14 



AFGHANISTAN. 



the durbar, and offered to furnish troops for 

 operations on the Afghan frontier. 



Captain, who 'questioned him as to his strange 

 conduct, that the persistency with which Brit- 

 i,h ships followed the vessels of his fleet led 

 him to suspect some sinister design. 



,\s announced in the debate on the vote of 



drawal of the forces in the Soodan was m 

 process. The Indian troops at Suakin were 

 ordered home. The Australian contingent m 

 the Soodan was offered for service in Afghan- 

 istan if necessary by the Government of New 

 South Wales. Other colonies made like offers. 

 Fortifications at Hong-Kong, Singapore, and 

 other naval ports were enlarged and improved, 

 and coal stored at the coaling-stations. A new 

 coaling-station, Port Hamilton, was occupied 

 in the China seas, within a few hundred miles 

 of Vladivostok. The inhabitants of British 

 Columbia began to fortify their own ports, 

 and the peopie of Hong-Kong and Singapore 

 bore the principal part of the costs of forti- 

 tetfon. 



The Hindoos manifested generally a spirit of 

 devoted loyalty. The native papers, which a 

 few months before were loud in complaints of 

 British oppression, and scarcely veiled their 

 revolutionary sentiments, now vied with the 

 London press in bellicose expressions. Wealthy 

 nobles offered their property to the Govern- 

 ment for the object of repelling invasion. The 

 feudatory sovereigns, whose overgrown arma- 

 ments were the subject of a scare in England 

 the year before, placed troops and money at 

 the disposal of the imperial authorities. The 

 Nepaulese Government called out and drilled 

 12,000 Goorkas, and proffered their service. 

 The Maharajah of Mysore equipped a regiment 

 of cavalry, and offered to supply bullocks and 

 to contribute to the extent of the whole re- 

 sources of his state. The Nawab of Moorshe- 

 dabad sold his family jewels in order to place 

 two lacs of rupees at the disposal of the Gov- 

 ernment. The Nawab Ahsumoolla Khan, of 

 r>acca, sold all his personal property, and prof- 

 fared the eight lacs that it realized. The 

 Maharajah of Tipperah, another of the promi- 

 MBt Mohammedans of Bengal, offered to con- 

 tribute the proceeds of his entire estate. The 

 heads of all the most important Mohammedan 

 and Hindoo native states made formal tenders 

 of service at the Rawul Pindi Durbar. The 

 ruler of Cashmere placed his entire resources 

 at the disposal of the Viceroy. Similar offers 

 were made by the Rajput chiefs of Oodeypoor, 

 Jeypoor, Jodhpoor, Uwar, Dholapore, Kotah, 

 and Bikaneer: the Punjanb chiefs of Puttiala, 

 Bhawalpore, Nabha, and Jhind; the great Mo- 

 hammedan chiefs Scindia and Holkar of cen- 

 tral India, those of Bhopal, Rewah, Dhan, 

 Ooreha, Pnnna, Rutlam, and Jowra, and the 

 HMD of Hyderabad, who was represented at 



Russia has betrayed an inclination^ to secure a 

 new "rectification" of the Persian frontier 

 which would give her a portion of the fertile 

 lands in the eastern portion of the bhah s 

 dominions, and greatly improve her military, 

 political, and commercial position, especially 

 in relation to Herat. It is possible to improve 

 the Russian communications and means of sub- 

 sistence in this quarter by irrigating the desert ; 

 but that object can be accomplished still better 

 by annexing a part of Khorassan. Since the 

 inclosure of Persia on the east as well as on 

 the north and northwest by the Russian do- 

 minions, the Shah is entirely at the mercy of 

 the Czar. Difficulties between the Persian 

 Government and Yomut Turkomans immi- 

 grated from Russian territory led recently to 

 complaints from St. Petersburg, and overtures 

 for the cession of Astrabad Bay and the Attrek 

 valley, controlling the route from the Caspian 

 to Meshed. Russia is said to have made offers 

 for* the purchase of the sacred city of Meshed, 

 the possession of which would give her a great 

 influence in the Mohammedan world as well as 

 another commercial and military route to Herat 

 and central Asia, and a wide section of pro- 

 ductive country. The Khorassanis are pre- 

 pared, if not eager, for Russian annexation, 

 detesting as they do the Kajur dynasty. A 

 petition to the White Czar to that effect was 

 lately circulated among them, receiving 10,000 

 signatures. When the Russians moved upon 

 Merv, the Zill-es-Sultan, Governor of southern 

 Persia at Ispahan, who is the favorite son of 

 the Shah, the most likely successor to the 

 throne, and the most efficient administrator in 

 Persia, went to Teheran in the hope of obtain- 

 ing the ministry of war, and of carrying out a 

 plan for an English alliance against Russia. To 

 conciliate England, Ayub Khan, the pretender 

 whom Russia may help to the throne of Cabul, 

 was arrested near the Afghan border and im- 

 prisoned, while an Anglophile official was made 

 Minister for Foreign Affairs. The condition for 

 the transfer of the Shah's sympathies to Eng- 

 land was the realization of Nassr-ed-Din's old 

 dream of the annexation of Herat. To this the 

 English Government would not listen, so the 

 plan fell through, and the war office was given 

 to another son of the Shah, the Naib-es-Sul- 

 taneh, a friend of Russia, who brought to the 

 avaricious monarch a gift of 250,000 tomans, 

 supplied according to Persian rumors from the 

 Russian Exchequer. In July, 1884, while the 

 arrangements for the delimitation of the Afghan 

 frontier were in progress, Yahya Khan, a rela- 

 tive of the Shah and a high officer of state, 

 the Mushir-ed-Dowleh, was dispatched to St. 

 Petersburg on a secret mission. The Shah is 

 said to have conceded to Russia the privilege, 

 in the event of an English war, of occupying 

 and garrisoning the Persian frontier south of 



