* The narrator himself does not say what of wine (which they boil, says Sultan manner of men our supposed cousins Baber, a connoisseur in that matter), they were, except that they were "skin-clad." always sit on chairs or stools, and find it But unless they were fair, we scarcely, as difficult as we do to adopt the cramped see how the story of their kinship to us postures usual among Asiatics; they use should have arisen. Burnes, Atkinson, slips of pine for candles; they employ Wood, and Masson, all speak of their with dexterity leaping poles for crossing blue eyes, nearly all of their brown hair. the smaller streams; the dead are placed Bellew describes Faramorz Khan, an in coffins, and, after much waking, are officer of Kafir birth in Afghan service, carried to some lofty spot, and there deas of fair, almost florid complexion, and posited, but not buried. Their winter is light brown hair, hardly to be distin- severe, and arable land scanty; hence guished from an Englishman. Elphin- they depend much on dairy produce. stone, who saw so accurately through Their houses are lofty, at least on the a telescope what others have missed downward side of the hill, and much emwith the objects under their eyes, says bellished with wood-carving. that the Kafirs are remarkable for the Surrounded by people professing Mafairness and beauty of their complexions. hommedanism they are natural objects of All these indications point to European kidnapping forays, and these they retort complexion at least, but we are called to on their neighbours by sallies from their abandon this as delusion by Dr. Trumpp, mountain fastnesses to plunder and kill. a learned German missionary, who made Wood, in 1838, found the valley of the acquaintance with three Kafirs at Peshá- Upper Kokcha in Badakhshan deserted on war. He declares them to have been in account of the Kafir incursions. Raverty all respects like natives of the Upper mentions a savage invasion of Kafiristan, Provinces of India, of swarthy colour, made twenty years ago from the southwith dark hair and dark eyes; only with east side by the chief of Bajaur, in which a ruddiness due to wine. Further, Dr. villages were sacked and burned, and the Trumpp asserts that the Kafir words people carried off and sold. Faiz Bakhsh given by Burnes "are not Kafir words at speaks of a like invasion from the north all, but belong to one of the numerous in 1870 by the reigning Mír of Badakhdialects which are spoken in the Kohistan shán, which penetrated through the Doof Kábul.” But, in fact, all the scanty zakh Darah, or Hell-glen, to Kahar, which vocabularies professing to represent the he calls "the capital of Kafiristan," languages of the Kafirs, Kohistánis, Pa- bringing back a large number of captives shais, and others pre-Afghan tribes of that whom he saw at Fyzabad. Whatever difmountain country, show a good deal in ficulty from within the Kafir country common with a good deal of divergence. exists as to its exploration is due appaAfter all, Kafir is as vague a term as lib-rently to this atrocious treatment at the eral theologian; and even among the hands of their Mahommedan neighbours. Kafirs of that ilk the Kafirs of Kafiri- It is pretty certain that the Afghans stan, whose typical fairness we cannot doubt there are eighteen tribes, and, may be, varieties of dialect. Hear again the accurate Elphinstone:-"There are several languages [dialects?] among the Kafirs, but they have all many words in common, and all have a near connection with the Shanskrit. They have all one peculiarity, which is, that they count by scores instead of hundreds, and that their thousand (which they call by the Persian or Pushtoo name) consists of 400, or 20 score." The reckoning by scores instead of hundreds appears in the grammar of a Kafir dialect collected by Dr. Trumpp. were not wrong in calling them our cousins, though more than "once removed." Perhaps when we come really to know them we shall find in them the nearest existing type of what the Aryan Hindu was when he first entered that sacred land of the Haptu Hendu, or Seven Rivers, from which he has acquired a name, and when blue-eyed Brahmans drove their white oxen a-field in the forests of Gandhara. The Kamoz tribe of Kafirs are fairly supposed to be the surviving representatives of the Kambojas of primeval Indian literature, a name with which scholars have connected that of Cambyses, and from which was borrowed, by a practice frequent among Buddhist colonists or converts, the name of that region in the The Afghans believed that he had a telescope with which he could see what passed on the other side of a far East in whose forest