XL. 1835. CHAP. people are strong and active, and capable of undergoing great fatigue on horseback, the only mode of travelling of which the rugged nature of the country admits. Kindly and considerate to their dependants, the chiefs are served with loyal zeal and devoted fidelity by their clans; and in no part of Asia are the bonds of slavery, whether in the household, the farm, or the tenure, more lightly felt. Hospitable and generous, they receive the stranger without suspicion, and entertain him without stint. In foreign transactions, whether with individuals or other nations, they are often distinguished by the usual fraud and dissimulation of the Asiatics; but when their personal honour is pledged, they have the loyalty and truth of European chivalry. Trade and commerce of every kind are held in utter contempt; they are intrusted to Persians, Hindoos, and Russians, who frequent the bazaars and fairs of Herat, Candahar, and Cabul, and supply the rude mountaineers with the broadcloths of Russia, the stone, i. 36, spices of India, and the manufactures of Ispahan, to the ly, i. 24, 37. whole extent required by their simple wants and limited means of purchase.1 1 Kaye, i. 12, 13; Elphin 49; Conol 22. General character of Affghan history. The history of Affghanistan, from the earliest times, like that of most mountainous regions, presents an uniform succession of internal feuds, and perpetual changes both in the order of succession in the reigning families, and the houses in which the government of the different tribes was vested, without the regular hereditary succession and right of primogeniture which have in every age been the main pillars of European stability. Supreme power has generally been the prize of a fortunate soldier, and its loss the penalty of an effeminate inmate of the seraglio. Its boundaries have advanced or receded according as an intrepid and skilful captain has pushed its predatory tribes into the adjoining states, or been subjected to their inroads in his own. Even the great conquerors, whose victorious standards have so often traversed Asia like a whirlwind in every direction, have never made any XL. 1835. lasting change on its government or its fortunes. Every CHAP. valley sent forth its little horde of men to swell the tide of conquest, and share in its spoils as long as the career of success lasted, and on such occasions Affghanistan had often proved a most powerful ally to the victor. But it never formed a lasting acquisition to his dominions. When the din of war ceased, and the stream of conquest had rolled past, matters returned to their old state; valley was armed against valley, chieftain against chieftain, tribe against tribe; and the Affghans, left to themselves in their barren hills, ceased to be formidable to the world, till a new conqueror roused them to war, to victory, and to plunder. 23. the Doura in 1810. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, the DOURANEE EMPIRE, which had risen to pre-eminence in these Extent of mountain wilds, embraced a very large territory. It con- nee Empire sisted of Affghanistan Proper, part of Khorassan, Cashmere, and the Derajat. Bounded on the north and east by immense and inaccessible snowy ranges, and on the south and west by vast sandy deserts, it opposed to external hostility obstacles of an almost insurmountable character. Spreading over the crest of the great range, it extended from Herat on the west to Cashmere on the east, and from Balkh on the north to Shikarpoor on the south. This extensive region was capable, when its military strength was fully drawn forth, of sending 200,000 horsemen into the field; and it was able, therefore, to furnish the most effective aid to any military power possessed of resources adequate to bringing such immense forces. into action. But, like all other mountain states, it was miserably deficient in the means of paying, equipping, or feeding them. From its own resources it could not maintain a standing army of more than twelve thousand men, and unless, therefore, it was powerfully supported by some other State capable of supplying this deficiency, it could not be considered as formidable to either its southern or northern neighbours. Like the Swiss or Cir VOL. VI. 2 N XL. 1835. CHAP. cassians, the Affghans make a trade of selling their blood to any foreign nation which will take them into its pay; and the command of its formidable defiles, the gates of India, may at any time be obtained by the power which is rich or wise enough to take that simple method of gaining possession of these important passes. 24. invasion of Shah, and coalition with the French. In the close of the last century, when the Douranee Threatened empire was at the zenith of its greatness, and the French Zemaun government, under the guidance of Napoleon, was bent on striking a decisive blow at Great Britain through its Indian possessions, a formidable coalition was not only possible, but within the bounds of probability. Zemaun Shah was at the head of the Affghans, and all the adjacent tribes, whom he had subjected to his dominion. The memory of the last invasion of the Affghans, which had been entirely successful, served to awaken the utmost alarm in India when it was known that he was openly making preparations for the invasion of Hindostan, and about to descend the Khyber Pass at the head of an innumerable host of these formidable mountaineers. In reality, he was