aim which prompted Russia to the conquest of the desert; and to point out how the display of an iron resolution alone can avert from Herát and India the threatened danger, I have written the pages that follow. I have written them, not as a party man, but as an Englishman. Not as a party man, first, because, believing that the two great parties in the State have alike blundered, I have pointed out with impartiality the mistakes of both. Not as a party man, secondly and specially, because in a matter affecting the maintenance of an Empire the voice of patriotism should silence the selfish contentions of party. For, in very deed, it is an Empire which is now at stake, and it is by patriotic efforts alone that the splendid creation of our fathers and our fathers' fathers can be maintained. The form in which this little book is published will make it accessible to all classes. It will tell those classes the truth, and, telling them the truth, will impose upon them a sacred duty. That duty is, above all things, to insist that the Ministers of England shall maintain, with respect to our Indian Empire, the old historical policy of England; that the Ministers of England shall compel Russia to withdraw her unjust pretensions, to retire behind the frontier which she has violated. If the people of Great Britain fail to perform this duty, they will become partners in a policy, born of infirmity of purpose and cowardice, which will lose for us our Indian Empire! In my outspoken criticisms I may have struck at cherished prejudices and wounded personal vanities. In dealing with a crisis which is partly the consequence of mistakes in the past, it was impossible absolutely to avoid doing this. But to those who may be affected by my criticisms, and to all, I would thus appeal, using the words of the greatest of English writers : "Who is here so base that would be a bondsman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Briton? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended. I pause for a reply." 27, WEST CROMWELL ROAD, 28 March, 1885. G. B. MALLESON. CALIFORNIA THE RUSSO-AFGHAN QUESTION. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.-GEOGRAPHICAL AND STATISTICAL. AFGHÁNISTÁN, the land of the Afgháns, is the borderland, the frontier bulwark, of the empire of the Mogols, as that empire was constituted when the earlier princes of that race ruled India. It is bordered on the east by the Panjáb, on the south by Balúchistán, on the west by Persian Khorásán and the desert of Baksu, on the north and north-west by a line drawn from Sarakhs, just above RobatAbdullah Khan and Andkhoi, to Khoja Saleh on the Oxus, and from the latter to a point on its tributary the Koktcha, beyond Faizábád. Speaking roughly, the territory may be divided into five distinct parts; to the north-east, is Kábulistán or Afghánistán proper, the country of which Kábul is the capital, between the Hindu Kush to its north and Ghazni and the Saféd Koh to its south, and from the Khaibar Pass to the Koh-i-Baba; to the north of that again, sloping to the Oxus and its tributary, is Badakshan, with its dependent district of Vakhan, from the Sarikul on the east to the junction of the Koktcha river with the Oxus, the latter forming the northern boundary of this Afghán province through its entire extent; to the west of Badakshan, Afghán Turkistán, comprising the districts of Kunduz, Khulm, and Balkh; further westward still, the districts of Aksha, Seripul, Maimené, Shibberjan, and Andkhoi, the latter of which is the extreme Afghán frontier possession to the north-west; to the west and south-west, Khorásán or Zabulistán, comprising Herát, the land of the upper Múrgháb, Gúrdistán, the Hazáreh mountain lands, the lands watered by the Helmund and the desert of Sëistán. The natural boundary to the north is the magnificent range of the Hindu Kush, sloping northwards towards the Oxus, which, in a military sense, forms its ditch. Separated from the Hindu Kush by the famous. Bamián Pass, but continuing its course westward, rises the ever snow-bearing Koh-i-Baba, spouting from its southern slopes the water which forms the Helmund, which runs a course of about four hundred miles to the south-west. To this lofty range are linked on likewise, to the westward, two parallel ranges, the Saféd Koh and the Siah-Koh, which embrace the valley of the Heri-rúd. The first of these is equally well known as the Paropamisan range. Between Herát and Kábul, running southwards as far as the Argandáb, a tributary of the Helmund, the lofty peaks and chains of the Siah-Koh, separated from each other by streams issuing from its southern slopes, form the unexplored country of the Hazáreh. To the east, running almost directly north and south, is the great Sulaimán range, almost at right angles with the Saféd Koh, which strikes off from it westward at a point below Kábul. Sulaimán range, which reaches as far as Balúchistán, forms a natural boundary between India and Persia. The stony, barren nature of the country as the mountain slopes to the latter, affords a striking contrast to the richness and fertility of the valleys on the Peshawar side. It is through This |