depths such mountain. As a parable it was true. weird and stupendous masses of architec Among the notable customs of the people, besides their large and constant use ་ ture have lately come to light. In two other Kafir tribes the Ashpins and Ashkins — one is tempted to trace remnants of the Aspasii and Assaceni of exander's historians. Al we Passing westward from Kafiristan find the valleys of Tagao, Nijrao, and Panjshir, scarcely better known, and largely inhabited by a people the Pashais- who appear to be of kindred race to the Kafirs. It is much to be desired that the improvement of our maps of northern Afghanistan should be seriously taken in hand by our official Indian geographers. It is not merely north of Hindu Kush, where our rulers have been discussing the limits of Afghan dominion, that we need additional light; it is even more seriously wanted on the south of the mountains. Our maps agree in presenting blanks greatly to be lamented, and they disagree in other respects to a startling extent; especially in that important field that intervenes between Kabul and the passes of the Hindu Kúsh. The most diligent surveyor during our occupation of Kábul was the gallant Sturt, of the Bengal Engineers, the son-in-law of Sir Robert and Lady Sale, and whose name is worthy to be remembered with their own. It seems probable that his work perished with him in the fatal passes, for no trace of it has been found by recent search, either at Calcutta or at Westminster; and the only professed record of all his precious labours that is known to survive is a meagre map in a very poor book, stated therein to have been "chiefly derived" from a map by Sturt, who was the author's companion on a journey into the Oxus valley. * of his leader (1747), hastened to snatch the government of his native province. This he shortly afterwards converted into kingly authority, assuming the style of Dur-i-Dúrán-"The Pearl of the Age" - and bestowing that of Duráni upon his tribe, the Abdalis. During the twentysix restless years that he survived he carried his victorious expeditions far and wide. Westward they extended nearly to the shore of the Caspian; eastward he repeatedly entered Delhi as a conqueror; and at his death he bequeathed to his son Timour an empire which embraced, not only Afghanistan to its utmost limits, but Sind, the Panjáb, Kashmir, and the territory north of Hindu Kush to the Oxus. This, we apprehend, is the original foundation of the Afghan claim to the provinces north of the mountains. Badakhshán also was overrun by the arms of Ahmed Shah about the year 1765. The pretext of that invasion was to obtain possession of a certain holy relic,— the Shirt of the Prophet. It was carried off in triumph, and sent by Ahmed Shah to Kandahar. We know not if it be there still, but if so Kandahar may make the unique boast of possessing the Shirt of Mahommed and the Begging-pot of Sakya Muni.* It is needless to enter into the barbarous dissensions among the grandsons of Ahmed Shah, which brought to the ground the short-lived Duráni empire, and ended (1818-1826) in the division of all Afghanistan, except Herat, among the many brothers of the ambitious and able Fatteh Khan Barakzai, who had been the Vazir of one of the rivals, and whom his master, Mahmúd Shah, with odious cruelty, treachery, and ingratitude, had first We can dwell no longer on the tracts blinded and then murdered. Dost Masouth of Hindu Kúsh, but before passing hommed was one of those Barakzai brothbeyond it to the ground dealt with in ers, and to him Kabul fell. We need Lord Granville's late correspondence with not dwell upon the history of our dealPrince Gortchakoff, it may be well to re-ings with him, our re-establishment of call the chief facts regarding the domin- the Duranis in the person of Shah Shúion of the Afghans north of the Indian Caucasus. The Russian Minister speaks of Dost Mahommed as the founder of the Afghan State; but this is not accurate. The modern Afghan State was formed from a fragment of the Empire of Nadir Shah, that last specimen of the typical Asiatic conqueror on a great scale. Among the many Afghans in his army was a young soldier of distinction, Ahmed Khan Abdali, who, on the assassination Burslem's "Peep into Turkestan," 1846. jáh, and. the dark days of 1841. Those of us who had then come to man's estate, or near it, cannot forget; the later generation, it is to be hoped, read the tragic story in Sir John Kaye's book, once justly characterized in striking words by Lord Strangford in the pages of this Review.t During their fratricide wars the Duránis lost all their external conquests, and See Sir H. Rawlinson's