Afghanistan Sentence Examples

Russia, Persia, Afghanistan, Baluchistan, India and China have all revised their borders, and with the revision the political relations between these countries have acquired a new and more assured basis.

The same principle of maintaining an intervening width of neutral territory between the two countries is definitely established throughout the eastern borders of Afghanistan, along the full length of which a definite boundary has been demarcated to the point where it touches the northern limits of Baluchistan on the Gomal river.

Where the Oxus river takes its great bend to the north from Ishkashim, the breadth of the Afghan territory intervening between that river and the main water-divide of the Hindu Kush is not more than 10 or 12 m.; and east of the Pamir extension of Afghanistan, where the Beyik Pass crosses the Sarikol range and drops into the Taghdumbash Pamir, there is but the narrow width of the Karachukar valley between the Sarikol and the Murtagh.

From the Gomal Baluchistan itself becomes an intervening state between British India and Afghanistan, and the dividing line between Baluchistan and Afghanistan is laid down with all the precision employed on the more northerly sections of the demarcation.

They seem almost entirely to have exhausted their northward velocity by the time they have reached the northern extremity of the great Indian plain; they are not felt on the table-lands of Afghanistan, and hardly penetrate into the Indus basin or the ranges of the Himalaya, by which mountains, and those which branch off from them into the Malay peninsula, they are prevented from continuing their progress in the direction originally imparted to them.

Ahmed Shah Abdali burst upon India from Afghanistan.

Seleucus entered the Punjab, but felt himself obliged in 302 to conclude a peace with Chandragupta, by which he ceded large districts of Afghanistan in return for 500 elephants.

The settlement of boundaries in northern Afghanistan (1883) and in Seistan (1870) has necessitated surveys of some interest.

Aitchison, however, gathered in the Hazardarakht ravine in Afghanistan a form with different-shaped fruit from that of the almond; being larger and flatter.

Aitchison also mentions the almond as wild in some parts of Afghanistan, where it is known to the natives as "beda,m," the same word that they apply to the cultivated almond.

Thus the botanical evidence seems to indicate that the wild almond is the source of cultivated almonds, peaches and nectarines, and consequently that the peach was introduced from Asia Minor or Persia, whence the name Persica given to the peach; and Aitchison's discovery in Afghanistan of a form which reminded him of a wild peach lends additional force to this view.

This rapid absorption of the khanates brought Russia into close proximity to Afghanistan, and the reception of Kaufmann's emissaries by the Amir was a main cause of the British war with Afghanistan in 1878.

It runs a remarkably straight course westward through a narrow trough from Daolatyar to Obeh, amidst the bleak wind-swept uplands of the highest central elevations in Afghanistan.

Without the pilgrims who come to visit it, Meshed would be a poor place, but lying on the eastern confines of Persia, close to Afghanistan, Russian Central Asia and Transcaspia, at the point where a number of trade routes converge, it is very important politically, and the British and Russian governments have maintained consulates-general there since 1889.

These useful labours were interrupted in 1838 by complications in Afghanistan, which excited the fears.

Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Iran or Persia, Armenia and the provinces of Asia Minor occupy this high region, with which they are nearly conterminous.

Viewed as a whole, the eastern half of this region, comprising Persia, Afghanistan and Baluchistan, is poor and unproductive.

The Afghan war of 1878-80; the Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission of 1884-1885; the occupation of Gilgit and Chitral; the extension of boundaries east and north of Afghanistan, and again, between Baluchistan and Persia - these, added to the opportunities afforded by the systematic survey of Baluchistan which has been steadily progressing since 1880 - combined to produce a series of geographical maps which extend from the Oxus to the Indus, and from the Indus to the Euphrates.

Every pass of importance is known and recorded; every route of significance has been explored and mapped; Afghanistan has assumed a new political entity by the demarcation of a boundary; the value of Herat and of the Pamirs as bases of aggression has been assessed, and the whole intervening space of mountain and plain thoroughly examined.

The advance of Russia to the Turkoman deserts and the Oxus demanded a definite boundary between her trans-Caspian conquests and the kingdom of Afghanistan.

Coincident with the demarcation of Russian boundaries in Turkestan was that of northern Afghanistan.

It thus places a broad width of independent territory between the boundaries of British India (which have remained practically, though not absolutely, untouched) and Afghanistan; and this independent belt includes Swat, Bajour and a part of the Nlohmand territory north of the Kabul river.

Within this agency there are districts as independent as any in Afghanistan, but the political status of the province as a whole is almost precisely that of the native states of the Indian peninsula.

The greater part of western Asia, including the basin of the Obi, the drainage area of the Aral Sea, together with Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Persia and Arabia, was covered by the sea during the later stages of the Cretaceous period; but a considerable part 3f this region was probably dry land in Jurassic times.

Marine Tertiary beds occur in Burma; in the Himalayas and in south Tibet there is a nearly complete series of marine deposits from the Carboniferous to the Eocene; in Afghanistan the Mesozoic beds are in part marine and in part fluviatile.

The very small and irregular rainfall in Sind and along the Indus is to be accounted for by the want of any obstacle in the path of the vapour-bearing winds, which, therefore, carry the uncondensed rain up to the Punjab, where it falls on the outer ranges of the western Himalaya and of Afghanistan.

This belt, which embraces Asia Minor, northern Persia, Afghanistan, and the southern slopes of the Himalaya, from its elevation has a temperate climate, and throughout it the rainfall is sufficient to maintain a vigorous vegetation, while the summers, though hot, and the winters, though severe, are not extreme.

