ACROSS AFGHANISTAN TO BOKHARA—MOORCROFT
One of the most disappointing of the early British explorers of our Indian trans-frontier was Moorcroft. Disappointing, because he got so little geographical information out of so large an area of adventure. Moorcroft was a veterinary surgeon blessed with an unusually good education and all the impulse of a nomadic wanderer. He was Superintendent of the H.E.I. Company's stud at Calcutta, and his views on agricultural subjects generally, especially the improvement of stock, were certainly in advance of his time, although it seems extraordinary that he should have sought further inspiration in the wilds of the then unexplored trans-Himalayas or in Central Asia. The Government of India were evidently sceptical as to the value of such researches, and he received but cold comfort from their grudging spirit of support, which ended in a threat to cut off his pay altogether after a few years' sojourn in Ladak whilst studying the elementary principles of Tibetan farming. Neither would they supply him with theample stock of merchandise which he asked for as a means of opening up trade with those chilly countries; and when, finally, he assumed the position of a high political functionary, and became the vehicle of an offer to the Government of India of the sovereignty of Ladak (which certainly might have led to complications with the Sikh Government of the Punjab) he was rather curtly told to mind his own business.
On the whole, it is tolerably clear that the Government represented by old John Company was not much more favourable to irresponsible travelling over the border and political intermeddling than is our modern Imperial institution. However, the fact remains that Moorcroft showed a spirit of daring enterprise, which led to the acquirement of a vast amount of most important information about countries and peoples contiguous to India of whom the Government of the time must have been in utter ignorance. When he first exploited Ladak, Leh was theultima thuleof geographical investigation. What lay beyond it was almost blank conjecture, and a residence of two years must have ended in the amassing of a vast fund of useful information. Unfortunately, much of that information was lost at his death, and the correspondence and notes which came into the hands of his biographer were of such a character—so extraordinarily discursive and frequently so little relevant to the subject of his investigation—as to leave an impression that Moorcroft was certainlyeccentric in his correspondence if not in more material ways. We get very little original geographical suggestion from him; but his constant and faithful companion Trebeck is much more consistent and careful in such detail as we find due to his personal observation, and it is to Trebeck rather than Moorcroft that the thanks of the Asiatic map-maker are due. With the Ladak episodes of Moorcroft's career we have nothing to do here, beyond noting that there is ample evidence that he never reached Lhasa, and never resided there, in spite of the persistent rumours which prevailed (even in Tibet) that a traveller of his name had lived in the city. It is exceedingly difficult to account for this rumour, unless indeed we credit the authors of it with a confusion of ideas between Lhasa, the capital of Tibet proper, and Leh, the capital of little Tibet.
The interest of Moorcroft's adventures so far as we are now concerned commences with his journey from Peshawar to Kabul, Badakshan and Bokhara in 1824, when he was undoubtedly the first in the field of British Central Asiatic exploration. He owed his safe conduct from Peshawar (which place he reached only after some most unpleasant experiences in passing through the Sikh dominions of the Punjab) to a political crisis. Dost Mahomed Khan was consolidating his power at Kabul, but he had not then squared accounts with Habibullah the son of the former governor, his deceased elder brother Mahomed Azim Khan; and certain othermembers of his family (his brothers, Yar Mahomed, Pir Mahomed, and Sultan Mahomed), who were governors in the Indus provinces, thought it as well to step in and effect an arrangement. It was their stately march to Kabul which was Moorcroft's opportunity. Those were days when an Englishman was yet of interest to the Afghan potentate, who knew not what turn of fortune's wheel might necessitate an appeal for the intervention of the English.
Moorcroft did not love the Afghans, and between the unauthorised robbers of the Kabul road and the official despoilers of the city he paid dearly for the right of transit through Afghanistan of himself and his merchandise. It was this assumed rôle of merchant (if indeed it was assumed) that hampered Moorcroft from first to last in his journeys beyond the frontier of British India. There was something to be made out of him, either by fair means or foul, and the rapacious exactions to which he was subjected were probably not in the least modified by his obstinate refusals to meet what he considered unjust demands. Invariably he had to pay in the end. His account of the road to Kabul is interesting from the keen observation which he brought to bear on his surroundings. He has much to say about the groups of Buddhist buildings which are so marked a feature at various points of the route, and his previous experiences in Tibet left him little room for doubt as to the nature of them. It is strangethat locally there was not a tale to be told, not even a legend about them, which even indefinitely maintained their Buddhist origin.
From Kabul Moorcroft succeeded in getting free with surprisingly little difficulty, though several members of his party declined to go farther. He gradually made his way by the Unai and Hajigak passes to Bamian, and thence to Haibak and Balkh. He was not slow to recognize the connection between the obvious Buddhist relics of Bamian and those which he had seen on the Kabul road; and at Haibak he visited a tope called Takht-i-Rustam (a generic name for these topes in Central Asia) of which his description tallies more or less with that of Captain Talbot, R.E., who unearthed what is probably the same relic some sixty years later. To Moorcroft we owe the identification of Haibak with the old mediæval town of Semenjan, and he states that he was told on the spot that this was its ancient name. No such name was recognised sixty years later, but the evidence of Idrisi's records confirms the fact beyond dispute.
We need not enter into details of this well-worn and often described route. Moorcroft's best efforts were not directed to gazetteering, and we have much abler and more complete accounts of it than his. After passing the Ak Robat divide, Moorcroft found himself beyond Afghan jurisdiction and within the reach of that historic Uzbek chieftain, Murad Beg of Kunduz. Although Murad Beg was little betterthan a successful freebooter, he is a personage who has left his own definite mark on the history of days when British interest was just dawning on the Oxus banks. Moorcroft fell into his hands, and in spite of introductions he fared exceedingly badly. Indeed there can be little doubt that the cupidity excited by the possibility of so much plunder would have ended fatally for him, but for a happy inspiration which occurred to him when his affairs appeared to bein extremis. With great difficulty and at the peril of his life he made his way eastward to Talikhan, where resided a saintly Pirzada, uncle of Murad Beg, the one righteous man whose upright and dignified character redeemed his people from the taint of utter barbarism and treachery. He had discrimination enough to read Moorcroft aright, and at once discountenanced the tales that had been assiduously set abroad of his being a British spy upon the land; and he had firmness and authority sufficient to deliver him from the rapacity of his truculent nephew, and procure him freedom to depart after months of delay in the pestilential atmosphere of Kunduz. Yet this grand old Mahomedan saint patronised the institution of slavery, and was not above making a profit out of it, though at the same time he firmly declined to receive presents or have bribes for his good offices.
As other travellers following in Moorcroft's footsteps at no great distance of time fell also into the hands of Murad Beg, and experienced very differenttreatment, it is useful just to note Moorcroft's description of him. He says: "I scarcely ever beheld a more forbidding countenance. His extremely high cheekbones gave the appearance to the skin of the face of its being unnaturally stretched, whilst the narrowness of the lower jaw left scarcely room for the teeth which were standing in all directions; he was extremely near-sighted." Not an attractive description! The spring had well advanced, and it was not till the middle of February 1825 that Moorcroft was able to resume his journey to the Oxus. He travelled from Kunduz to Tashkurghan and Mazar, and from the latter place he followed the most direct route to Bokharaviathe Khwaja Salar ferry across the Oxus, reaching Bokhara on February 25. Here his narrative ends, and we only know from Dr. Lord and Wood that he returned from Bokhara to Andkhui, and died there apparently of fever contracted in Kunduz. He was buried near Balkh. Trebeck died soon after, and was buried at Mazar-i-Sharif. Burnes visited and described the tombs of both travellers, but they have long since disappeared.
