul-iKhátun, or at Yolatan or Panjdeh. But of course she cares. Russia has statesmen, and each naturally aspires to be the Joshua who will terminate these weary wanderings and lead her armies into the Promised Land. Once there, their troubles are at an end. Everything is there to be found, for the valley of Herát flows with milk and honey." The writer closes a very interesting letter with the following pregnant sentence :-" The two thousand miles we have marched between the Caspian and the Indus have certainly convinced us that India is the garden of Asia, and that only in India-Herát and Badghis are but oases—are water and

shade the rule and not the exception.

Now we can understand why there have been so many invasions of Hindustan." On the same point a well-informed writer in the same paper thus recently expressed himself :

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:

"At the time of the Russian war with Khiva, Sher Ali represented to the Viceroy his apprehension of the consequences that would ensue if the Turkomans of Merv were driven by Russian invasion into his province of Badghis. The fact that no European traveller passed through this region after Vambéry in the early days of Sher Ali's authority to tell us what the exact condition of Panjdeh was, is not an argument invalidating the Afghán claims over the place, especially as those claims are supported by the receipts of tribute from the surrounding tribes contained in the registers of the Herát Administration. If the presence of the Amír's troops and officials were to be made the only test of his right to rule there are many other places besides those which Russia has seized that Abdurrahman would have to surrender. It is, of course, intelligible that Russia should seek to make the Amír's burden in governing his state as heavy as possible, but it is difficult to understand how this argument can be indorsed by any impartial witness. The Amír holds Panjdeh, partly because it has always been dependent on Herát, and partly because he found it marked on the map well within the frontier drawn by the English Intelligence Department. But his chief reason of all is that the possession of Panjdeh is necessary to the preservation of his hold on the road running northwards from Herát through the province of Afghán Turkistan to Maimené and Balkh. Russia would give him that road and no more. It is absolutely essential to its security that the Ameer should retain the control of the region on its western flank, which includes Panjdeh and the Kushk valley. On the question