The cedar or deodar is hardly indigenous east of the sources of the Ganges, and at about the same point the forms of the west begin to be more abundant, increasing in number as we advance towards Afghanistan.

Quercus Ilex, the evergreen oak of southern Europe, is found in forests as far east as the Sutlej, accompanied with other European forms. In the higher parts of Afghanistan and Persia Boraginaceae and thistles abound; gigantic Umbelliferae, such as Ferula, Galbanum, Dorema, Bubon, Peucedanum, Prangos, and others, also characterize the same districts, and some of them extend into Tibet.

The Turks are Mahommedans; their tribes extend up the Oxus to the borders of Afghanistan and Persia, and to the Caspian, and under the name of Kirghiz into Russia, and their language is spoken over a large part of western Asia.

The name of Aryan has been given to the races speaking languages derived from, or akin to, the ancient form of Sanskrit, who now occupy the temperate zone extending from the Mediterranean, across the highlands of Asia Minor, Persia and Afghanistan, to India.

These Tajiks (as they are usually called) form the underlying population of Persia, Baluchistan, Afghanistan and Badakshan, and their language (in the central districts of Asia) is found to contain words of Aryan or Sanskrit derivation which are not known in Persian.

The general results of recent inquiry into the ethnography of Afghanistan is to support the general correctness of Bellew's theories of the origin of the Afghan races.

Islam is paramount in Turkey, Persia, Arabia and Afghanistan.

The first empire, called Maurya,reached its greatest extent in the time of Asoka (264-227 B.C.), who ruled from Afghanistan to Madras.

Though now cultivated in India, and almost wild in some parts of the northwest, and, as we have seen, probably also in Afghanistan, it has no Sanskrit name; it is not mentioned in the Hebrew text of the Scriptures, nor in the earliest Greek times.

On the whole, greater weight is due to the evidence from botanical sources than to that derived from philology, particularly since the discovery both of the wild almond and of a form like a wild peach in Afghanistan.

In the former sense the native rulers of India in the past, like the amir of Afghanistan to-day, received visitors and conducted business in durbar.

South of the watershed the whole aspect of the landscape is as hideous and disappointing as scenery in Afghanistan.

In 1017 he was taken by Malhmud of Ghazni to Afghanistan, where he remained until his death in 1048.

As the river is here the northern boundary of Afghanistan, and the crest of the Hindu Kush the southern boundary, this distance represents the width of the Afghan kingdom at that point.

Those utilized were the Kaoshan (the "Hindu Kush" pass par excellence), 14,340 ft.; the Chahardar (13,900 ft.), which is a link in one of the amir of Afghanistan's high roads to Turkestan; and the Shibar (9800 ft.), which is merely a diversion into the upper Ghorband of that group of passes between Bamian and the Kabul plains which are represented by the Irak, Hajigak, Unai, &c. About this point it is geographically correct to place the southern extremity of the Hindu Kush, for here commences the Koh-i-Baba system into which the Hindu Kush is merged.

There are few passes across the southern section of the Hindu Kush (and this section is, from the politico-geographical point of view, more important to India than the whole Himalayan system) which have not to surmount a succession of crests or ridges as they cross from Afghan Turkestan to Afghanistan.

From the Pir-Panjal range of Kashmir the markhor extends westwards into Baltistan, Astor, Hunza, Afghanistan and the trans-Indus ranges of the Punjab.

Akhdar is wonderful and is in striking contrast to the barrenness of so much of the coast; water issues in perennial springs from many rocky clefts, and is carefully husbanded by the ingenuity of the people; underground channels, known here as faluj, precisely similar to the kanat or karez of Persia and Afghanistan, are also largely used.

The deodar forms forests on the mountains of Afghanistan, North Beluchistan and the north-west Himalayas, flourishing in all the higher mountains from Nepal up to Kashmir, at an elevation of from 5500 to 12,000 ft.; on the peaks to the northern side of the Boorung Pass it grows to a height of 60 to 70 ft.

For some time after his succession Afghanistan was in a state of anarchy, and his rebellious half-brothers overran the country while he remained at Kandahar mourning the loss of a favourite son.

At that period the first Afghan War was at its height, and in crossing over from Persia through Afghanistan the Aga Khan found opportunities of rendering valuable services to the British army, and thus cast in his lot for ever with the British.

From that time until his death in 1881 the Aga Khan, while leading the life of a peaceful and peacemaking citizen, under the protection of British rule, continued to discharge his sacerdotal functions, not only among his followers in India, but towards the more numerous communities which acknowledged his religious sway in distant countries, such as Afghanistan, Khorasan, Persia, Arabia, Central Asia, and even distant Syria and Morocco.

To the north-west, beyond the Tal-i-Bangi, the magnificent outlines of the Mosalla filled a wide space with the glorious curves of dome and gateway and the stately grace of tapering minars, but the impressive beauty of this, by far the finest architectural structure in all Afghanistan, could not be permitted to weigh against the fact that the position occupied by this pile of solid buildings was fatal to the interests of effective defence.

Whether or no the strength of this bulwark of North-Western Afghanistan should ever be practically tested, the general result of the most recent in vestigations into the value of Herat as a strategic centre has been largely to modify the once widely-accepted view that the key to India lies within it.

Here there are one or two important villages and a well-known shrine marked by a group of pine trees which is unique in this part of Afghanistan.

