G 



AFGHANISTAN. 



road from Khelat-i-Ghilzai crosses the Sura 

 mountains. The rebels had fortified the pass, 

 and were there in considerable force, but were 

 outnumbered and gave way before re-enforce- 

 ments arrived, after inflicting heavy losses on 

 the royal troops. There was another fight on 

 August 3, in which the Ameer's general was 

 worsted and forced to retire to Khelat. A 

 large part of Abdurrahman's army was com- 

 posed of Andari Ghilzais, and military discipline 

 was not strong enough to overcome the spirit 

 of the clan. No Ghilzai troops were sent 

 against the rebels. After the mutiny of the 

 Andari regiment, the other Cabuli troops in 

 Herat were sent out of the town. The ring- 

 leaders of the mutiny were captured and sent 

 to Cabul, but the Ameer did not dare punish 

 them, for fear of provoking a general mutiny 

 of their fellow-tribesmen, with the exception 

 of Taimar Shah and two other officers, who 

 were executed for holding treasonable corre- 

 spondence with Ayub Khan. The Herat gar- 

 rison was recruited from the neighboring peo- 

 ples, who can not be relied on for soldierly 

 qualities, nor for loyalty to the Ameer of Ca- 

 bul. The attempt of the Ameer to awaken a 

 religious spirit in the northern Afghan coun- 

 try with the help of the mollahs was a failure, 

 for his despotic rule was thoroughly unpopu- 

 lar, and the friends of the pretenders drew an 

 effective contrast between his and Shere Ali's 

 reign. The Duranis of the Candahar prov- 

 ince had thus far escaped the Ameer's exac- 

 tions, and were still faithful ; yet the attempt 

 to raise fresh regiments among them was not 

 successful, because they are averse to a mili- 

 tary life. The bulk of the Ameer's army re- 

 mained in the north, where, notwithstanding 

 the re- enforcements sent to the southern garri- 

 sons, Gholam Hyder Khan had about 20,000 

 regular troops, while the forces under Hyder 

 Orakzai and Sikundar Khan numbered about 

 7,000 men, and the garrisons of Ghuzni and 

 Candahar, 5,000. The Shinwarris, led by the 

 Sirdar Nur Mohammed Khan, who, after first 

 gaining possession of theKhost district, joined 

 them with a large body of recruits, held their 

 own country against the forces sent against 

 them from Jelalabad by Hyder Gholam Khan. 

 The British Strategic Railways. The rails of the 

 Sibi and Quetta sections of the Sind-Pishin 

 Railroad via the Harnai route were joined on 

 March 14, 1887. The alternative Bolan road 

 was still far from complete. The line over 

 the Harnai Pass is a superior engineering work, 

 comparable, except in the point of length of tun- 

 nel, with any of the mountain railroads of Eu- 

 rope. The highest point is 7,000 feet above the 

 sea. By means of the Quetta Railroad the In- 

 dian Government is enabled to place all the 

 supplies for an army of 100,000 men within one 

 hundred miles of Candahar. Surveys have 

 been made for a military road from Dera Ghazi 

 Khan through the Bori valley to Pishin. A 

 short line of railroad from Peshawur to Jam- 

 rud on the Afghan frontier, at the entrance of 



the Kaiber Pass, is in progress. Two branches 

 of the Quetta line extend across the Pishin val- 

 ley to Gulistan and Kiela Abdula, at the foot 

 respectively of the Gwajja and Khojak Passes 

 in the Khojah Amran range. The expenditure 

 on the Harnai and Bolan lines, from 1885 to 

 the close of the financial year 1886-'87, was 

 about $19,000,000. Surveys for the extension 

 of the line beyond the Khojah Amran mount- 

 ains have been made. The route over the 

 Khojak Pass is the more direct one, while the 

 Gwajja Pass presents fewer engineering diffi- 

 culties. To extend the road into the country 

 of the Afghans, the British must be prepared 

 to carry out a military occupation, which they 

 are not likely to undertake until a crisis in 

 Afghan affairs renders it necessary. The Du- 

 ranis attacked their stations and survey parties 

 several times in the early part of 1887. The 

 Ameer appointed khans in that district who 

 would be favorable to the English, .but he has 

 no power to facilitate the entrance of their rail- 

 road into Afghanistan, and only incurs the con- 

 tempt of the Afghans by his subservience. On 

 January 8 the Duranis, with the concurrence of 

 the Governor of Candahar, attacked the post 

 of Kiela Abdula, with the intention of killing 

 the British political officer and the engineer of 

 the railroad. They did not find those officers, 

 but destroyed the telegraph, and killed the 

 local khan and one hundred railroad laborers. 

 When work was begun on the extension of the 

 road from Gulistan to Chaman Chauki, the 

 head of the Khojak Pass, every one from 

 Quetta was required by the Governor of Can- 

 dahar to find security for his future conduct. 



The Trans-Caspian Railway. The strategic rail- 

 road from the Caspian Sea across the Turko- 

 manian desert, which was begun in 1880, was 

 completed as far as the Oxus in the spring of 

 1887. It is to be continued thence to Samar- 

 cand, a total distance of 1,335 versts from the 

 coast. The island of Usun Ada, twelve miles 

 to the west of Mikhailovsk, was selected as the 

 starting-point, neither Krasnovodsk nor Mi- 

 khailovsk being suitable on account of the steep 

 hills surrounding the one and the shallow har- 

 bor of the other. Usun Ada harbor has twelve 

 feet of water. It is eighteen to twenty hours 

 by steamboat from Baku. The foundation for 

 portions of the road running across the shift- 

 ing sands between the coast and Kizil Arvat, 

 about two hundred versts, was made by water- 

 ing the sand with sea-water, and laying over 

 it clay dug from the steppes. There were as 

 many as 5,000 Russians and 20,000 Asiatics em- 

 ployed on the work at one time. The naphtha- 

 springs, which are as numerous and productive 

 on the eastern shore of the Caspian as in the 

 Baku district, supply an abundance of astatJci 

 for heating the locomotives. A line of rails 

 runs from the station of Bala Ishem to the petro- 

 leum-springs, from which the fuel is brought, 

 only thirty-five versts away. There are five 

 wells opened, yielding 5,000 poods of naphtha 

 daily. Between the oases of Akhal and Merv 