As a geographer there is much that is wanting in the methods of this most enterprising traveller, who at least pioneered the way to High Asia from British India but who never made geographical exploration a primary object of his labours. He was true to the last to his trade as a student of agriculture, and it is in this particular, rather than inthe regions of geography or history, that the value of his studies chiefly lies. He was the first to point out the general character of that disastrous road to Kabul which has cost England so dear, and he is still, with Burnes and Lord and Wood, our chief authority for the general characteristics of Badakshan and of the Oxus valley east of Balkh. He did not, however, touch the Oxus east of Khwaja Salar, and consequently did not see or appreciate the great spread of splendid pastoral country which lies between the pestilential marsh lands of Kunduz and the river.
One would be apt to gather a pessimistic idea of lower Badakshan from the pages of Moorcroft's story, which are undoubtedly tinted strongly with the gloomy and grey colouring of his own unhappy experiences. Of Balkh he has very little to say; he noted no antiquities about Balkh, but he calls attention to the wide spaces covered with ruins which are to be found at intervals scattered over the plains between Balkh and the Oxus. It is a little difficult to follow his exact route across the Oxus plains by the light of modern maps, but his Feruckabad is probably our Feruk, and I gather that his Akbarabad is Akcha or Akchaabad. The condition of Balkh, of Akcha, and of the ruin-studded plains of the Oxus were evidently much the same in 1824 as they were in 1884. Khwaja Salar (where Moorcroft crossed the Oxus in ferry-boats drawn by horses) has since becomehistorical. It was accepted in the Anglo-Russian protocols defining the Afghan boundary as an important point in the Russo-Afghan boundary delimitation, but it was not to be found. Moorcroft gives a very good reason for its disappearance, by stating that the place was razed to the ground just the day before he arrived there. Since then the ruins of the old village have been devoured by the shifting Oxus, and nothing but a ziarat at some distance from the river remains as a record of the distinguished saint who gave it its name.
BURNES
No traveller who ever returned to his country with tales of stirring adventure ever attracted more interest, or even astonishment, than Lieut. Alexander Burnes. He published his story in 1835, when the Oxus regions of Asia were but vaguely outlined and shadowy geography. It did not matter that they had been the scene of classical history for more than 2000 years, and that the whole network of Oxus roads and rivers had been written about and traversed by European hosts for centuries before our era. That story belonged to a buried past, and the British occupation of India had come about in modern history by way of the sea. England and Russia were then searching forward into Central Asia like two blind wrestlers in the dark, feeling their ground before them ere they came to grips. A veil of mystery hung over these highlands, a geographical fog that had thickened up, with just a thinner space in it here and there, where a gleam of light had penetrated, but never dispersed it,since the days when Assyrian and Persian, Skyth, Greek, and Mongul wandered through the highest of Asiatic highways at their own sweet will.
In the present year of grace and of red tape bindings to most books of Asiatic travels, when the best of the geographical information accumulated by the few who bear with them the seal of officialdom is pigeon-holed for a use that never will be made of it, it is quite refreshing to fall back on these most entertaining records of men who (whether official or otherwise) all travelled under the same conditions of association with the natives of the country they traversed, accepting their hospitality, speaking their language, assuming their manners and dress, and passing with the crowd (and with the crowd only) as casual wayfarers. The fact of their European origin was almost always suspected, if not known, to certain of the better informed of their Asiatic hosts, but they were seldom given away. It was nobody's business to quarrel with England then. A hundred years ago the military credit of England stood high, and the irrepressible advance of the red line of the British India-border impressed the mind of the Asiatic of the highlands beyond the plains as evidence of an irresistible power. Russia then made no such impression. She was still far off, and the ties of commerce bound the Oxus Khanates to India, even when Russian goods were in Asiatic markets. The bankers of the country were Hindus—traders from the great commercial centre ofShikarpur. It is strange to read of this constant contact with Hindus in every part of Central Asia in those days, when thehundi(or bill) of a Shikarpur banker was as good as a letter of credit in any bazaar as far as the Russian border. The power of England in India undoubtedly loomed much larger in Asiatic eyes before the disasters of the first Afghan war, and Englishmen of the type of Burnes, Christie, Pottinger, Vigne, and Broadfoot were able to carry out prolonged journeys through districts that are certainly not open to English exploration now. Even were English officers to-day free under existing political conditions to travel beyond the British border at all, it is doubtful whether any disguise would serve as a protection.
The day has passed for such ventures as those of Burnes, and we must turn back a page or two in geographical history if we wish to appreciate the full value of British enterprise in exploring Afghanistan. Undoubtedly Burnes ranks high as a geographer and original pioneer. The fact that there is little or nothing left of the scene of his travels in 1830-32 and 1833 which has not been reduced to scientific mapping now, does not in any way detract from the merit of his early work; although it must be confessed that the perils of disguise prevented the use of any but the very crudest methods of ascertaining position and distance, and his map results would, in these days, be regarded as disappointing. Sind and the Punjab beingtrans-border lands, there were always useful and handy opportunities for teaching the enterprising subaltern of Bombay Infantry how to travel intelligently; with the natural result that no corps in the world possessed a more splendid record of geographical achievement than the Bombay N.I.
Burnes began well in the Quartermaster-General's department, and was soon entrusted with political power. Full early in his career he was despatched with an enterprising sailor, Lieut. Wood, on a voyage up the Indus which was to determine the commercial possibilities of its navigation, and which did in fact lead to the formation of the Indus flotilla—some fragments of which possibly exist still. It is most interesting to read the able reports compiled by these young officers; and one might speculate idly as to the feelings with which they would now learn that within half a century their flotilla had come and gone, superseded by one of the best paying of Indian railways. Their feelings would probably be much the same as ours could we see fifty years hence a well-established electric train service between Kabul and Peshawar, and a double or treble line of rails linking up Russia with IndiaviaHerat. We shall not see it. It will be left to another generation to write of its accomplishment.
Searching the archives of the Royal Geographical Society for the story of Burnes the traveller (apart from the voluminous records of Burnes the diplomat), I came across a book with this simple inscriptionon the title-page: "To the Royal Geographical Society of London, with the best wishes for its prosperity by the Author." This is Vol. I. of Burnes' Travels. It is written in the attenuated, pointed, and ladylike style which was the style of the very early Victorian era. It hardly leads to an impression of forceful and enterprising character.
On January 2, 1831, Burnes made his first plunge into the wilderness which lay between him and Lahore, the capital of the Sikh kingdom, and he entered that city on the 17th. There he was most hospitably received by the French officers in the service of Ranjit Singh, Messieurs Allard and Court, and was welcomed by the Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who treated him with "marked affability." Burnes was accompanied by Dr. Gerard, and the two travellers were taken by Ranjit Singh to a hunting party in the Punjab, a description of which serves as a forcible illustration of the changes which less than one century of British administration has effected in the plains of India. Never will its like be seen again in the Land of the Five Rivers. The guests' tents were made of Kashmir shawls, and were about 14 feet square. One tent was red and the other white, and they were connected by tent-walls of the same material, shaded by aShamianasupported on silver-mounted poles. In each tent stood a camp-bed with Kashmir shawl curtains. It was, as Burnes remarks, not an encampment suited to the Punjab jungles; and thehunting procession headed by the Maharaja, dressed in a tunic of green shawls, lined with fur, his dagger studded with the richest brilliants, and a light metal shield, the gift of the ex-king of Kabul (Shah Sujah, who, it will be remembered, also surrendered the Koh-i-Nor diamond to Ranjit Singh about this time), as the finishing touch to his equipment, must have been quite melodramatic in its effects of colour and movement. It was, as a matter of fact, a pig-sticking expedition, but the game fell to the sword rather than to the spear; such of it, that is to say, as was not caught in traps. The party was terminated by a hog-baiting exhibition, in which dogs were used to worry the captive pigs, after the latter were tied by one leg to a stake. When the pigs were sufficiently infuriated, the entertainment concluded with letting them loose through the camp, in order, as Ranjit said, "that men might praise his humanity."