In 1863 Herat, which for fifty years previously had been independent of Kabul, was incorporated by Dost Mahomed Khan in the Afghan monarchy, and the Amir, Habibullah of Afghanistan, like his father Abdur Rahman before him, remained Amir of Herat and Kandahar, as well as Kabul.

In Carpini's (1248) single mention of Prester John as the king of the Christians of India the Greater, who defeats the Tatars by an elaborate stratagem, Oppert recognizes Jalaluddin of Kharezm and his brief success over the Mongols in Afghanistan.

Sometimes again it connotes the meaning of "sovereign lord," in which sense it was early assumed by the princes of Sind and by the rulers of Afghanistan and Bokhara, the title implying a lesser dignity than that of sultan.

The Gomal river, one of the most important rivers in Afghanistan, rises in the unexplored regions to the south-east of Ghazni.

It connects Dera Ismail Khan with the Gomal valley in Afghanistan, and has formed for centuries the outlet for the povindah trade.

Siam thus has its independence guaranteed by the two European powers who alone have interests in Indo-China, England on the west and France on the east, and has therefore a considerable political interest similar to that of Afghanistan, which forms a buffer state between the Russian and British possessions on the north of India.

None extend farther to the westward than the valley of the Indus,' which, considering the nature of the country in Baluchistan and Afghanistan, is perhaps intelligible enough; but it is not so easy to understand why none are found either in Cochin China or China proper; and they are also wanting in the Philippine Islands, which is the more remarkable and instructive when we find how abundant they are in the groups a little farther to the southward.

Shere Ali threw Afzul Khan into prison, and a serious revolt followed in south Afghanistan; but the amir had scarcely suppressed it by winning a desperate battle, when Abdur Rahman's reappearance in the north was a signal for a mutiny of the troops stationed in those parts and a gathering of armed bands to his standard.

The amir Sherc Ali marched up against them from Kandahar; but in the battle that ensued at Sheikhabad on 10th May he was deserted by a large body of his troops, and after his signal defeat Abdur Rahman released his father, Afzul Khan, from prison in Ghazni, and installed him upon the throne as amir of Afghanistan.

This brief account of the conspicuous part taken by Abdur Rahman in an eventful war, at the beginning of which he was not more than twenty years old, has been given to show the rough school that brought out his qualities of resource and fortitude, and the political capacity needed for rulership in Afghanistan.

He lived in exile for eleven years, until on the death, in 1879, of Shere Ali, who had retired from Kabul when the British armies entered Afghanistan, the Russian governorgeneral at Tashkent sent for Abdur Rahman, and pressed him to try his fortunes once more across the Oxus.

In March 1880 a report reached India that he was in northern Afghanistan; and the governor-general, Lord Lytton, opened communications with him to the effect that the British government were prepared to withdraw their troops, and to recognize Abdur Rahman as amir of Afghanistan, with the exception of Kandahar and some districts adjacent.

The evacuation of Afghanistan was settled on the terms proposed, and in 1881 the British troops also made over Kandahar to the new amir; but Ayub Khan, one of Shere Ali's sons, marched upon that city from Herat, defeated Abdur Rahman's troops, and occupied the place in July.

To one who had been a man of war from his youth up, who had won and lost many fights, the rout of a detachment and the forcible seizure of some debateable frontier lands was an untoward incident; but it was no sufficient reason for calling upon the British, although they had guaranteed his territory's integrity, to vindicate his rights by hostilities which would certainly bring upon him a Russian invasion from the north, and would compel his British allies to throw an army into Afghanistan from the south-east.

In 1893 Sir Henry Durand was deputed to Kabul by the government of India for the purpose of settling an exchange of territory required by the demarcation of the boundary between north-eastern Afghanistan and the Russian possessions, and in order to discuss with the amir other pending questions.

The territorial exchanges were amicably agreed upon; the relations between the Indian and Afghan governments, as previously arranged, were confirmed; and an understanding was reached upon the important and difficult subject of the border line of Afghanistan on the east, towards India.

His adventurous life, his forcible character, the position of his state as a barrier between the Indian and the Russian empires, and the skill with which he held the balance in dealing with them, combined to make him a prominent figure in contemporary Asiatic politics and will mark his reign as an epoch in the history of Afghanistan.

The chief river of Bokhara is the Oxus or Amu-darya, which separates it from Afghanistan on the south, and then flows along its south-west border.

One portion appears to have settled in western Afghanistan, hence called Sakasthana, in modern Persian Sejistan.

In Afghanistan the Sayads have much of the commerce in their hands, as their holy character allows them to pass unharmed where other Pathans would be murdered.

He went out to reverse the Afghan policy of Lord Lytton, and Kandahar was given up, the whole of Afghanistan being secured to Abdur Rahman.

Of three named species, one extends from South Russia to Siberia, while two others are respectively from Kurdistan and Afghanistan.

More exactly it consists of (1) the cis-Indus district of Hazara; (2) the comparatively narrow strip between the Indus and the hills constituting the settled districts of Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan; and (3) the rugged mountainous region between these districts and the borders of Afghanistan, which is inhabited by independent tribes.

The Gomal river drains a large area of central Afghanistan and forms the most important povindah (or Kafila) route on the frontier.

For centuries these tribes maintained their independence in the rugged hills which flank the present kingdom of Afghanistan.

Wind is a prevailing feature throughout Tibet at certain seasons of the year, as it is in the Pamirs, in Turkestan, in western Afghanistan and in Persia.

No great armies have ever crossed Tibet to invade India; even those of Jenghiz Khan took the circuitous route via Bokhara and Afghanistan, not the direct route from Mongolia across Tibet.