remark in the "Jour. Roy. As. Soc." vol. xi. p. 127. "A Work as awful, as simply artistic, and as clear and lofty in its moral as an Eschylean trilogy.” among them the Oxus provinces, which fell back under the independent rule of various Uzbeg families. Among these were the Kataghan Uzbegs ruling at Kunduz. Murád Beg Kataghan, who succeeded in 1815, greatly aggrandized his dominion, and in 1838 it extended from near Balkh to the highlands of Pamir. This chief was ruling when Moorcroft, Burnes, and Wood, successively visited the Oxus valley. more than acknowledgment of vassalage, surely some memory of the fact would have come to light in the writings of Elphinstone or Wood. Ere Murád's death (some time before 1845) his power had waned, and it then passed not to his son but to the Uzbeg chiefs of Khulm, who for some years exercised considerable power in that region. About the time of General Ferrier's visit (1845) he had got embroiled In the middle of the last century, when with the Afghans, and the latter began to the army of the Manchu Emperor had make conquests north of the passes. In conquered Kashgar, two of the Khojas, the end of 1849, after the episode of Dost as the chiefs were called, who had for Mahommed's infelicitous attempt, ostensome generations been ruling that region sibly to assist the Sikhs against us, but with both spiritual and temporal authori- really to recover Peshawar, the advance ty, sought shelter in the lofty wilds of into Turkestan was renewed, and in FebPamir. The Chinese generals pursued ruary 1850 Balkh was taken. In the end them even thither, and when the Khojas of the same year another of the Afghan escaped again into Badakhshán territory princes succeeded in taking Khulm, and they descended into that kingdom and early in 1851 marched westwards against demanded the refugees. The King of Akcha, which, after a sanguinary resistBadakhshan quailed before the Great ance, fell, and was given up to plunder. Khan of Cathay; one of the fugitives Siripúl surrendered soon after; Shibrwas dead, but a paltry pretext was found ghan, Maimana, and Andkhoï, in 1855. for the execution of the other; and event- Kunduz was conquered, after some fightually his head was given up for transmis-ing, in 1859, by Mahommed Afzal Khan, sion to Peking. As the story was told to Captain Wood on the spot, the treacherous inhospitality of Sultan Shah was ascribed, not to fear of China, but to the attractions of wealth and beauty which had accompanied the fugitive in his flight. He sued for life, but in vain; on which the holy man cursed Badakhshan, and prayed that it might be three times depopulated, that not even a dog might be left in it alive. Already has the country been twice bereft of inhabitants; first, by Kokan Beg of Kunduz, forty years ago, and again by Murad Beg in 1829.- Wood, p. 162. The march of the Chinese into Badakhshan is notable as marking the highest flood-tide of Chinese advance to the West in these later ages - the last such flood-mark, one is tempted to say, in the world's history. But who can venture to predict the history of a nation of 400,000,000? It is difficult to ascertain what was the real extent or duration of their intervention in Badakhshán. The most distinct record of the movement (in the "Lettres édifiantes ") makes no mention of a military occupation, though such an occupation is assumed in the apocryphal German Baron's travels. It is certainly the case that Wilford, in a passage already referred to, states the Chinese to have been then (in the latter part of last century) in possession of Badakhshan. Yet if the subjection were who was then proceeding to carry out the annexation of Badakhshan, when the Mír, who seems to have recovered his territory at the death of Murád Beg, after some parley agreed to submit and pay an annual tribute to the Afghans of 2 rupees for every house in his province. In 1863 (9th June) old Dost Mahommed died, and was succeeded by Sher Ali Khan. When the latter, after many vicissitudes, was firmly seated on the Kabul throne, Jahandár Shah, the Mír of Badakhshan, who had been in intimate relations with his rivals, could no longer hold his ground, and was superseded by Mír Mahmúd Shah, another of the royal family, supported by the Afghans. The Afghan refugee, Prince Abdarrahman, seems to have informed General Kaufmann that Mahmúd Shah and his brother, who is in possession of the district of Rusták, pay to Sher Ali Khan a tribute of only 15,000 rupees. Faiz Bakhsh, however, states the amount to be 60,000 rupees, including 10,000 for Rusták, and 800 for Wakhán. And another account, by one of Major Montgomerie's