Such episodes, however they might beguile the journey to the Afghan frontier, belong to other histories than that of Afghan exploration, and little more need be said of Burnes' experiences before reaching the Afghan city of Peshawar, than that he experienced very different treatmenten routeto that which made Moorcroft's journey both perilous and disheartening. In Peshawar the two brothers of Dost Mahomed Khan (Sultan Mahomed and Pir Mahomed) seem to have rivalled each other in courtly attentions to their guests, and Burneswas as much enchanted with this garden of the North-West as any traveller of to-day would be, provided that his visit were suitably timed. Burnes thus sums up his impression of Ranjit Singh: "I never quitted the presence of a native of Asia with such impressions as I left this man; without education, and without a guide, he conducts all the affairs of his kingdom with surpassing energy and vigour, and yet he wields his power with a moderation quite unprecedented in an Eastern prince."
On leaving Lahore Burnes received this salutary advice from M. Court, packed in a French proverb, "Si tu veux vivre en paix en voyageant, fais en sorte de hurler comme les loups avec qui tu te trouves." And he set himself to conform to this text (and to the excellent sermon which accompanied it) with a determination which undoubtedly served as the foundation of his remarkable success as a traveller. It cannot be too often insisted that the experiences of intelligent and cultivated Europeans in the days of close association with the Asiatic led to an appreciation of native character and to an intimacy with native methods, which is only to be found in India now amongst missionaries and police officers, if it is to be found at all. But even with all the advantages possessed by such experiences as those of Burnes and of the intrepid school of Asiatic travellers of his time, it required an intuitive discernment almost amounting to genius to detect the motive springs of Eastern political action.
It may be doubted (as Masson doubted) whether to the day of his death Burnes himself quite understood either the Afghan or the Sikh. But he vigorously conformed to native usages in all outward show: "We threw away all our European clothes and adopted without reserve the costume of the Asiatic. We gave away our tents, beds, and boxes, and broke our tables and chairs—a blanket serves to cover the saddle and to sleep under.... The greater portion of my now limited wardrobe found a place in the 'kurjin.' A single mule carried the whole of the baggage." Armed with letters of introduction from a holy man (Fazl Haq), who boasted a horde of disciples in Bokhara, and with all the graceful good wishes which an Afghan potentate knows how to bestow, Burnes left Peshawar and the two Afghan sirdars, and started for Kabul. It is instructive to note that he avoided the Khaibar route, which had an evil reputation.
It would be interesting to trace Burnes' route from Peshawar to Bokhara,viaKabul and Bamian, were it not that we are dealing with ground already sufficiently well discussed in these pages. Moreover, Burnes travelled to Kabul in company which permitted him to make little or no use of his opportunities for original geographical research. After he left Kabul the vicissitudes and difficulties that beset him were only such as might be experienced by any recognised official political mission, and he experienced none of the vexatious oppositionand delay which was so fatal to Moorcroft.En routehe passed through Bamian, Haibak, Khulm, and Balkh; he visited Kunduz, and identified the tomb of Trebeck at Mazar; and by the light of a brilliant moon he stood by the grave of Moorcroft, which he found under a wall outside the city, apart from the Mussulman cemeteries. The three days passed at Balkh were assiduously employed in local investigation and the collection of coins and relics. He found coins, or tokens, dating from early Persian occupation to the Mogul dynasties, and he notes the size of the bricks and their shape, which he describes as oblong approaching to square; but he mentions no inscriptions.
At this time Balkh was in the hands of the Bokhara chief, and Burnes was already in Bokhara territory. The journey across the plains to the Oxus was made on camels, Burnes being seated in a kajawa, and balancing his servant on the other side. It was slow, but it gave him the opportunity of overlooking the broad Oxus plain and noting the general accuracy of the description given of it by Quintus Curtius. As they approached the Oxus it was found necessary to employ a Turkman guard. Burnes does not say from what Turkman tribe his guard was taken, but from his description of them, their dress, equipment, and steeds, they were clearly men of the same Ersari tribe that was found fifty years later in the same neighbourhood by the Russo-Afghan BoundaryCommission. "They rode good horses and were armed with a sword and long spear. They were not encumbered with shields and powder-horns like other Asiatics, and only a few had matchlocks.... They never use more than a single rein, which sets off their horses to advantage."
On the banks of the river they halted near the small village of Khwaja Salar. This was the same place evidently that Moorcroft visited, and which he described as destroyed in a raid; and it was here that Burnes made use of the peculiar horse-drawn ferry which has already been described. Fifty years later the ferry was at Kilif, and nothing was to be found of the "village" of Khwaja Salar. Burnes' astonishment at the quaint, but most efficient, method of utilizing the power of swimming horses to haul the great ferry-boats has been shared by every one who has seen them since; but he noted a fact which has not been observed by other travellers, viz. thatanyhorse was taken for the purpose, no matter whether trained or not; and he states that the horses were yoked to the boat by a rope fixed to the hair of the mane. If so, this method was improved on during the next half-century, for the rope is now attached to a surcingle. "One of the boats was dragged over by two of our jaded ponies; and the vessel which attempted to follow us without them was carried so far down the stream as to detain us a whole day on the banks till it could bebrought up to the camp of our caravan." The river at this point is about 800 yards wide, and runs at the rate of three to four miles an hour. The crossing was effected in fifteen minutes. Burnes adds: "I see nothing to prevent the general adoption of this expeditious mode of crossing a river.... I had never before seen the horse converted to such a use; and in my travels through India I had always considered that noble animal as a great encumbrance in crossing a river." And yet after two centuries of military training in the plains of India, we English have not yet arrived at this economical use of this great motive power always at our command in a campaign!
After passing the Oxus the chief interest of Burnes' story commences. His life at Bokhara and his subsequent journey through the Turkman deserts to Persia form a record which, combined with his own physical capability, his energy, and his unfailing tact, good humour, and modesty, stamp him as one of the greatest of English travellers. His name has its own high place in geographical annals. We shall never cease to admire the traveller, whatever we may think of the diplomat. But once over the Oxus his story hardly concerns the gates of India. He was beyond them, he had passed through, and was now on the far landward side, still on a road to India; but it is a road over which it no longer concerns us to follow him.
THE GATES OF GHAZNI—VIGNE
Amongst original explorers of Afghanistan place must be found for G. T. Vigne, who made in 1836 a venturesome, and, as it proved, a most successful exploration of the Gomul route from the Indus to Ghazni. Vigne was not a professional geographer so much as a botanist and geologist, and the value of his work lies chiefly in the results of his researches in those two branches of science, although he has left on record a map of his journey which quite sufficiently illustrates his route. He had previously visited Ladak (Little Tibet) and Kashmir, and had made passing acquaintance with the Chief of the Punjab, Ranjit Singh, in whose service foreigners found honourable employment. Masson was in the field at the same time as Vigne, and the success of his antiquarian researches in Northern Afghanistan, as well as those of Honigberger and other archæologists during the time that Dost Mahomed ruled in Kabul, and whilst the Amir's brother, Jabar Khan, befriendedEuropeans, indicated a very different political atmosphere from that which has subsequently clouded the Afghan horizon, so far as European travellers are concerned.