There are many from Afghanistan and India which are too poor to interest the European markets.

Although Kandahar has long ceased to be the seat of government, it is nevertheless by far the most important trade centre in Afghanistan, and the revenues of the Kandahar province assist largely in supporting the chief power at Kabul.

Fruit, indeed, besides being largely exported, forms the chief staple of the food supply of the inhabitants throughout Afghanistan.

Afghanistan was now practically dismembered.

Fateh Khan was barbarously murdered by Kamran (Mahmud's son) near Ghazni in 1818; and in retaliation Mahmud himself was driven from power, and the Barakzai clan secured the sovereignty of Afghanistan.

The British army of occupation in southern Afghanistan continued to occupy Kandahar from 1839 till the autumn of 1842, when General Nott marched on Kabul to meet Pollock's advance from Jalalabad.

The cantonments near the city, built by Nott's division, were repaired and again occupied by the British army in 1879, when Shere Ali was driven from power by the invasion of Afghanistan, nor were they finally evacuated till the spring of 1881.

The extent of Asoka's dominion included all India from the thirteenth degree of latitude up to the Himalayas, Nepal, Kashmir, the Swat valley, Afghanistan as far as the Hindu Kush, Sind and Baluchistan.

On the assassination of Nadir in 1 747, Ahmad, having failed in an attempt to seize the Persian treasures, retreated to Afghanistan, where he easily persuaded the native tribes to assert their independence and accept him as their sovereign.

In a later expedition he inflicted a severe defeat upon the Sikhs, but had to hasten westwards immediately afterwards in order to quell an insurrection in Afghanistan.

At the age of twenty he obtained from Zaman Shah, the king of Afghanistan, a grant of Lahore, which he seized by force of arms in 1799.

In 1833 when Shah Shuja, flying from Afghanistan, sought refuge at his court, he took from him the Koh-i-nor diamond, which subsequently came into the possession of the British crown.

Though he disapproved of Lord Auckland's policy of substituting Shah Shuja for Dost Mahomed, he loyally supported the British in their advance on Afghanistan.

The state of things which prevails in modern Afghanistan, where trade is in the hands of a class distinct in race and speech (Persian in this case) from the ruling race of fighters is very probably analogous to that which we should have found in Iran under the Parthians.'

A cloud having arisen on the frontiers of Afghanistan, the withdrawal of the troops from the Sudan was ordered on the 11th of May.

The Sunnites, who accept the orthodox tradition (Sunna) as well as the Koran as a source of theologico-juristic doctrines, predominate in Arabia, the Turkish Empire, the north of Africa, Turkestan, Afghanistan and the Mahommedan parts of India and the east of Asia; the Shi`ites have their main seat in Persia, where their confession is the state religion, but are also scattered over the whole sphere of Islam, especially in India and the regions bordering on Persia, except among the nomad Tatars, who are all nominally Sunnite.

Most of them we know only by their coins, a great many of which are found in Afghanistan and India.

On the coins struck in India, the well-known Indian alphabet (called Brahmi by the Indians, the older form of the Devanagari) is used; on the coins struck in Afghanistan and in the Punjab the Kharoshthi alphabet, which is derived directly from the Aramaic and was in common use in the western parts of India, as is shown by one of the inscriptions of Asoka and by the recent discovery of many fragments of Indian manuscripts, written in Kharoshthi, in eastern Turkestan (formerly this alphabet has been called Arianic or Bactrian Pali; the true name is derived from Indian sources).

As a strategical centre Jalalabad is one of the most important positions in Afghanistan, for it dominates the entrances to the Laghman and the Kunar valleys; commanding routes to Chitral or India north of the Khyber, as well as the Kabul-Peshawar road.

From Lake Victoria (Sor-Kul) in the Pamirs, which was originally reckoned as the true source of the river, to Khamiab, on the edge of the Andkhui district of Afghan Turkestan, for a distance of about 680 m., the Oxus forms the boundary between Afghanistan and Russia.

Since then the right bank of the river has been politically divided from the left, and the latter now belongs to Afghanistan.

From the Yue-chi arose, about the Christian era, the great Indo-Scythian dominion which extended across the Hindu Kush southwards, over Afghanistan and Sind.

The place is of both political and commercial importance, as the Indus is here crossed by the military and trade route through the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan.

The chief importance of Afghanistan in modern days is due to its position as a " buffer state " intervening between the two great empires of Asiatic Russia and British India.

Beginning with the Persian border at Zulfikar on the Hari Rud river, the boundary between Afghanistan and Russia follows a line roughly parallel to the course of the Paropamisus, and about 35 m.

The boundary meets the Oxus at Khamiab at the western extremity of the cultivated district of Khwaja Salar, and from that point to the eastern end of Lake Victoria in the Pamirs the main channel of the Oxus river forms the northern limits of Afghanistan.

Bending back westwards upon itself, the line of Afghan frontier now follows the water-parting of the Hindu Kush; and as the Hindu Kush absolutely overhangs the Oxus nearly opposite Ishkashim, it follows that, at this point, Afghanistan is about io m.

The backbone or main water-divide of the Hindu Kush continues to form the boundary between Afghanistan and those semi-independent native states which fringe Kashmir in this mountain region, until it reaches Kafiristan.

From near the Dorah pass (14,800 ft.), which connects Chitral with the Panja (or Oxus) river, a long, straight, snow-clad spur reaches southwards, which divides the Kafiristan valley of Bashgol from that of Chitral, and this continues to denote the eastern limits of Afghanistan till it nearly touches the Chitral river opposite the village of Arnawai, m.

