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 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

up

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

sented two feet; one, English shod, stepping off a piece of ground marked 'Afghanistan,' and another, encased in a big Russian boot, advancing closely upon it, with the evident intention of administering a kick to the retiring party." Of the suicidal policy of evacuating Kandahar we shall speak hereafter, but will only add by the way, that the Kandahar people themselves were no less averse to the evacuation than the English public at large. Admitting that there have been, and always will be, fanatics in Mohammedan communities, it must not be lost sight of that a large majority of Kandaharees, and particularly the Tadjik and Parsivan portion, are a trading and industrious people, who preferred the settled rule, order, and justice, introduced by the English, to the despotism of rapacious Afghan Serdars; and they not only regretted the departure of the British, but I remember having read a kasideh (poem) in praise of their new rulers, and bewailing their having been left by them.

CHAPTER VI.

RUSSIA'S DESIGNS UPON HERAT.

HAVING Succeeded in undoing entirely the work of their predecessors, the party in power in England since 1880 have been afforded ample opportunity to become convinced of the gross mistakes into which they had rushed. But, alas! blindness, a great misfortune with single individuals, is certainly far more disastrous in the case of a large body, and, particularly if that large body is entrusted with the conduct of the affairs of a powerful State such as Great Britain.

Whilst publicly clinging, with rare obstinacy worthy of a better cause, to the soundness of their views, they seemed to have been secretly very often roused from their slumbers of delusive security. As the Russian columns proceeded along the Kubbet mountains, in the north of Persia, the leading statesmen in London were more than once seized by feelings of restlessness. Interpellations, couched in polite and considerate language, were sent to St. Petersburg, where particular care was taken not to offend