Vigne found no difficulty whatever in passing through Punjab territory to the Indus Valley near Dera Ismail Khan, where he joined a Lohani khafila which was making its annual journey to Ghazni with a valuable stock of merchandise consisting chiefly of English goods. In the genial month of May the khafila left Draband and took the world-old Gomul route through the frontier hills to the central uplands of Afghanistan. The heat must have been awful, and as Vigne lived the life of the Lohani merchants, and shared their primitive shelter from day to day, it is not surprising that we find him complaining gently of the climate. The Lohanis treated him with the utmost kindness and consideration from first to last; and the story of his travels is in pleasing contrast to the tale told by Masson about the same time, of his adventures on the Kandahar side. This was due chiefly, no doubt, to Vigne's success as a doctor. It is always the doctors who make the best way amongst uncivilized peoples, and India especially (or rather the British Raj in India) owes almost as much to doctors as to politicians. There is also a fellow-feeling which binds together travellers of all sorts and conditions when bound for the same bourne, taking together the same risks, experiencing thesame trials and difficulties, and enjoying unrestrained intercourse. This kind of fellowship is world wide. One can trace a genial spirit ofcamaraderiepervading the wanderings of Chinese pilgrims, the tracks of mediæval Arab merchants, the ways of modern missionaries, or the ocean paths of sailors. Once on the move, with the sweet influences of primitive nature pervading earth and air around, we may find, even in these days, that the Afghan becomes quite a sociable companion, and that he is to be trusted so far as he gives his word.
Vigne seems to have had no trouble whatever except such as arose from the persistent neglect of his medical instructions in cases of severe illness. As the khafila followed the Gomul River closely, it was, of course, subject to attack from the irrepressible Waziris on its flank, and had to pay heavy duties to the Suliman Khel Ghilzais as soon as it touched their country. There is little change in these respects since 1836, except that the Gomul route has been made plain and easy through the first bands of frontier hills till it reaches the plateau, and the Waziris are under better control. The interest of the journey lies in that section of it which connects Domandi (the junction of the Gomul and the Kundar Rivers) with Ghazni. This central part of Afghanistan has never yet been surveyed. From the Takht-i-Suliman a few peaks have been indifferently fixed on the ridges which form the divide between the Gomul and the Ghaznidrainage, but the hilly country beyond, stretching to the Ghazni plain, is absolutely unreconnoitred. We have still to appeal to Broadfoot and Vigne for geographical authority in these regions, although native information (but not native surveyors) has furnished details of a route which sufficiently corresponds with that of both these enterprising travellers.
There is some confusion about dates in Vigne's account, but it appears that the khafila reached the Sarwandi Pass (which he calls Sir-i-koll—7200 feet) over the central divide on the 12th June, and thence descended into the Kattawaz country on the Ghazni side of this central water-parting. About this region we have no accurate geographical knowledge. Beyond the Sarwandi ridge, and intervening between it and Ghazni, is a secondary pass, called Gazdarra in our maps, crossing a ridge near the northern foot of which is Dihsai (the nearest approach to Vigne's Dshara), which was reached by Vigne on the 16th June. Probably the two names represent the same place.
Vigne's description of the central Sarwandi ridge corresponds generally with what we know in other parts of the nature of those long sweeping folds which traverse the central plateau from north-east to south-west, preserving more or less a direction parallel to the frontier. He writes of it as a broken and tumbled mass of sandstone, but about "Dshara" he speaks of gently undulating hillsexhibiting small peaks of limestone and denuded patches of shingle. Between the Sarwandi and the Dshara ridge the plain was covered with glittering sand and was sweet with the scent of wild thyme. Somewhere on the "level-topped" Sarwandi ridge there was said to be the ruins of an ancient city called Zohaka, with gates of burnt brick, which Vigne did not see, but in his map he indicates a position for it a long way to the east of the ridge. It is quite probable that the ruins of more than one ancient city are to be found in the neighbourhood of this very ancient highway. Ancient as it is, however, it formed no part of the mediæval commercial system of the Arabs—a system which apparently did not include the frontier passes into India; and I have failed to identify Vigne's Zohaka with any previous indications. These uplands to the south of Ghazni evidently partake of the general characteristics of the Wardak and Logar Valleys beyond them, intervening between Ghazni and Kabul. Vigne was enchanted with the prospect around him, and with the clear sweet atmosphere filled with the aroma of wild thyme, wormwood, and the scented willow. It has charmed many a weary soldier since his time.
At Dshara, finding that the Lohani khafila was not going to Ghazni but intended to follow a straighter route to Kabul, whilst at the same time a very ready and profitable business was being done inthe well-populated valleys around, Vigne set off by himself with one Kizzilbash guide for Ghazni. He says many hard things of the Lohanis for breaking their promise of escort to Ghazni, remarks which seem scarcely to accord with his free acknowledgments of their great kindness to him elsewhere. As the opinion of so observant a traveller, sharing the trials of the road with a band of native merchants, is always interesting when it concerns the company with which he was associated, I will quote his opinion of the Lohanis. "Taking them altogether, I look on the Lohanis as the most respectable of the Mahomedans and the most worthy of the notice and assistance of our countrymen. The Turkish gentleman is said to be a man of his word; he must be an enviable exception; but I otherwise solemnly believe that there is not a Mahomedan—Sunni or Shiah—between Constantinople and Yarkand who would hesitate to cheat a Feringi, Frank or European, and who would not lie and scheme and try to deceive when the temptation was worth his doing so," etc. This, of course, includes the Lohanis.
At Ghazni, Vigne found a servant of Moorcroft's, who gave him interesting information about the travels of that unfortunate explorer; and he takes some useful notes of the present military position and former condition of that city before its utter destruction by Allah-u-din, Ghuri. He determined to depart somewhat from the regular route toKabul, and diverged from the straight road which runs to the Sher-i-dahan in order to visit the "bund-i-sultan," or reservoir, which had been constructed by Mahmud on the Ghazni River for the proper water-supply of the town in its palmy days. As his last day's travel took him to Lungar and Maidan before reaching Kabul he evidently made a considerable detour westward. He inspected a copper mine (with which he was greatly disappointed) at a place called Shibaren route. To reach Shibar he made a long day's march from Ser-ab (? Sar-i-ab), near the head of the Logar River. It is difficult to trace this part of his route by the light of the map which he borrowed from Honigberger. He clearly followed up the Ghazni River nearly to its source, and then struck across to the head of the Logar, where he correctly places Ser-ab, and where he found an agent of Masson's engaged in excavating a tope. He next visited Shibar, and finally marched by Lungar to Maidan and Kabul. He must, therefore, have crossed the divide between the Ghazni River and the Logar, but we fail to follow him to the Shibar copper mine.
Shibar is the name of the pass which divides the Turkistan drainage from the Ghorband, or Kabul, system; but it would be totally impracticable to reach that point in a day's excursion from Ser-ab. We must, therefore, conclude that there is another Shibar somewhere, undetected by our surveyors.
