from Herat. The road from IIci'ul to Bala Miirghab crosses its upper waters. At some point near theconQuence of the Mnrgli-tiliaiKl the KusLk tbe AfgbsDs constructed:i small Ibrt called Alt Tepo. The Merv oasis, fiom just ahove I'ulatan, stretches along the Murgh- &b for nearly sixty miles. Its width ia not far from forty miles, and it may lie said to be only 340 miles fi-ora 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 - Merv Oasia.' It is only necessarj- to say here that Merv is the converging iroint of the caravan routes from Persia by Mash-bad, to Kbiva, at the norlbern end of the Turkoman Steppe, and to Bokhara and the counlries beyond the Osns. Edwar '■
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��THE RACES OF CENTIIAL A.StA.
AtxjiiANisTAN 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 lime depends more upon the skill and encrgj' of the Afghan chief or amir for the time being, than it does upon any prescriptive right or tradition. In- deed, there are hying at tbe 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 US the ruler of Kabul when that potentate ie 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 i-espeeted only when he possesses means of compelling respect. Each tribe and clan manages its own immedi- ate avail's through a council of the elders, and in acconlnnce with the immemorial customs of the tribe. The amir is mei'ely a dictator for life; and every attempt, in recent times, to introduce a settled form of government or to establish a dynasty, has been an immediate and complete failure. It is this want of co- hesion among the Afghans themselves that has bixiught about the interference of the English in their domestic and foreign relations. The trne Afghan tribes live in the valleys between Kabul and Peshawar, and Kabul and Kandahar. Thej' are a sturdy, daring people, and are de- scribed as possessing a strong Jewish cost 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 imkuown, 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 coustini 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 fi-om IH^i to the present year. In lt(42 the English abandoned the attempt to force a rulei' on the Afghans, and again recog- nized Dost Muhammad as amir of Kabul. Eight years later, that chieftain reconqueretl Balkh,"then the most important town north of the Hindu Kush; and between I80O and 1860 he extended his rule over the whole of Afghan Turkestan, and reduced Badakshan to the condition of a tributary province. lu 1855 he took Kandahar, and thus established his authority in the south. But it was not until 18G3 that he captureil 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 All, suc- ceeded him. But there were many rivals in the field, among them Abdurrahman Khan, the present amir; and Shir All cannot be said to have been the undisputed ruler of Afghanistan before 1868. His attention was then directeti to persuading the English, in return for vain- able concessions, to guarantee the amirship to himself and his descendants, and also to supply him'with f\inds with which to raise and maintain an army in the face of the unjKipularity his reforms were arousing in Afghauistan. In this he was only partially successful; and in 1878 he turned to the Russians. fJen. 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 fVootier. War followed; and in a few mouths .Shir Ali died a tligilive at Mazar-i- Sharif. His sec- ond son, Yakul) Khan, was recognized by the English as amir; and. upon his signing the treaty of Gandamak in 1879, the English evac- uated the country. By this treaty the foreigD 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 murderc<l. The English again invaded the country, de[K)sed 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 iSS'i the new amir drove Ayub Khan, another son of iShir Ali,
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