emissaries, and probably representing the bazaar-talk of Fyzabad, says that he paid in the first year 80,000 rupees and 500 horses. Very recent accounts mention that Jahandár Shah was getting together a force of all kinds for a new attempt to recover his throne. We now turn again to our | sea-level, in which the paltry capital of geographical review. On the establishment of Ahmed Shah as King of Afghanistan, the province of Balkh with the small Khanates of Siripúl, Maimana, Andkhoï and Shibrghán, commonly known as the Chihár Viláyat, or Four Domains, were formed by that prince into a government in favour of an Uzbeg comrade, Hajji Khan. In the beginning of the century this territory fell to pieces, and was generally under Uzbeg chiefs, whose allegiance wavered, according to the force applied or their own immediate objects, between Bokhara and Afghanistan. Of their conquest by the latter we have just spoken. The ancient fame and productive soil of Balkh, as well as its position, preserve to it the headship of the Afghan provinces north of the mountains. If we except the bricks with cuneiform letters seen by Ferrier, no trace has been recovered of the ancient splendours of Bactra. The remains that exist are scattered over some twenty miles of circuit, but consist mainly of sun-dried brick. Balkh seems never to have thoroughly recovered from the horrors of its destruction by Chinghiz | Khan. Though often partially re-established, it has almost ever since been a frontier city exposed to Tartar ravages; and the account given of its ruins by Ibn Batuta, in the first half of the fourteenth century, is very much like that given by Burnes five hundred years later. Indeed Vámbéry mentions in his history that the citadel of Balkh, between its crection in the fifteenth century and its restoration one hundred and fifty years later, had been destroyed twenty-two times. The seat of Afghan government, and the chief collection of population, is now at Takhtapúl, some eight miles east of the old city. A little further, on the road to Khulm, is Mazár Sharif or "the Noble Shrine," where a whimsical fiction has located the body of Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet. Vámbéry himself has visited Mazár, and mentions the roses, matchless for colour and fragrance, that grow upon the pretended tomb. the Kataghans stands. So low is the country round Kunduz that the roads approaching the town have to pass over piles amid the swampy vegetation. The plain adjacent is in the main richly culti vated and thickly peopled, but it is interspersed with extensive tracts of jungly grass, and is extremely and proverbially unhealthy. The people of the upper country call it "the Badakhshi's grave." Fifty miles east of Kunduz is the boundary of Badakhshán. This is a country that seems always to have inpressed the Oriental mind as one possessing some peculiar and charming quality. It is a kind of monarchical Switzerland, consisting of an aggregation of Daraks or glens, forming a number of smail priacipalities, generally divided by mountain barriers of considerable height, but bound together by a kind of feudal allegiance to the Mír living at Fyzabad, who rules immediately over the central provinces of Fyzabad and Jerm. These may be regarded as constituting Badakhshán Proper. Some of the other provinces most under the Mír's influence are also held by members of his family; the others are under their own hereditary rulers. All these alike bear the title of Mir, as well as the King of Badakhshan himself. Their tenure, according to Pandit Manphúl, a Hindu gentleman, who resided some time at Fyzabad as the agent of the Panjab Government, and who is as yet our best authority on the subject, is one purely of fidelity and military aid in time of need, and involves little or no tribute to the King. Unfortunately our means of forming correct ideas of Badakhshán are very limited. Captain Wood remains the only European who has visited it, but his visit was in winter; and it was only as he was departing that the land began to doff her mantle of snow. Still we can gather that the chief elements of its charms are to be found in soft green sward, and the music of sparkling brooks, strong in contrast alike to the sterile and dreary plains which expand to the westKunduz is the heart of the region ward, and to the rugged aridity of the called in old days Tokháristán, from those mountains on the south, which often look Tochari, whoever they really were, whose like the outposts of Pandemonium. Add movements overthrew the Greek dominion fertile bottoms, rich orchards nestling in in Bactria. The province embraces a the