At Kabul he received a hospitable welcome fromthe Nawab Jabar Khan, brother of the Amir Dost Mahomed, and here he fell in with Masson. We need not trace his journey farther, for his subsequent footsteps only followed the well-worn tracks to the Punjab. To Vigne we owe a vague reference to a yet earlier English traveller in Afghanistan, one Hicks, who died and was buried near the Peshawar gate of the old city. The inscription on his tomb in English was—
Hicks, son of William and Elizabeth Hicks,
and Vigne adds that "by its date he must have lived a hundred and fifty years ago." This is the earliest record we have of an English traveller reaching Kabul, and it is strange that nothing is known about Hicks, who certainly could not have inscribed his own epitaph! The remarkable feature about the tomb is that such a memorial of a Christian burial should have remained so long unmolested in a Moslem country. No vestige of the tomb was discovered during the occupation of Kabul in 1879-80.
ENGLISH OFFICIAL EXPLORATION—BROADFOOT
In the year 1839 and in the month of October Lieut. J. S. Broadfoot of the Indian Engineers made a memorable excursion across Central Afghanistan, intervening between Ghazni and the Indus Valley, which resulted in the acquisition of much information about one of the gates of India which is too little known. No one has followed his tracks since with any means of making a better reconnaissance, nor has any one added much to the information obtained by him. It is true that Vigne had been over the ground before him, but there is no comparison between the use which Broadfoot made of his opportunities and the geography which Vigne secured. Both took their lives in their hands, but Vigne passed along with his Lohani khafila in days preceding the British occupation of Afghanistan. There was no fanatical hostility displayed towards him. On the contrary, his medical profession was a recommendation which won him friends and good fellowship all along the line. A few years hadmuch changed the national (if one can use such a word with regard to Afghanistan) feeling towards the European. From day to day, and almost from hour to hour, Broadfoot felt that his life hung on the chances of the moment. He was told by friends and enemies alike that he would most certainly be killed. Yet he survived to do good service in other fields, and to maintain the reputation of that most distinguished branch of the military service, the Indian Engineers. Broadfoot was but typical of his corps, even in the scientific ability displayed in his researches, the clearness and the soundness of the views he expresses, the determined pluck of his enterprise, and his knowledge of native life and character. Durand, North, Leach, and Broadfoot were Lieutenants of Engineers at the same time, and their reports and their work are all historical records.
Previously to his start on the Gomul reconnaissance Broadfoot had the opportunity of reconnoitring much of the country to the south of Ghazni bordering the Kandahar-Ghazni route. He had, therefore, a very fair acquaintance with the people with whom he had to deal, and a fairly well fixed point of departure for his work. His methods were the time-honoured methods of many past generations of explorers. He took his bearings with the prismatic compass, and he reckoned his distance by the mean values obtained from three men pacing. Consequently, he could not pretend, in suchcircumstances as he was placed (being hardly able to leave his tent in spite of his disguise), to complete much in the way of topography; but his clear description of the ground he passed over, and the people he passed amongst, furnishes nearly all that is necessary to enable us to realise the practical value and the political difficulty of that important line of communication with Central Afghanistan.
From Ghazni southwards to Pannah there is nothing but open plain. From near Pannah to the Sarwandi Pass, which crosses the main divide (the Kohnak range) between the Helmund and the Indus basins, there is much of the ridge and furrow formation which distinguishes the north-western frontier, the alignment of the ridges being from N.E. to S.W., but the Gazdarra Pass over the Kattawaz ridge is not formidable, and the road along the plain of Kattawaz is open. In Kattawaz were groups of villages, denoting a settled population, and as much cultivation as might be possible amidst a lawless, crop-destroying, and raiding generation of Ghilzais.
"Kattasang, as viewed from Dand" (on the northern side) "appears a mass of undulating hills, and as bare as a desert; it is the resort in summer of some pastoral families of Suliman Khels." Approaching the main divide of Sarwandi by the Sargo Pass two forts are passed near Sargo, which sufficiently well illustrate the characteristics of perpetual feud common to clans or families of theGhilzai fraternity. The forts are close to each other; one of them is known as Ghlo kala (thieves' fort), but they are probably both equally worthy of the name. The inhabitants of these forts absolutely destroyed each other in a family feud, so that nothing now remains. Their very waters have dried up.
Near the Sargo, on the Ghazni side of the Sarwandi Pass, is Schintza, at which place Vigne also halted, and from Schintza commences the real ascent to the Sarwandi. The ascent, and indeed the crossing altogether, are described by Broadfoot as easy. Vigne does not say much about this. From the foot of the Sarwandi one branch of the Gomul takes off, and from that point to the Indus the great trade route practically follows the Gomul on a gradually descending grade. It is a stony, rough, and broken hill route, now expanding into a broad track of river-bed, now contracting into a cliff-bordered gully, occasionally leaving the river and running parallel over adjoining cliffs, but more often involving the worry of perpetual crossing and re-crossing of the stream. Here and there is an expansion (such as the "flower-bed," Gulkatz) into a reed-covered flat, and occasionally there occurs a level open border space which the blackened stones of previous khafilas denote as a camping-ground. Wild and dreary, carving its way beneath the heat-cracked and rain-seared foot-hills of Waziristan, strewn with stones and boulders, and disfigured byleprous outbreaks of streaky white efflorescence, the Gomul in the hot weather is not an attractive river. In flood-time it is dangerous, and it is in the hottest of the hot weather months that the route is fullest of the moving khafila crowds.
In Broadfoot's time the worst part of the route was between the plateau and the Indus plains. This is no longer so, for a trade-developing and road-making Government has made the rough places plain, and engineered a first-class high-road thus far. And there is this to be noted about that section of it which still lies beyond the ken of the frontier officer and which as yet the surveyor has not mapped. Not a single camel-load in Broadfoot's khafila had to be shifted on account of the roughness of the route between Ghazni and the Indus, and not a space of any great length occurred over which guns might not easily pass. The drawback to the route as a high-road for trade has ever been the blackmailing propensities of Waziris and cognate tribes who flank the route on either side. Broadfoot's khafila lost no less than 100 men in transit; but this was at a time when the country was generally disturbed. In more peaceful days previously Vigne refers to constant losses both of men and property, but to nothing like so great an extent.
Broadfoot still stands for our authority in all that pertains to the central Afghan tribes-people—chiefly the Suliman Khel clan of Ghilzais—whooccupy the Highlands between Waziristan and Ghazni. Under the iron heel of the late Amir of Afghanistan no doubt much of their turbulent and feud-loving propensities has been repressed, and with its repression has followed a development of agriculture, and a general improvement throughout the favoured districts of Kattawaz and the Ghazni plain. Here the climate is exceptionally invigorating, and much of the sweet landscape beauty of the adjoining districts of Wardak and Logar (two of the loveliest valleys of Afghanistan) is evidently repeated. Several fine rivers traverse these uplands, the Jilgu and the Dwa Gomul (both rising from the central divide near to the sources of the Tochi) having much local reputation, and claiming a crude sort of reverence from the wild tribes of the plateau which is only accorded to the gifts of Allah. The Suliman Khel are not nomads—though like all Afghans they love tents—and their villages, clinging to wall-sides or clustering round a central tower, are well built and often exceedingly picturesque. The Ghilzai skill at the construction of these underground irrigation channels called karez is famous throughout Afghanistan. It is, however, the more westerly clans who especially excel in the development of water-supply. The Suliman Khel and the Nasirs take more kindly to the khafila and "povindah" form of life, and this Gomul route is the very backbone of their existence. It is a pity that we know so little about it.
