1880.] R. C. TemiAe—Boute of tU Tal Ohotiali Field Force. 14-9 



IV. Polity. 



The portion of Afghanistan along the route may be divided into that 

 foi-merlj subject to the Amir of Kabul, and that acknowledging no superior 

 authority, into, in fact, the Amir's Territory and the country of Independent 

 Tribes. The Amir's power never seems to have extended beyond the Do'f 

 Valley to the eastwards further than I'sap Kach, or further north in that 

 direction than Mt. Kand, i. e., the inhabitants of the Zho'b Valley and all 

 the country south of it eastwards of the Do'f Valley have never recognised 

 him as their ruler. The tribes then under the Amir's sway were the Dura- 

 mis, the Tor Tarins and such Kakars as inhabited the Do'f and Gwal Valleys, 

 while the bulk of the Kakars, the Liinis, the Zarkhans and the Spin Tarins 

 have always been independent. For the purposes of this paper the country 

 will be divided into Amir's Territory and Ya'ghista'n or Independent 

 Territory. 



Under the Amir, Government in our sense of the term there was none, 

 though the head of the Government nominally ruled through his Sirdars 

 or heads of tribes and sections, having, however, little real control over 

 them. And how this system was worked has been thus described.* " The 

 Sovereign is absolute and makes any and every change which may appear 

 to him necessary or proper in the government and administration. He can 

 dispose of the lives and property of his subjects and is kej^t within certain 

 bounds in these respects only by the calculations which prudence dictates. 

 1 Eeligion is the counterpoise to his authority. This gives the clergy great 

 I influence, one that he might try in vain to subject to his will and pleasure, 

 i and vainer still would be the attempt to infringe and invade the rights and 

 ! privileges of the sirdars or chiefs of tribes, who would never consent to 

 i resign a certain influence in the affairs of government. It may be said in 

 Afghanistan that there are as many sovereigns as sirdars, for each of them 

 governs after his own fashion. They are jealous, turbulent and ambitious, 

 j and the sovereign can restrain and keep them in some order only by taking 

 ' advantage of their rivalry and feuds and opposing one to the other. There 

 lis no unity, nothing is j^ermanent, everything depends on the pleasure or 

 [caprice of a number of despots always at variance with each other and niak- 

 !ing their tribes espouse their personal quarrels. A constant feeling of 

 irascibility is the result which finally leads to sanguinary civil wars and 

 jthrows the country into a state of anarchy and perpetual confusion. The 

 j sirdars are at one and the same time the strength and the curse of the 

 jmonarch. Prompt to take arms and defend him when a good understand- 

 ing between them exists, they are as ready to revolt against him wiien they 

 find or think they have the smallest interest in doing .so. In anything, 

 • Macgregor's Gazetteer. 