From the abutment of the Hindu Kush on the Sarikol in the Pamir regions to Landi Kotal, and throughout its eastern and southern limits, the boundary of Afghanistan touches districts which were brought under British political control with the formation of the North-West Frontier Provinces of India in 1901.

South of the Gomal it separates the interests of Afghanistan from those of Baluchistan, which here adjoins the North-West Frontier Province.

Within the limits of this boundary Afghanistan comprises four main provinces, Northern Afghanistan or Kabul, Southern Afghanistan or Kandahar, Herat and Afghan Turkes Ghilzai and Hazara Highlands, Ghazni, Jalalabad and Kafiristan.

The kingdom of Kabul is the historic Afghanistan; the link which unites it to Kandahar, Herat and the other outlying provinces having been frequently broken and again restored by amirs of sufficient strength and capability.

The Kabul river drains Northern Afghanistan, the Hari Rud the province of Herat, and the Oxus that of Afghan Turkestan.

Afghanistan is largely a country of mountains and deserts; but there are wide tracts of highly irrigated and most productive country where fruit is grown in such abundance as to become an important item in the export trade.

The dominant mountain system of Afghanistan is the Hindu Kush, and that extension westwards of its water-divide which is indicated by the Koh-i-Baba to the north-west of Kabul, and by the Firozkhoi plateau (Karjistan), which merges still farther to the west by gentle gradients into the Paropamisus, and which may be traced across the Hari Rud to Mashad.

North of the main water-parting of Afghanistan the broad synclinal plateau into which the Hindu Kush is merged is traversed by the gorges of the Saighan, Bamian and Kamard tributaries of the Kunduz, and farther to the west by the Band-i-Amir or Balkh river.

After the Hindu Kush and the Turkestan mountains, that range which divides Ningrahar (or the valley of Jalalabad) from Kurram and the Afridi Tirah, and is called Safed Koh (also the name of the range south of the Hari Rud), is the most important, as it is the most impressive, in Afghanistan.

So far as we know at present the geological history of Afghanistan differs widely from that of India.

It was not till the Tertiary age, and even late in that age, that much of the land area of Afghanistan was raised above the sea-level.

Everywhere there have been great and constant changes of level since that period, and the process of flexure and the formation of anticlinals traversing the northern districts of Afghanistan is a process which is still in action.

So rapid has been the land elevation of Central Afghanistan that the erosive action of rivers has not been able to keep pace with that of upheaval; and the result all through Afghanistan (but specially marked in the great central highlands between Kabul and Herat) is the formation of those immensely deep gorges and defiles which are locally known as darns.

The highlands which shut off the Turkestan provinces from Southern Afghanistan have afforded the best opportunities for geological investigation, and as might be expected from their geographical position, the general result of the examination of exposed sections leads to the identification of geological affinity with Himalayan, Indian and Persian regions.

No fresh discoveries of minerals likely to be of high economic value to Afghanistan have been made of late years.

The most important feature in this connexion which was noted by the geologist of the RussoAfghan Commission is the existence of vast coal beds in northern Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, as in other regions near the great Eurasian system of folds, the Miocene includes extensive deposits of gypsum and salt.

Although volcanic cones are known both in Persia and in Baluchistan, none have yet been described in Afghanistan itself.

The Khyber, Kurram and Tochi are the best known, inasmuch as all these lines of advance into Afghanistan are held by British troops or Indian levies.

Trade does not extend largely between Afghanistan and India by the Tochi route, being locally confined to the valley and the districts at its head, yet this is the shortest and most direct route between Ghazni and the frontier, and in the palmy days of Ghazni raiding was the road by which the great robber Mahmud occasionally descended on to the Indus plains.

The Gomal is the great central trade route between Afghanistan and India; and the position, which is held by a tribal post at Wana, will do much to ensure its continued popularity.

The summer heat is great everywhere in Afghanistan, but most of all in the districts bordering on the Indus, especially Sewi, on the lower Helmund and in Seistan.

It is quite unfelt in the rest of Afghanistan, in which, as in all the west of Asia, the winter rains are the most considerable.

The cold is then intense and the force of the wind cyclonic. Speaking generally, the Afghanistan climate is a dry one.

The term Afghan really applies to one section only of the mixed conglomeration of nationalities which forms the people of Afghanistan, but this is the dominant section known as the Durani.

Popularly any inhabitant of Afghanistan is known as Afghan on the Indian frontier without distinction of origin or language; but the language division between the Parsiwan (or Persian-speaking Afghan) and the Pathan is a very distinct one.

The predominance of the Afghan in Afghanistan dates from the middle of the 18th century, when Ahmad Shah carved out Afghanistan from the previous conquests of Nadir Shah and called it the Durani empire.

Next to Turkey, Afghanistan is the most powerful Mahommedan kingdom in existence.

Education is confined to most elementary principles in Afghanistan.

Such advanced education as exists in Afghanistan is centred in the priests and physicians; but the ignorance of both is extreme.

The government of Afghanistan is an absolute monarchy under the amir, and succession to the throne is hereditary.

There are government departments for the administration of revenue, customs, post-office, military affairs, &c. The general law administered in all the courts of Afghanistan is that of Islam and of the customs of the country, with developments introduced by the Amir Abdur Rahman.

The two chief fastnesses of Northern Afghanistan are Herat and Dehdadi near Balkh.

Financially, Afghanistan has never, since it first became a kingdom, been able to pay for its own government, public works Finance.