FRENCH EXPLORATION—FERRIER
Amongst modern explorers of Afghanistan who have earned distinction by their capacity for single-handed geographical research and ability in recording their experiences, the French officer M. Ferrier is one of the most interesting and one of the most disappointing. He is interesting in all that relates to the historical and political aspects of Afghanistan at a date when England was specially concerned with that country, and so far and so long as his footsteps can now be traced with certainty on our recent maps, he is clearly to be credited with powers of accurate observation and a fairly retentive memory. It is just where, as a geographer, he leaves the known for the unknown, and makes a plunge into a part of the country which no European has actually traversed before or since, that he becomes disappointing. He is the only known wanderer from the west who has traversed the uplands of the Firozkohi plateau from north to south; and it is just that region of the UpperMurghab basin which our surveyors were unable to reach during the progress of the Russo-Afghan Boundary mapping. The rapidity of the movements of the Commission when once it got to work precluded the possibility, with only a weak staff of topographers, of detailing native assistants to map every corner of that most interesting district, and naturally the more important section of the country received the first attention. But they closed round it so nearly as to leave but little room for pure conjecture, and it is quite possible to verify by local evidence the facts stated by Ferrier, if not actually to trace out his route and map it.
M. Ferrier's career was a sufficiently remarkable one. He served with the French army in Africa, and was delegated with other officers to organise the Persian army. Here he was regarded by the Russian Ambassador as hostile to Russian interests, and the result was his return to France in 1843, where he obtained no satisfaction for his grievances. Deciding to take service with the Punjab Government under the Regency which succeeded Ranjit Singh, he left France for Bagdad and set out from that city in 1845 for a journey through Persia and Afghanistan to India.
Ferrier reached Herat seven years after the siege of that place by the Persians, and four years after the British evacuation of Afghanistan, and his story of interviews with that wily politician, Yar Mahomed Khan, are most entertaining. It is satisfactory tonote that the English left on the whole a good reputation behind them. His attempt to reach LahoreviaBalkh and Kabul was frustrated, and he was forced off the line of route connecting Balkh with Kabul at what was then the Afghan frontier. It was at this period of his travels that his records become most interesting, as he was compelled to pass through the Hazara country to the west of Kabul by an unknown route not exactly recognisable, crossing the Firozkohi plateau and descending through the Taimani country to Ghur. From Ghur he was sent back to Herat, and so ended a very remarkable tour through an absolutely unexplored part of Afghanistan. His final effort to reach the Punjab by the already well-worn roads which lead by Kandahar and Shikarpur was unsuccessful. Considering the risks of the journey, it was a surprising attempt. It was in the course of this adventure that he came across some of the ill-starred remnants of the disasters which attended the British arms during the evacuation of Afghanistan. There were apparently Englishmen in captivity in other parts of Afghanistan than the north, and the fate of those unfortunate victims to the extraordinary combination of political and military blundering which marked those eventful years is left to conjecture.
Such in brief outline was the story of Afghan exploration as it concerned this gallant French officer, and from it we obtain some useful geographical and antiquarian suggestions. The provinceof Herat he regards as coincident with the Aria of the Greek historians, and the Aria metropolis (or Artakoana) he considers might be represented either by Kuhsan or by Herat itself. He expends a little useless argument in refuting the common Afghan tradition that any part of modern Herat was built by Alexander. Between the twelfth century and the commencement of the seventeenth Herat has been sacked and rebuilt at least seven times, and its previous history must have involved many other radical changes since the days of Alexander. It is, however, probable that the city has been built time after time on the site which it now occupies, or very near it. The vast extent of mounds and other evidences of ancient occupation to the north of it, together with its very obvious strategic importance, give this position a precedence in the district which could never have been overlooked by any conqueror; but the other cities of Greek geography, Sousa and Candace, are not so easy to place. Ferrier may be right in his suggestion that Tous (north-west of Mashad) represents the Greek Sousa, but he is unable to place Candace. To the west of Herat are three very ancient sites, Kardozan, Zindajan (which Ferrier rightly identified with the Arab city of Bouchinj), and Kuhsan, and Candace might have stood where any of them now stand.
Ferrier's description of Herat and its environment fully sustains Sir Henry Rawlinson's opinionof him as an observant traveller. For a simple soldier of fortune he displays remarkable erudition, as well as careful observation, and there is hardly a suggestion which he makes about the Herat of 1845 which subsequent examination did not justify in 1885. It was the custom during the residence of the English Mission under Major d'Arcy Todd in Herat for some, at least, of the leading Afghan chiefs to accept invitations to dinner with the English officers, a custom which promoted a certain amount of mutual good-fellowship between Afghans and English, of which the effects had not worn off when Ferrier was there. When, finally, Yar Mahomed was convinced that Ferrier had no ulterior political motive for his visit, and was persuaded to let him proceed on his journey, a final dinner was arranged, at which Ferrier was the principal guest. It appears to have been a success. "At the close of the repast the guests were incapable of sitting upright, and at two in the morning I left these worthy Mussulmans rolling on the carpet! The following day I prepared for my departure." In 1885 manners and methods had changed for the better. The English officers employed on the reorganisation of the defences of the city were occasionally entertained at modest tea-parties by the Afghan military commandant, but no such rollicking proceedings as those recounted by Ferrier would ever have been countenanced; and it must be confessed that Ferrier's accounts, both here and elsewhere, of the social manners andcustoms of the Afghan people are a little difficult to accept without reservation. We must, however, make allowances for the times and the loose quality of Afghan government. He left Herat by the northerly route, passing Parwana, the Baba Pass, and the Kashan valley to Bala Murghab and Maimana.
Ferrier has much to say that is interesting about the tribal communities through which he passed, especially about the Chahar Aimak, or wandering tent-living tribes, which include the Hazaras, Jamshidis, Taimanis, and Firozkohis. He is, I think, the first to draw attention to the fact that the Firozkohis are of Persian origin, a people whose forefathers were driven by Tamerlane into the mountains south of Mazanderan, and were eventually transported into the Herat district. They spring from several different Persian tribes, and take the name Firozkohi from "a village in the neighbourhood of which they were surrounded and captured." The origin of the name Ferozkohi has always been something of a geographical puzzle, and it is doubtful whether there was ever a city originally of that name in Afghanistan, although it may have been applied to the chief habitat of this agglomeration of Persian refugees and colonists.
Ferrier's account of his progress includes no geographical data worthy of remark. Politically, this part of Afghan Turkistan has remained much the same during the last seventy years, andgeographically one can only say that his account of the route is generally correct, although it indicates that it is compiled from memory. For instance, there is a steep watershed to be crossed between Torashekh and Mingal, but it is not of the nature of a "rugged mountain," nor could there have ever been space enough for the extent of cultivation which he describes in the Murghab valley. He is very much at fault in his description of the road from Nimlik (which he calls Meilik) to Balkh. The hills are on the right (not left) of the road, and are much higher than those previously described as rugged mountains. No water from these hills could possibly reach the road, for there is a canal between them, the overflow of which, however, might possibly swamp the road. Balkh hardly responds to his description of it. There is no mosque to the north of Balkh, nor is the citadel square.
