1895.] on a Recent Journey in Afghanistan. 573 



moments when the relations between them were strained, I do not 

 think that on the broad issues of Imperial policy his fidelity has ever 

 been or can be impugned. He is the friend of Great Britain, and he is 

 the foe of Great Britain's foes. He knows that we neither covet nor 

 desire to annex his country. To us he looks in the last resort for 

 the protection of Afghan territory, and for the safeguarding of 

 Afghan freedom. As an independent sovereign, he is compelled, 

 for sake of appearances with his own subjects, to exhibit an indepen- 

 dence that to sensitive officialdom is sometimes galling. But at a 

 crisis it is to British advice and arms that he will invariably turn. I 

 may mention, as an instance of this, his intense anxiety to visit 

 England in the present summer. Though when I started from India 

 no one deemed it likely that he would accept the invitation of the 

 British Government to visit this country in the present year, or even 

 if he accepted it that he had any real desire to come, not only before 

 I left Kabul had he unreservedly accepted that invitation, but I do 

 not hesitate to say that he had no keener or more absorbing wish 

 than to carry out this resolve. He told me himself tha,t if he had to 

 be carried he would yet endeavour to come. That he has not been 

 able to do so, and has been compelled to depute a younger son in his 

 place, is due neither to any intrinsic reluctance, nor to any change of 

 plan, but simply to the condition of his own health. If well and 

 strong the Amir could, in my judgment, have left Afghanistan with 

 perfect impunity, and have returned without risk. But in the some- 

 what precarious state of his health, he has not thought it right either 

 himself to leave his country under physical circumstances which 

 might have developed into a crisis, or to allow his eldest son to go 

 abroad on a long journey at a time when untoward events might have 

 rendered his presence essential at home. I grieve very much for 

 this decision, because I believe that the Amir, by his personality and 

 appearance and character, would have made a profound impression 

 on the British Government and people, and because I believe that the 

 reciprocal influence upon himself would have been not less salutary. 

 And I regret also that his eldest son, Prince Habibulla Khan is not 

 coming, because he is a young man of considerable ability, as well as 

 amiability of character, and is a devoted adherent of the British 

 alliance, and because, if an actual Afghan sovereign could not, it 

 would have been well if a potential Afghan sovereign could have 

 visited English shores. In their joint absence, the Amir will be 

 worthily represented by his second son, Prince Nasrullah Khan, who 

 is a young man of excellent manners and education, and who will, I 

 am sure, be received by the British people with distinction and honour 

 as the representative of his illustrious father. Be it remembered 

 that no Afghan prince has ever yet visited Europe, and that the 

 voluntary presence of such a one as the invited guest of the British 

 sovereign is a conclusive answer to those ill-instructed and timorous 

 persons who are always decrying an interference which they would 

 not themselves have the courage to undertake, much less to carry to a 



