Jan. 8, 1885] 



NA TURE 



221 



before determining the future line of demarcation between 

 the two States. As matters stand, nothing can be done 

 beyond supplying a few authentic data, which, if not too 

 late, may possibly help our Boundary Commissioners to 

 appreciate the gravity of the situation. 



Politicians of eminence have in recent times spoken 

 flippantly of a great and consolidated Afghan people, one 

 in origin, speech, usages, national aspirations, in friendly 

 alliance with the British raj, destined to constitute a for- 

 midable bulwark of the Indian Empire against the further 

 encroachments of the northern Colossus. Those who 

 have conjured up this pleasant vision, and shaped their 

 policy in the belief of its realisation in our days, are 

 doubtless well meaning persons ; but they are not prac- 

 tical men of business, dwellers rather in dreamland than 

 sober inhabitants of this planet. Afghanistan is not the 

 home of one, but of many peoples, differing widely in race, 

 language, customs, in some cases even in religion and 



political institutions ; nor are the"" materials at hand by 

 which these heterogeneous fragments could be welded 

 into a single body politic for many generations to come. 



A mere glance at the accompanying sketch map will 

 suffice to show that the Afghan race proper, since the 

 death of Nadir Shah (1747) heir to the former Persian 

 j masters of the land, nowhere even approaches the northern 

 I frontiers, except in the Herat district towards the north- 

 west. Notwithstanding their great elevation, the moun- 

 tain ranges stretching from the Hindu- Kush, through the 

 Koh-i-Babaand parallel Safed-Koh and Siah-Koh chains 

 westwards to Khorasan, constitute neither an ethnical, a 

 political, nor even a complete physical parting line 

 between the Afghan plateau and the Turkestan low- 

 lands. The Hindu-Kush itself doubtless forms a distinct 

 " divide " for the waters flowing north to the Oxus, south 

 to the Indus basin. Further west, also, all the head 

 streams of the Murgh-ab, or River of Merv, have their 



English Statute Miles 

 G0° -Longjtuiii' E-of Greenwich 



sources on the northern slope of the Safed-Koh, probably 

 the Paropamisus of the ancients. But here the mountain 

 barrier is completely pierced by the Heri-rud, which 

 takes its rise south of the Koh-i-Baba, and, after flowing 

 a long way west between the Safed-Koh and the Siah- 

 Koh, trends northwards beyond Herat to the Turkestan 

 steppe. Politically, also, the rampart is broken all 

 along the line, both slopes from Kashmir to Persia being 

 claimed and hitherto recognised as integral parts of 

 Afghan territory. Thus the whole of Afghan Turkestan, 

 of Badakhshan, and the more remote north-eastern pro- 

 vinces of Wakhan and Shugnan, are comprised within 

 the Aralo-Caspian hydrographic system. 



A < lear idea of these geographical features is necessary 

 to a right understanding of the racial conditions in this 

 extremely intricate ethnological region. From before the 

 dawn of history constituting a natural parting line be- 

 tween Iran and Turin, it has, nevertheless, been so 

 repeatedly crossed and re-crossed by the contending 



floods of migration and conquest, advancing now from 

 the north, now from the south, that throughout the historic 

 period it appears to have always been occupied by 

 peoples both of Mongolic and of Caucasic stock. At 

 present the former are found mainly in the western 

 section, between the meridians of Kabul and Herat, the 

 latter thence eastwards to the Pamir and Indus, each on 

 both slopes of the Iranian escarpment between the 34 

 and 4.0 5 parallels. Of the two the Caucasic appears to be 

 the aboriginal, the Mongolic the intruding, element ; and 

 by many ethnologists the upland valleys of the " Indian 

 Caucasus " are regarded, if not as the cradle, at least as 

 the centre of dispersion of the Aryan branch of the 

 Caucasic group. Hence, those members of the Aryan 

 family still occupying both slopes of the Hindu-Kush are 

 supposed to be found, so to say, in situ, that is, in undis- 

 turbed possession of their primeval homes from the first. 

 Such are, on the south side, the so-called Siah-Posh, or 

 Siah-Posh Kafirs ("Black-clad Infidels"), and further 