The road from Khulm to Bamian passes through Tashkurghan (which is due east of Mazar—not south) and Haibak, and changes very much in character before reaching Haibak. From Haibak to Kuram the description of the road is fairly correct, but no amount of research on the part of later surveyors has revealed the position of "Kartchoo" (which apparently means locally a market); nor could Ferrier possibly have encountered snow in July on any part of this route, even if he saw any. We must, however, consider the conditions underwhich he was travelling, and make allowances for the impossibility of keeping anything of the nature of a systematic record. At Kuram, a well-known point above Haibak on the road to Kabul, he reached the Uzbek frontier. Beyond this point—into Afghanistan—no Uzbek would venture, and it was impossible to proceed farther on the direct route to Kabul. Yielding to the pressure of friendly advice, he made a retrograde detour to Saripul, through districts occupied by Hazaras, and "Kartchoo" was but a nomadic camp that he encountered during his first day out from Kuram. Clearly he was making for the Yusuf Darra route to Saripul; and his next camp, Dehao, marks the river. It may possibly be the point marked Dehi on modern maps. At Saripul he was not only well received by the Uzbek Governor, Mahomed Khan, but the extraordinary influence which this man possessed with the Hazaras, Firozkohis, and other Aimak tribes of northern Afghanistan enabled Ferrier to procure food and horses at irregular stages which carried him to Ghur in the Taimani land.
It is this part of Ferrier's journey which is so tantalizing and so difficult to follow. He must have travelled both far and fast. Leaving Saripul on July 11, he rode "ten parasangs," over country very varied in character, to Boodhi. Now this country has been surveyed, and there can be no reasonable doubt about the route he took southwards. But no such place as Boodhi has everbeen identified, nor have the remarkable sculptures which were observeden route, fashioned on an "enormous block of rock," been found again, although careful inquiries were made about them. They may, of course, have been missed, and information may have been purposely withheld, for geographical surveys do not permit of lengthy halts for inquiry on any line of route. Ferrier's description of them is so full of detail that it is difficult to believe that it is imaginary. He mentions that on the plain on which Boodhi stood, "two parasangs to the right," there were the "ruins of a large town," which might very possibly be the ruins identified by Imam Sharif (a surveyor of the Afghan Boundary Commission), and which would fix the position of "Boodhi" somewhere near Belchirag on the main route southward to Ghur. Belchirag is about 55 miles from Saripul. The next day's ride must have carried him into the valley of the Upper Murghab on the Firozkohi plateau, crossing the Band-i-Turkistanen route, and it was here that he met with such a remarkable welcome at the fortress of Dev Hissar.
Ferrier describes the valley of the Upper Murghab in terms of rapture which appear to be a trifle extravagant to those who know that country. No systematic survey of it, however, has ever been possible, and to this day the position of Dev Hissar is a matter of conjecture, and the charming manners of its inhabitants (so unlike the ordinaryrough hospitality of the men and the unobtrusive character of the women of the Firozkohi Aimak) are experiences such as our surveyors sighed for in vain! As a mere guess, I should be inclined to place Dev Hissar near Kila Gaohar, or to identify it with that fort. At any rate, I prefer this solution of the puzzle to the suggestion that Dev Hissar and its delightful inhabitants, like the previous sculptures, were but an effort of imagination on the part of this volatile and fascinating Frenchman.
There is always an element of suspicion as to the value of Ferrier's information when he deals with the feminine side of Hazara human nature. For instance, he asserts that the Hazara women fight in their tribal battles side by side with their husbands. This is a feature in their character for independence which the Hazara men absolutely deny, and it is hardly necessary to add that no confirmation could be obtained anywhere of the remarkable familiarity with which the ladies of Hissar are said by Ferrier customarily to treat their guests.
The next long day's ride terminated at Singlak (another unknown place), which was found deserted owing to a feud between the Hazaras and Firozkohis. It was evidently within the Murghab basin and short of the crest of the line of watershed bordering the Hari Rud valley on the north, for the following day Ferrier crossed these hills, and theHari Rud valley beneath them (avoiding Daolatyar), at a point which he fixes as "six parasangs S.W. of Sheherek." Again it is impossible to locate the position. Kila Safarak is at the head of the Hari Rud, and Kila Shaharak is in another valley (that of the Tagao Ishlan), so that it will perhaps be safe to assume that it was nowhere near either of these places, but at a point some 10 miles west of Daolatyar, which marks the regular route for Ghur from the north.
Ferrier's description of this part of his journey is vague and unsatisfactory. No such place as Kohistani, "situated on a high plain in the midst of the Siah Koh," is known any more than is Singlak. The divide, or ridge, which he crossed in passing from the Murghab valley to the narrow trough of the Hari Rud is lower than the hills on the south of the river. He could not possibly have crossed snow nor overlooked the landscape to Saripul. It is doubtful if Chalapdalan, the mountain which impressed him so mightily, is visible from any part of the broken watershed north of the Hari Rud. Chalapdalan is only 13,600 feet high, and there would have been no snow on it in July. As we proceed farther we fail to identify Ferrier's Tingelab River, unless he means the Ab-i-lal. The Hari Rud does not flow through Shaharak, and no one has found a village called Jaor in the Hari Rud valley. Continuing to cross the Band-i-Baian (which he calls Siah Koh)from Kohistani Baba, a very long day's ride brought him to Deria-dereh, also called "Dereh Mustapha Khan," which was evidently a place of importance and the headquarters of a powerful section of either Hazaras or Taimanis under a Chief, Mustapha Khan. Here, in a small oblong valley entirely closed by mountains, was a little lake of azure colour and transparent clearness which lay like a vast gem embedded in surrounding verdure ... "around which were somewhat irregularly pitched a number of Taimani tents, separated from each other by little patches of cultivation and gardens enclosed by stone walls breast high.... The luxuriance of the vegetation in this valley might compare with any that I had ever seen in Europe. On the summits of the surrounding mountains were several ruins, etc. etc." Ash and oak trees were there. Fishermen were dragging the lake, women were leading flocks to the water, and young girls sat outside the tents weaving bereks (barak, or camel-hair cloth), and contentment was depicted on every face.
From Deria-dereh another long day's ride brought him to Zirni, which he describes as the ancient capital of Ghur. From the Band-i-Baian (or Koh Siah, as he calls it) to Zirni is at least 100 miles by the very straightest road, and that would pass by Taiwara. It is clear that he did not take that road, or he could hardly have ignored so important a position as Taiwara. If he made a detour eastward he would pass through Hazara country—verymountainous, very high and difficult, and the length of the two days' journey would be nearer 150 miles than 100. To the first day's journey (as far as Deria-dereh) he gives ten hours on horseback, which in that country might represent 60 miles; but no such place as he describes, no lake with Arcadian surroundings, has been either seen or heard of by subsequent surveyors within the recognized limits of Taimani country. If it exists at all, it is to the east of the great watershed from which spring the Ghur River and the Farah Rud, hidden within the spurs of the Hazara mountains. This is just possible, for this wild and weatherbeaten country has not been so fully reconnoitred as that farther west; but it makes Ferrier's journey extraordinary for the distances covered, and fully accounts for the fact that he has preserved so little detail of this eventful ride that, practically, there is nothing of geographical interest to be learnt from it.
Ferrier's description of the ruins which are to be found in the neighbourhood of Zirni and Taiwara, especially his reference to a "paved" road leading towards Ghazni, is very interesting. He is fully impressed with the beauty of the surrounding country, and what he has to say about this centre of an historical Afghan kingdom has been more or less confirmed by subsequent explorers. Only the "Ghebers" have disappeared; and the magnificent altitude of the "Chalap Dalan" mountain, described by him as one of the "highest in theworld," has been reduced to comparatively humble proportions. Its isolated position, however, undoubtedly entitles it to rank as a remarkable geographical feature.
