362 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. Y., No. 117. 



from Herat. The road from Herat to Bala 

 Murghab crosses its upper waters. At some 

 point near the confluence of the Murgh-ab and 

 the Knshk the Afghans constructed a small 

 fort called Ak Tepe. The Merv oasis, from 

 just above Yulatan, stretches along the Murgh- 

 ab for nearly sixty miles. Its width is not 

 far from forty miles, and it ma} 7 be said 

 to be only 240 miles from Herat. A detailed 

 and interesting description of the oasis, togeth- 

 er with a clear plan, is given in the second 

 volume of O'Donovan's w Merv Oasis.' It is 

 only necessary to sa} T here that Merv is the 

 converging point of the caravan routes from 

 Persia by Mash-had, to Khiva, at the northern 

 end of the Turkoman Steppe, and to Bokhara 

 and the countries bej'ond the Oxus. 



Edward Channing. 



THE RACES OF CENTRAL ASIA. 



Afghanistan is inhabited by many different 

 tribes and races, of whom the Afghans are un- 

 doubtedly the dominant race; but the extent 

 of their dominion at any one time depends 

 more upon the skill and energy of the Afghan 

 chief or amir for the time being, than it does 

 upon any prescriptive right or tradition. In- 

 deed, there are living at the present moment, 

 in the mountainous districts, non-Afghan tribes 

 which have never been subdued. And the 

 Hazara dwelling on the great central plateau 

 are only tributary to the ruler of Kabul when 

 that potentate is sufficiently strong at home to 

 spare soldiers to collect the tribute or taxes. 

 There is no settled government in the country. 

 The amir's authority is respected only when 

 he possesses means of compelling respect. 

 Each tribe and clan manages its own immedi- 

 ate affairs through a council of the elders, and 

 in accordance with the immemorial customs of 

 the tribe. The amir is merely a dictator for 

 life ; and every attempt, in recent times, to 

 introduce a settled form of government or to 

 establish a dynast}', has been an immediate 

 and complete failure. It is this want of co- 

 hesion among the Afghans themselves that has 

 brought about the interference of the English 

 in their domestic and foreign relations. The 

 true Afghan tribes live in' the valle} T s between 

 Kabul and Peshawar, and Kabul and Kandahar. 

 They are a sturdy, daring people, and are de- 

 scribed as possessing a strong Jewish cast of 

 countenance. This latter peculiarity has in- 

 duced some learned and enthusiastic ethnolo- 

 gists to declare that they, like all other races 

 whose origin is unknown, are the descendants 



of the ten lost tribes of Israel. However this 

 may be, they at one time extended their rule 

 to the south of Peshawar, and have been a 

 constant thorn in the flesh of the viceroy of 

 India from the beginning of the century to the 

 present day. 



To show the fluctuating nature of the Afghan 

 dominion, let us briefly trace the history of the 

 country from 1842 to the present year. In 

 1842 the English abandoned the attempt to 

 force a ruler on the Afghans, and again recog- 

 nized Dost Muhammad as amir of Kabul. 

 Eight years later, that chieftain reconquered 

 Balkh, then the most important town north 

 of the Hindu Kush ; and between 1850 and 

 1860 he extended his rule over the whole of 

 Afghan Turkestan, and reduced Badakshan to 

 the condition of a tributary province. In 

 1855 he took Kandahar, and thus established 

 his authority in the south. But it was not 

 until 1863 that he captured Herat. Then, for 

 the first time since the days of Timur, there 

 was one supreme ruler in the country. Two 

 weeks later he died. His son, Shir Ali, suc- 

 ceeded him. But there were many rivals in 

 the field, among them Abdurrahman Khan, the 

 present amir ; and Shir Ali cannot be said to 

 have been the undisputed ruler of Afghanistan 

 before 1868. His attention was then directed 

 to persuading the English, in return for valu- 

 able concessions, to guarantee the amirship to 

 himself and his descendants, and also to supply 

 himVith funds with which to raise and maintain 

 an army in the face of the unpopularity his 

 reforms were arousing in Afghanistan. In this 

 he was only partially successful ; and in 1878 

 he turned to the Russians. G-en. Stolietoff 

 was received at Kabul as ambassador, and 

 Gen. Grodekoff was escorted through Afghan 

 Turkestan to Herat, while the English envoy 

 was not even allowed to cross the frontier. 

 War followed ; and in a few months Shir Ali 

 died a fugitive at Mazar-i-Sharif. His sec- 

 ond son, Yakub Khan, was recognized by the 

 English as amir; and, upon his signing the 

 treaty of G-andamak in 1879, the English evac- 

 uated the country. By this treaty the foreign 

 relations of Afghanistan were placed under the 

 control of the English, who were to be allowed 

 to send a ' resident ' to Kabul. Shortly after 

 his arrival, Major Cavagnari, the 'resident,' 

 was murdered. The English again invaded 

 the country, deposed Yakub Khan, and recog- 

 nized his cousin, Abdurrahman Khan, for many 

 years an exile in Bokhara and Samarkand, as 

 amir. Kabul was evacuated in 1880, and_ 

 Kandahar in 1881. In 1883 the new amir 

 drove Ayub Khan, another son of Shir Ali, 