Few minerals are wrought in Afghanistan, though Abdur Rahman claims in his autobiography that the country is rich minerals.

Copper ore from various parts of Afghanistan has been seen, but it is nowhere worked.

Nitre abounds in the soil over all the south-west of Afghanistan, and often affects the water of the karez or subterranean canals.

The characteristic distribution of vegetation on the mountains of Afghanistan is worthy of attention.

One of the most important of these is the gum-resin of Narthex asafetida, which grows abundantly in the high and dry plains of Western Afghanistan, especially between Kandahar and Unculti- Herat.

It ducts of is not so used in Afghanistan, but the Seistan people eat value.

Pistacia khinjak affords a mastic. The fruit, mixed with its resin, is used for food by the Achakzais in Southern Afghanistan.

Open canals are usual in the Kabul valley, and in eastern Afghanistan generally; but over all the western parts of the country much use is made of the karez, which is a subterranean aqueduct uniting the waters of several springs, and conducting their combined volume to the surface at a lower level.

As regards vertebrate zoology, Afghanistan lies on the frontier of three regions, viz.

Afghanistan appears to be, during the breeding season, the retreat of a variety of Indian and some African (desert) forms, whilst in winter the avifauna becomes overwhelmingly Eurasian.

Poshtins (sheepskin clothing) and the many varieties of camel and goat's hair-cloth which, under the name of " barak," " karak," &c., are manu factured in the northern districts, are still the chief local products of that part of Afghanistan.

Comparison with trade statistics of previous years on this side Afghanistan is difficult, owing to the inclusion of a large section of Baluchistan and Persia within the official " Kandahar " returns; but it does not appear that the value of the western Afghanistan trade is much on the increase.

In the year after the mission of Sir Louis Dane to Kabul in 1905 it was authoritatively stated that the trade between Afghanistan and India had nearly doubled in value.

In architectural relics of a later date than the GraecoBuddhist period Afghanistan is remarkably deficient.

A vast and fruitful harvest of coins has been gathered in Afghanistan and the adjoining regions.

In the time of Darius Hystaspes (zoo B.C.) we find the region now called Afghanistan embraced in the Achaemenian satrapies, and various parts of it occupied by Sarangians (in Seistan), Arians (in Herat), Sattagydians (supposed in highlands of upper Helmund and the plateau of Ghazni), Dadicae (suggested to be Tajiks), Aparytae (mountaineers, perhaps of Safed Koh, where lay the Paryetae of Ptolemy), Gandarii (in Lower Kabul basin) and Paktyes, on or near the Indus.

But their power extended certainly over the Kabul basin, and probably, at times, over the whole of Afghanistan.

Near the Christian era the chief of one of these, which was called Kushan, subdued the rest, and extended his conquests over the countries south of the Hindu Kush, including Sind as well as Afghanistan, thus establishing a great dominion, of which we hear from Greek writers as Indo-Scythia.

For a century and more after the Mongol invasion the whole of the Afghan countries were under Mongol rule; but in the middle of the 14th century a native dynasty sprang up in western Afghanistan, that of the Kurts, which extended its rule over Ghor, Herat and Kandahar.

With Ahmad Shah, Afghanistan, as such, first took a place among the kingdoms of the earth, and the Durani dynasty, which he founded, still occupies its throne.

Having long suffered from a terrible disease, he died in 1773, bequeathing to his son Timur a dominion which embraced not only Afghanistan to its utmost limits, but the Punjab, Kashmir and Turkestan to the Oxus, with Sind, Baluchistan and Khorasan as tributary governments.

The citadel and central bazaar of Kabul were destroyed, and the army finally evacuated Afghanistan, December 1842.

The leading chiefs of Afghanistan perceived that the maintenance of Shah Shuja'?

It has been said that the declared object of this policy had been to maintain the independence and integrity of Afghanistan, to secure the friendly alliance of its ruler, and thus to interpose a great barrier of mountainous country between the expanding power of Russia in Central Asia and the British dominion in India.

The meeting between the amir Shere Ali and the viceroy of India (Lord Mayo) at Umballa in 1869 drew nearer the relations between the two governments; the amir consolidated and began to centralize his power; and the establishment of a strong, friendly and united Afghanistan became again the keynote of British policy beyond the north-western frontier of India.

In 1869 the Russian government had assured Lord Clarendon that they regarded Afghanistan as completely outside the sphere of their influence; and in 1872 the boundary line of Afghanistan on the north-west had been settled between England and Russia so far eastward as Lake Victoria.

Nevertheless the correspondence between Kabul and Tashkend continued, and as the Russians were now extending their dominion over all the region beyond Afghanistan on the northwest, the British government determined, in 1876, once more to undertake active measures for securing their political ascendancy in that country.

The result of overtures made to him from India was that in 1877, when Lord Lytton, acting under direct instructions from Her Majesty's ministry, proposed to Shere Ali a treaty of alliance, Shere Ali showed himself very little disposed to welcome the offer; and upon his refusal to admit a British agent into Afghanistan the negotiations finally broke down.

Another force under Sir Frederick Roberts marched up to the high passes leading out of Kurram into the interior of Afghanistan, defeated the amir's troops at the Peiwar Kotal, and seized the Shutargardan Pass which commands a direct route to Kabul through the Logar valley.

The negotiations that followed ended in the conclusion of the treaty of Gandamak in May 1879, by which Yakub Khan was recognized as amir; certain outlying tracts of Afghanistan were transferred to the British government; the amir placed in its hands the entire control of his foreign relations, receiving in return a guarantee against foreign aggression; and the establishment of a British envoy at Kabul was at last conceded.