At Zirni Ferrier found that his further progress towards Kandahar was arrested, and from that point, to his bitter disgust, he was compelled to return to Herat. From Zirni to Herat was, in his day, an unmapped region, and he is the first European to give us even a glimpse of that once well-trodden highway. His conjectures about the origin of the Aimak tribes which people Central Afghanistan are worthy of study, as they are based on original inquiry from the people themselves; but it is very clear that either time has modified the manners of these people, or that popular sources of information are not always to be trusted. He repeats the story of the fighting propensities of Hazara women when dealing with the Taimanis, and adds, as regards the latter, that "a girl does not marry until she has performed some feat of arms." It may be that "feats of arms" are not so easy of achievement in these days, but it is certain that such an inducement to marry would fail to be effective now. It might even prove detrimental to a girl's chances.
Once again we can only regard with astonishment Ferrier's record of a ride from "Tarsi" (Parsi) to Herat, at least 90 miles, in one night. A district Chief told Captain (now Colonel) the Hon. M. G.Talbot, who conducted the surveys of the country in 1883, that "a good Taimani on a good horse" might accomplish the feat, but that nobody else could. Ferrier, with his considerable escort, seemed to have found no difficulty, but undoubtedly he was in excellent training. His general description of the country that he passed through accords with the pace at which he swept through it, and nothing is to be gained by criticising his hasty observations. At Herat he was fortunate in securing the consent of Yar Mahomed Khan to his project for reaching the PunjabviaKandahar and Kabul; and with letters from that wily potentate to the Amir Dost Mahomed Khan and his son-in-law Mahomed Akbar Khan this "Lord of the Kingdom of France, General Ferrier" set out on another attempt to reach India. In this he was unsuccessful, and his path was a thorny one. He travelled by the road which had been adopted as the post-road between Herat and Kandahar, during the residence of the English Mission at Herat—a route which, leaving Farah to the west, approaches Kandahar by Washir and Girishk, and which is still undoubtedly the most direct road between the two capitals. But the particularly truculent character of the Durani Afghan tribes of Western Afghanistan rendered this journey most dangerous for a single European moving without an armed escort, and he was robbed and maltreated with fiendish persistency. It was a well-known and much-trodden old road, but it has alwaysbeen, and it is still, about the worst road in all Afghanistan for the fanatical unpleasantness of its Achakzai and Nurzai environment.
After leaving Washir Ferrier was imprisoned at Mahmudabad, and again when he reached Girishk, and the story of the treatment he received at both places says much for the natural soundness of his constitution. Luckily he fell in with a friendly Munshi who had been in English service, who, whilst warning Ferrier that he might consider the position of his head on his shoulders as "wonderfully shaky," did a good deal to dissipate the notion that he was an English spy, and helped him through what was indeed a very tight place. It was at this point of his journey that Ferrier heard of an English prisoner in Zamindawar,—a traveller with "green eyes and red hair,"—and the fact that he actually received a note from this man (which he could not read as it was written in English) seems to confirm that fact. He could do nothing to help him, and no one knows what may have been the ultimate fate of this unfortunate captive.
Ferrier is naturally indignant with Sir Alexander Burnes for describing the Afghans as "a sober, simple steady people" (Burnes'Travels in Bokhara, vol. i. pp. 143, 144). How Burnes could ever have arrived at such an extraordinary estimate of Afghan character is hard to imagine, and it says little for those perceptive faculties for which Masson has such contempt. But it not inaptly points thegreat contrast that does really exist between the Kabuli and the Kandahari to this day. When the English officers of the Afghan Boundary Commission in 1883 were occupied in putting Herat into a state of defence, their personal escort was carefully chosen from soldiers of the northern province, who, by no means either "sober or simple," were at any rate far less fanatical and truculent than the men of the west, and they were, on the whole, a pleasant and friendly contingent to deal with.
At Girishk, and subsequently, Ferrier has certain geographical facts of interest to record. Some of them still want verification, but they are valuable indications. He notes the immense ruins and mounds on both sides the Helmund at Girishk. He was in confinement at Girishk for eight days, where he suffered much from "the vermin which I could not prevent from getting into my clothes, and the rattling of my inside from the scantiness of my daily ration." However, his trials came to an end at last, and he left Girishk "with a heart full of hatred for its inhabitants and a lively joy at his departure," fording the Helmund at some little distance from the town. He remarks on the vast ruins at Kushk-i-Nakhud, where there is a huge artificial mound. A similar one exists at Sangusar, about 3 miles south-east of Kushk-i-Nakhud. At Kandahar the final result of a short residence that was certainly full of lively incident, and an interviewwith the Governor Kohendil Khan (brother of the Amir Dost Mahomed), was a return to Girishk. This must have been sickening; but it resulted in a series of excursions into Baluch territory which are not uninstructive. The ill-treatment (amounting to the actual infliction of torture) which Ferrier endured at the hands of the Girishk Governor (Sadik Khan, a son of Kohendil Khan) on this second visit to Girishk, was even worse than the first, and it was only by signing away his veracity and giving a false certificate of friendship with the brute that he finally got free again. He was to follow the Helmund to Lash Jowain in Seistan, but the attempt was frustrated by a local disturbance at Binadur, on the Helmund. So far, however, this abortive excursion was of certain geographical interest as covering new ground. The places mentioned by Ferrieren routeare all still in existence, but he gives no detailed account of them.
Once more a start was made from Girishk, and this time our explorer succeeded in reaching Farah by the direct route through Washir. It was in the month of October, and the fiery heat of the Bakwa plain was sufficiently trying even to this case-hardened Frenchman. About Farah he has much to say that still requires confirmation. Of the exceeding antiquity of this place there is ample evidence; but no one since Ferrier has identified the site of the second and later town of Farah "an hour" farther north or "half an hour" fromthe Farah Rud (river), where bricks were seen "three feet long and four inches thick," with inscriptions on them in cuneiform character, amidst the ruins. This town was abandoned in favour of the older (and present) site when Shah Abbas the Great besieged and destroyed it, but there can be no doubt that the bricks seen by Ferrier must have possessed an origin long anterior to the town, which only dates from the time of Chenghiz Khan. The existence of such evidence of the ancient and long-continued connection between Assyria and Western Afghanistan would be exceedingly interesting were it confirmed by modern observation. Farah is by all accounts a most remarkable town, and it undoubtedly contains secrets of the past which for interest could only be surpassed by those of Balkh. At Farah Ferrier was lodged in a "hole over the north gate of the town, open to the violent winds of Seistan, which rushed in at eight enormous holes, through which also came the rays of the sun." Here wasps, scorpions, and mice were his companions, and it must be admitted that Ferrier's account of the horrors of Farah residence have been more or less confirmed by all subsequent travellers to Seistan. But he finally succeeded in obtaining, through the not inhospitable governor, the necessary permission from Yar Mahomed Khan of Herat (whose policy in his dealings with Ferrier it is quite impossible to decipher) to pass on to Shikarpur and Sind; and the permission is couched in such piousand affectionate terms, that the "very noble, very exalted, the companion of honour, of fortune, and of happiness, my kind friend, General Ferrier," really thought there was a chance of escaping from his clutches. He was, by the way, invited back again to Herat, but he was told that he might please himself.