nothing better than a loophole to escape through, were quite happy at this arrangement.

But the Czar is at the far distance in the north; and his representative at Tashkend happened to have such notions of Afghan neutrality as were entirely different from those of his master. Whilst the English were enjoying the full beatitude of the peaceful arrangement made with their northern rival, this very representative of the Czar was indefatigable in sending secret missions and correspondences to the Emir of Kabul, in which the latter was told of the great interest the people of Russia took in his fate, and particularly how they pitied him for having become the victim of English despotism, treachery, and egotism. Of these Russian billets doux but very little has transpired in Europe; but their effect was clearly and unmistakably visible in the behaviour of the late Shir Ali Khan, a prince of tolerably good disposition, and certainly far superior to the present ruler of Afghanistan, but who, soured by the irresolute policy of the Viceroy of India at the time he was struggling hard for his throne against various competitors, just wanted the above-mentioned secret encouragement and this continual goading from Tashkend in order to become the declared enemy of Great Britain, as he afterwards proved.

We have no space here to dwell at any length

upon the main causes of the second Afghan war; nor shall we enter into the discussion of whether it was the short-sightedness of the Conservatives in England, or the rashness of Lord Lytton, which precipitated that bloody campaign. But we cannot abstain from remarking that Shir Ali was by no means the innocent lamb he is represented to be by the Liberal politicians of Great Britain. Left to his own fate through the principles of "masterly inactivity," and getting, through his own efforts, upon the musnud of Kabul, the subsidies he got in the shape of presents from Calcutta were utterly inefficient to make this man a staunch ally of England. He was always sulky and always hankering after an increase in the subsidies, for he was more greedy than the rest of the Afghans; and, having been secretly spurred and pushed from Tashkend, it was but quite natural that the good understanding between him and Great Britain should have turned out a failure, that the meetings at Amballah and Simla proved unsuccessful, and that the second Afghan war was an unavoidable consequence of this long tension.

Russian

The history of the arrival of the mission under Stolyetoff at Kabul, and the refusal of the Emir to receive the British mission, are too fresh in memory to require any reiteration.

Through the secret correspondence discovered in the citadel of the Afghan capital, we even got a copy of the treaty concluded between Shir Ali and General Kauffmann, an official document embodying ten stipulations, and evidently showing that Russia had for a long time back prepared the ground for her dealings with Afghanistan, in spite of the officially-acknowledged neutrality of that country. Of course, in excuse of these secret dealings Russia says she was compelled to do so in consequence of the appearance of the British fleet before Constantinople during the late Turko-Russian war. She now feigns perfect innocence; but who in the world would not look through these crafty machinations, and become convinced by these indubitable facts of the unparalleled treachery brought into action against England?

And, strange to say, there still is a class of politicians who do not view matters in this light. The war against Afghanistan went on with varied fortune; the country was subdued nearly as far as to the Hilmend. Shir Ali Khan died, and was succeeded by his son, Yakoob Khan; and he again had just been deposed from his throne and interned in Murree, for having connived at the treacherous murder of Sir Louis Cavagnari and the English mission at Kabul, when soon afterwards, in the

one.

spring of 1880, the Liberals returned to power in England, and soon began to change entirely the line of policy pursued by their predecessors. As is pretty well known, the main and principal aim of the Conservative Ministry in going to war against Afghanistan, was to secure a scientific frontier in the place of the former unscientific, i.e., unsafe, and unreliable The scientific frontier may be designated, if we say that it was to have comprised a line of country extending from the Kheiber to Quettah, including the Kheiber and Mishni passes, as well as other defiles, leading from India into Afghanistan, together with the Kuram, Sibi, and Pishin, in order to obtain, as Sir Henry Rawlinson very justly remarked, a strong, friendly, and independent power in the north-west of India, without being obliged to accept any crushing liabilities in return. By the treaty of Gundámuk, this scientific frontier was secured. Kabul, with the whole of Afghanistan, reaching to the left bank of the Oxus, had to fall back into the hands of the Emir, and the retention or evacuation of Kandahar was the only question yet left to be decided. The Liberals not only made up their minds very soon to evacuate the last-named place, but were foolish enough to give up the whole scientific frontier, so dearly bought by the precious lives of thousands, and at the cost of more than £20,000,000 of money. In order to

obliterate any trace of the work done by their predecessors, they tore up the rails laid down in the direction of Pishin, forsook all those Afghans who had joined the cause of the English, and exhibited an almost incomprehensible fanatical desire to annihilate even the slightest results obtained by the second Afghan war.

As a foreigner I must naturally abstain from entering too deeply into the intricacies of English party-life; but with all my firm resolution I cannot suppress the remark that, if the Liberal politicians of Great Britain had adopted up to this point the policy of "masterly inactivity" against aggressive Russia, they have since changed that device into one of "masterly imbecility," for whilst they were evacuating Kandahar, against the clear and expressed opinions of military and political authorities, such as Lord Napier of Magdala, General Roberts, Colonel Malleson, General Sir Edward Hamley, Lord Lytton, Sir Richard Temple, and a host of others, their Russian friend was steadily making his way across the Turkoman country towards the Paropamisus mountains. Mr. Charles Marvin is, therefore, quite right in illustrating this fact in his above quoted book as follows:-" Just before the evacuation of Kandahar took place, a clever caricature was published in Russia, entitled, 'England and Russia in Central Asia.' This repre