The general position and prospect of political affairs in Afghanistan bore, indeed, an instructive resemblance to the situation just forty years earlier, in 1840, with the important differences that the Punjab and Sind had since become British, and that communications between Kabul and India were this time secure.

In March 1880 he came back across the river, and began to establish himself in the northern province of Afghanistan.

Sir Frederick Roberts at once set out from Kabul with io,000 men to its relief, reached Kandahar after a rapid march of 313 miles, attacked and routed Ayub Khan's army on the 1st of September, and restored British authority in southern Afghanistan.

In 1884 it was determined to resume the demarcation, by a joint commission of British and Russian officers, of the northern boundary of Afghanistan.

Some local revolts among the tribes were rigorously suppressed; and two attempts to upset his rulership - the first by Ayub Khan, who entered Afghanistan from Persia, the second and more dangerous one by Ishak Khan, the amir's cousin, who rebelled against him in Afghan Turkestan - were defeated.

By 1891 the amir had enforced his supreme authority throughout Afghanistan more completely than any of his predecessors.

In short, Abdur Rahman's reign produced an important political revolution, or reformation, in Afghanistan, which rose from the condition of a country distracted by chronic civil wars, under rulers whose authority depended upon their power to hold down or conciliate fierce and semi-independent tribes in the outlying parts of the dominion, to the rank of a formidable military state governed autocratically.

This condition was loyally observed by the new amir, who referred to India all communications of an official kind received from the Russian authorities in the provinces bordering on Afghanistan.

But toward the various questions left pending between the governments of India and Afghanistan the new amir maintained also his father's attitude.

But the rebuff showed that it was desirable in the interests both of the British government and of Afghanistan that an opportunity should be made for enabling the amir to have personal acquaintance with the highest Indian authorities.

The Anglo-Russian Convention, signed on the 31st of August 1907, contained the following important declarations with regard to Afghanistan.

Great Britain disclaimed any intention of altering the political status or (subject to the observance of the treaty of 1905) of interfering in the administration or annexing any territory of Afghanistan, and engaged to use her influence there in no manner threatening to Russia.

Russia, on her part, recognized Afghanistan as outside her sphere of influence.

The name " Hindustan," which was at one time adopted by European geographers, is of Persian origin, meaning " the land of the Hindus," as Afghanistan means " the land of the Afghans."

An ad j acent opening, the Khyber Pass, the Kurram Pass to the south of it, the Gomal Pass near Dera Ismail Khan, the Tochi Pass between the two last-named, and the famous Bolan Pass still farther south, furnish the gateways between India and Afghanistan.

On the north, the Himalaya range and the plateau of Afghanistan shut it off from the climate of central Asia, and give it a continental climate, the characteristics of which are the prevalence of land winds, great dryness of the air, large diurnal range of temperature, and little or no precipitation.

Abies smithiana extends into Afghanistan; Abies webbiana forms dense forests at altitudes of 8000 to 12,000 ft., and ranges from Bhutan to Kashmir; several junipers and the common yew (Taxus baccata) also occur.

The deodar (Cedrus Deodara), which is indigenous to the mountains of Afghanistan and the north-west Himalaya, is nearly allied to the Atlantic cedar and to the cedar of Lebanon, a form of which is found in Cyprus.

Of the Indo-European family, the Iranian branch inhabits Persia, Afghanistan and Baluchistan; while the Indo-Aryan branch is spoken by the great mass of the people of northern India.

Fa-Hien entered India from Afghanistan, and journeyed down the whole Gangetic valley to the Bay of Bengal in A.D.

A Buddhist monarch ruled over ten kingdoms in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan, Nepal, Eastern Turkestan, Tibet, Mongolia, Manchuria, China, Japan, the Eastern Archipelago, Siam, Burma, Ceylon and India at one time marked the magnificent circumference of its conquests.

Their historians spoke of two classes of Indians - certain mountainous tribes who dwelt in northern Afghanistan under the Caucasus or Hindu Kush, and a maritime race living on the coast of Baluchistan.

Asoka's empire included the greater part of Afghanistan, a large part of Baluchistan, Sind, Kashmir, Nepal, Bengal to the mouths of the Ganges, and peninsular India down to the Palar river.

Mahmud was the eldest son of Sabuktagin, surnamed Nasr-ud-din, in origin a Turkish slave, who had established his rule over the greater part of modern Afghanistan and Khorassan, with Ghazni as his capital.

Until the British invasion of Afghanistan in 1839, the club of Mahmud and the wood gates of Somnath were preserved at the tomb of the great conqueror near Ghazni.

In his time the Indian government first opened relations with a new set of foreign powers by sending embassies to the Punjab, to Afghanistan and to Persia.

Sir Charles Metcalfe was the envoy to the court of Ranjit Singh at Lahore; Mountstuart Elphinstone met the shah of Afghanistan at Peshawar; and Sir John Malcolm was despatched to Persia.

The disaster in Afghanistan was quickly followed by the conquest of Sind, the two wars in the Punjab, the second Burmese War, and last of all the Mutiny.

In 1837, when the curtain rises upon the drama of British interference in Afghanistan, the usurper, Dost Mahommed Barakzai, was firmly established at Kabul.

At this time the Russians were advancing rapidly in Central Asia, and a Persian army, not without Russian support, was besieging Herat, the traditional bulwark of Afghanistan on the east.