dells, walnut-trees, stately planes. great variety of climate, from the secluded and poplars festooned with vines, slopes valley of Andaráb, close under the snows gay with a wealth of almond and pistachio of Hindu Kush, once famous for the sil-blossom, and snowy peaks that form the ver that was mined hard by, to the hot background to every picture, and send swamp, not more than 500 feet above the cool breezes down the gorges to iresben the summer nights. Nor are there want- | mology interprets as "All-Mines." Burnes relates how natives and foreigners alike spoke with rapture of the vales of that country; its rivulets, romantic scenes, and glens; its fruits, flowers, and nightingales. The brief notices of Manphúl and Wood's few words on descending into the lower valley of the Kokcha, where the snow had disappeared, delightfully corroborate these charms. Introductory Essay to Wood's Journey, P. 1xxx. This is the beautiful country which that petty chinghiz, Murad Beg, had ground beneath his brutal Uzbeg heel, sweeping away thousands of families from their pleasant vales to be sold into slavery, or set down to perish among the pestilent swamps of Kunduz. Fyzabad, the capital, which Wood, in 1838, found desert and almost annihilated, has now for a good many years been re-occupied, and shows reviving life; though, unfortunately, one chief business carried on is that of the slave market. This business of kidnapping and manselling has indeed for a long time been the great scourge of the whole line of frontiers from the Caspian to Kashmir: Turkmans selling Persians, Uzbegs selling Hazáras, Hazáras selling Herátis, Badakhshis selling Chitrális or Kafirs, Chitrális selling each other, people of Wakhán selling those of Shaghnán, and vice versa, Kanjútis stealing and selling all men on whom they can lay their hands. It is to be hoped that the abomination is drawing to a close. The Atalik Gházi, according to Mr. Shaw, has already shut the market in Eastern Turkestan. And it must be acknowledged that the day which sees Khiva under Russian power will do more towards the blessed consummation than any other measure. Badakhshan is believed to have much mineral wealth, especially in the districts of the Upper Kokcha, known by the old name of Yamgán, which the popular ety Here are said to be copper, lead, alum, sal-ammoniac, and sulphur, though few of them are worked. Here, too, in the high valley-district of Korán, are the famous mines of lájwurd, or lapis-lazuli, which were visited by Captain Wood. Korán is a wild glen near the border of Kafir-land, coupled in a local rhyme with the jaws of hell, but which once constituted a quasiindependent state, which in the eighth century was of substance enough to send a mission of homage and tribute to the court of the Chinese emperor. The disproportionate pretensions of such a district may have depended on the quarries of lazuli, the trade in which is probably of great antiquity. It is most likely the sapphire of the Periplus, mentioned among exports from the ports of the Indus delta in the early years of the Christian era. Iron is obtained a little to the eastward of Fyzabad, and rock-salt is mined largely now, as it was in Marco Polo's time, on the western border of Badakhshán. As regards the population of Badakhshán, we have no basis for an estimate. In Wood's time, after the Uzbeg raids, it was at a very low ebb, but it has since doubtless revived to some extent. The only facts in the least resembling data on this point that we know of are a Chinese report of last century, that it contained 100,000 families; and the amount of the tribute settled to be paid by the Mír to Kábul, which was put at 50,000 rupees, and said to be at the rate of 2 rupees for each house. This last reckoning would give only 25,000 houses. But we are ignorant what definite extent of territory was included in either estimate, whilst Wood's account of the manner in which families cluster together shows that the very word house is of ambiguous meaning. Fyzabad, the capital, in 1866–67, did not contain more than 400 houses. Mashhad, the largest town in the province of Kishm (Marco Polo's "very great province of Casem "), once the residence of Humáyún, the son and father of two great kings, had at the same time only 150 houses. Jerm, which did duty for capital in Captain Wood's time, had then at the outside 1500 inhabitants. One of the most famous among the highland fiefs of Badakhshan is Wakhán, a state lying along the highest waters of the Panja, as this main branch of the Oxus is termed. The inhabited part of Wakhán is about 140 miles in length; the lowest part is about Sooo feet above |