in secret urged on by Napoleon, who had, when in Egypt, been in correspondence with Tippoo Saib for the subversion of the British power in India, and since his fall and his own alliance with Russia, had concluded, in 1801, a treaty with the Emperor Paul for an invasion of India by an European army of seventy thousand men, composed one half of French, and one half of Russians. This regular force was to have proceeded by Astrakhan, Herat, Candahar, and Cabul, to Attock on the Indus, and was to have been preceded by Zemaun Shah, at the head of an hundred thousand Affghans. At the approach of forces so formidable, it was not doubted that the whole native powers of India would rise in a body to expel the hated islanders from their shores.1 1 Kaye, i. 11, 16; Thornton, vi. 100, 101; Hist. of Europe, c. xxxiii. § 63; Har Mem. vii. 497. Although Marquess Wellesley, to whom the government of India at this period was intrusted, was well aware of the inability of Affghanistan, without external aid, to XL. 1835. 25. Persia in invade India, he yet knew what powerful assistance it was CHAP. capable of rendering to any great power which should attempt that object. He therefore took the most effectual means to avert the danger by entering into close Treaty with relations with the Court of Persia. With this view he February selected a young officer who had been distinguished in the 1801. siege of Seringapatam, Captain, afterwards SIR JOHN MALCOLM, who was despatched to Teheran in the end of 1799. With such talent and diplomatic skill did the young envoy, who was thoroughly master of the Oriental languages, acquit himself of his duties, that a treaty, eminently favourable to Great Britain, was concluded soon after his arrival in Persia. He distributed largesses with a liberal hand, and the name of England became great in Iran.* Before this treaty was concluded, the danger, so far as Zemaun Shah was concerned, had been postponed by an internal war in which he had become involved, which had drawn him from Candahar to Herat. By the treaty it was provided, that "should any army of the French nation attempt to settle, with a view of establishing themselves on any of the islands or shores of Persia, a conjoint force shall be appointed by the two high contracting parties to effect their extirpation." Its original conditions further bound the Persian government to "slay and disgrace" any Frenchman intruding into Persia, and in the event of Zemaun Shah attempting to descend upon India from Candahar, to operate a diversion from the side of Herat. This treaty, however, which the French historians justly condemn as exceeding the bounds of diplomatic hostility, was never formally ratified, and soon became a dead letter, so far as Zemaun Shah was concerned. That dreaded potentate was soon after dethroned by one of his brothers, Mahmoud, made prisoner, and his eyes, accord * "The expense I have incurred is very heavy, and it is on that score that I am alarmed. Not that it is one farthing more than I have, to the best of my judgment, thought necessary to answer, or rather further, the ends of my mission, and to support the dignity of the British Government."-CAPTAIN MALCOLM to LORD WELLESLEY, 26th July 1800. KAYE, i. 8. XL. 1835. CHAP. ing to the inhuman Asiatic custom, put out, as Zemaun himself had done to his own elder brother, whom he had dethroned. The blind and unhappy sovereign sought 1 Thornton, refuge in the British dominions; and the mighty conqueror, who, it was feared, was to follow in the footsteps of Timour or Genghis Khan, sank into an obscure recipient of British bounty in the city of Loodiana, in Hindostan.1 vi. 100-102; Kaye, i. 9, 10, 26; Martin, 433. 26. Rupture with Persia, with Aff Time went on, however, and brought its wonted changes on its wings both in Europe and Asia. Napoleon, indeed, and alliance never lost sight of his design of striking a decisive blow ghanistan. at England through her Indian possessions; conferences on the subject were renewed with the Emperor Alexander at Erfurth, and such was the magic of the mighty conqueror's name, that all the eloquence and gold of Captain Malcolm were forgotten at the Court of Persia. In 1806 a Persian envoy was despatched to Paris to congratulate Napoleon on his victories in Europe, and in 1808 a French mission arrived in Persia, and was received with extraordinary distinction, charged with the task of organising and carrying into effect the long-meditated invasion of India by the combined forces of France and Russia. Lord Minto was the Governor-general, and as Lord Wellesley had sought to establish a counterpoise to French influence in Affghanistan by an alliance with Persia, so now he sought to establish a barrier against Persia in Affghanistan. For this purpose a mission was despatched to Cabul under the Honourable MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE, whose charming work first made the English acquainted with a country destined to acquire a melancholy celebrity in its annals. Mr Elphinstone was very cordially received by Shah Soojab, who had by this time dispossessed his Thornton, brother Mahmoud in the ever-changeful government of Martin, Affghanistan, and a treaty was concluded, whereby that i. 10, 56. prince bound himself to resist any attempts of the French and Persians to advance through his territories to India.2 Not content with thus rearing up a barrier in Affghan vi. 100-103; 433; Kaye, |