360 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. V., No.. 117. 



ing tribute to the Afghans only when compelled 

 by an armed force. According to the London 

 Times, the amir of Afghan did not occupy 

 this disputed territory until 1883, when he re- 

 ceived a map from the viceroy of India, with 

 the boundary-line now claimed. 



The Russians claim that the English have 

 furnished the Afghans with maps, plans of 

 fortifications, money to build and equip these 

 forts, and engineers to superintend the con- 

 struction, and that these acts are a breach of 

 good faith on the part of England. The English 

 claim that Russia has sent an armed force into 

 the disputed territory, occupying at least two 

 towns, and that these acts area breach of good 

 faith on the part of Russia. 



The English policy in India has been the 

 same as that of Russia. It was found neces- 

 sary, and proved successful, to the maintenance 

 of order ; and there is every reason to believe 

 that a similar policy will produce like results. 

 Gardiner G. Hubbard. 



ROADS FROM INDIA TO CENTRAL ASIA. 



Dost Muhammad, one of the most famous 

 amirs of Afghanistan, is reported to have said 

 that he could not understand why the masters 

 of the riches of India ever should have de- 

 signed ''occupying such a country as Kabul, 

 where there is nothing but rocks and stones." 

 It was a shrewd remark ; and Afghanistan owes 

 its importance, not to the fertilit}^ of its soil or 

 to am r other natural advantages, but to the fact 

 that the great trade and military routes of cen- 

 tral Asia lie within its borders. Afghanistan 

 — using the word in its broadest sense, as 

 including all the territory under the rule of the 

 present amir — takes the form, roughty speak- 

 ing, of an immense square, with sides of about 

 six hundred miles in length. On the west a 

 well-defined boundary separates it from Persia. 

 To the south the dividing-line between the ter- 

 ritories of the amir and those of the khan of 

 Kelat, as the ruler of Baluchistan is often called 

 in English books, is not so well marked ; but, 

 as a large portion of it runs through an un- 

 inhabitable salt desert, this is not of much 

 importance. On the east the Suliman and 

 other mountain ranges form a natural frontier 

 between Afghanistan and British India. At 

 one time this mountain barrier was supposed 

 to be impracticable for the movement of large 

 masses of troops. To-day it is certain that 

 such is not the case ; for, in addition to the 

 well-known Khyber, Kuram, and Bolan passes, 

 more than two hundred other paths cross these 



mountains in every direction. In fact, the 

 barrier is no barrier at all, and would offer but 

 little resistance to an enterprising general. It 

 is on the north, however, that Afghanistan is 

 most vulnerable. True, the Amu Daria or 

 Oxus River, from its source 13,900 feet above 

 the sea, in Lake Sir-i-Kuld, in the highland of 

 Great Pamir, to Khoja Saleh, separates the 

 Afghan provinces of Badakshan and Turkestan 

 from the Russian dominions of Ferghana and 

 Bokhara. But a river is, at best, a poor bound- 

 ary, from a military point of view ; and, besides, 

 from Khoja Saleh to the Persian frontier, on 

 the Hari-Rud, the line, wherever run, must be 

 purely artificial. 



More unfortunate still, the Hindu Kush, with 

 its outlying spurs — the Khor-i-Baba, Safed 

 Kur (White Mountains) , and Siah Kur (Black 

 Mountains) — running from east to west, divides 

 Afghanistan into two unequal parts. Trie ter- 

 ritory lying north of these mountains belongs, 

 physically speaking, to the basin of the Oxus 

 (Aralo-Caspian basin) , or, in other words, to 

 Russian Asia. In addition, these mountains, 

 together with their off'- shoots to the south, pre- 

 vent, during five months in each year, all direct 

 communication between Kabul, the chief city 

 of the east, and Herat, the equally important 

 emporium of the west. The main route be- 

 tween these two places is through Kandahar, 

 which thus lies at the southern apex of a nearly 

 equilateral triangle, with sides of three hundred 

 and three hundred and thirty-five miles. The 

 position of these places once thoroughly 

 grasped, there is no difficulty in understanding 

 the base of the English operations in Afghan- 

 istan. 



From Karachi (Kurrachee) on the Arabian 

 Gulf, and near the mouth of the river Indus, a 

 railway runs along that river by Haidarabad to 

 Sukkur. At this point it crosses the Indus, 

 and, passing by Multan, joins the line from 

 Calcutta and Bombay at Lahore. The latter 

 road runs thence b}- Rawal Pindi, crossing the 

 Indus near Attock, to Peshawar at the entrance 

 of the Khyber Pass. The last of this railway- 

 system — ' the missing link from Multan to 

 Lahore ' — was open to traffic in 1878. 



Kabul, the chief political city of Afghanis- 

 tan, contains a population of between fifty and 

 sixt} T thousand. It is situated on the Kabul 

 River, not far from its confluence with the 

 Logar, and is the converging point of the trade- 

 routes from Afghan Turkestan, and the coun- 

 tries beyond the Oxus, over the difficult moun- 

 tain passes, eleven and twelve thousand feet 

 high, of the Hindu Kush ; from Persia and 

 Baluchistan by Kandahar ; and from India by 