At this time both the Punjab and Sind were independent kingdoms. Sind was the less powerful of the two, and, therefore, a British army escorting Shah Shuja made its way by that route to enter Afghanistan through the Bolan Pass.

During the two years that followed Afghanistan remained in the military occupation of the British.

The Umballa durbar, at which Shere Ali was recognized as amir of Afghanistan, though in one sense the completion of what Lord Lawrence had begun, owed much of its success to the personal influence of Lord Mayo himself.

In the autumn of 1878 the affairs of Afghanistan again forced themselves into notice.

Lord Ripon was sent out to India by the Liberal ministry of 1880 for the purpose of reversing Lord Lytton's policy in Afghanistan, and of introducing a more sympathetic system into the administration of India.

During the preceding decades Russia had gradually advanced her power from the Caspian across the Turkoman steppes to the border of Afghanistan, and Russian intrigue was largely responsible for the second Afghan war.

In 1893 the frontiers of Afghanistan and British India were defined by a joint agreement between the two governments, known as the Durand agreement.

One body remained in Transoxiana and, after resting for a time, pushed their way through the mountains into Afghanistan and India, exactly as the Yue-Chi had done before them.

He was, however, in his turn driven out of Afghanistan in 1809 by Mahmud Shah, and found refuge and a pension in British territory.

There are many Kizilbashes in Afghanistan.

The principal tracts still unmeasured and unenumerated (in any strict sense) in the Old World are the Turkish Empire, Persia, Afghanistan, China and the Indo-Chinese peninsula and nearly nine-tenths of Africa.

P. pyrenaica is a handsome species of pyramidal form, attaining a large size on the mountains of northern Spain, whence it extends through the Mediterranean region to Asia Minor, northern Persia and Afghanistan.

There were indeed vassal states on every hand, but the actual possessions of the kingsthe provinces governed by their satrapsconsisted of a rather narrow strip of land, stretching from the Euphrates and north Babylonia through southern Media and Parthia as far as Arachosia (north-west Afghanistan), and following the course of the great trade-route which from time immemorial had carried the traffic between the west of Asia and India.

Neither the territories north of the Oxus, nor eastern Afghanistan and the Indus provinces, were ever subject to them.

The first of the house was Aiptagin, a Turkish slave of the Samanid Mansur I., who, having quarrelled with his master, took refuge in Afghanistan and founded a semi-independent authority.

Asia Minor, Afghanistan and India, he had at this time left his indelible mark upon the chief cities and provinces of Persia.

But before setting out for Afghanistan he took measures to secure the internal quiet of Persia, attacking and seizing in his stronghold the chief of the marauding Bakhtiaris, whom he put to death, retaining many of his men for service as soldiers.

By the action of Abmad Abdali, Afghanistan was at once lost to the Persian crown, for this leader was strong enough to found an independent kingdom.

At this juncture Abmad Shah Abdali reappeared in Persian Khorasan from Herat; he attacked and took possession of Meshed, slew Mir Alam, and, pledging the local chiefs to support the blinded prince in retaining the kingdom of his grandfather, returned to Afghanistan.

Moreover, the family divisions among the ruling houses of Afghanistan grew from day to day more destructive to that patriotism and sense of nationality which Ahmad Shah had held out to his countrymen as the sole specifics for becoming a strong people.

As to Afghanistan, the vizier Yar Mahommed had in 1842, when the British troops were perishing in the passes, or otherwise in the midst of dangers, caused Kamran to be suffocated in his prison.

With the exception of a small force retained at Bushire under General John Jacob for the three months assigned for execution of the ratifications and giving effect to certain stipulations of the treaty with regard to Afghanistan, the British troops returned to India, where their presence was greatly needed, owing to the outbreak of the Mutiny.

Difficulties had arisen both in arranging the preliminaries to arbitration and owing to the disordered state of Afghanistan, and it was therefore deemed advisable to commence operations by settling a frontier dispute between Persia and the Kalat state.

Frequent interruptions occurred on the telegraph line between Teheran and Meshed in 1885, at the time of the Panjdeh incident, when the Russians were advancing towards Afghanistan and Sir Peter Lumsden was on the Afghan frontier; and Sir Ronald Thomson concluded an agreement with the Persian government for the line to be kept in working order by an English inspector, the Indian government paying a share not exceeding 20,000 rupees per annum of the cost of maintenance, and an English signaller being stationed at Meshed.

The Seistan Mission of 1902-1905A dispute as to the frontier between Afghanistan and Seistan arose in 1902.

In January 1903, Colonel Arthur Henry MacMahon, who had previously delimited the, frontier between Afghanistan and British India, was despatched from Quetta.

It extends from the Gomal river to the Arabian Sea, and from the borders of Persia and Afghanistan to those of the Punjab and Sind.

North of the railway line, hedged in between Afghanistan and the plains of the Indus, stretch the long ridges of rough but picturesque highlands, which embrace the central ranges of the Suliman system (the prehistoric home of the Pathan highlander), where vegetation is often alpine, and the climate clear and bracing and subject to no great extremes of temperature.

From Domandi, at the junction of the Gomal and Kundar rivers, the boundary between Baluchistan and Afghanistan follows the Northern.

This part of Baluchistan thus presents a buffer system of independent tribes between the British frontier and Afghanistan.

It is true that the Indian government interferes as little with the internal jurisdiction of the tribal chiefs amongst the Pathans of the Suliman Range as it does with that of the northern chiefs; but the occupation of a line of posts on the Zhob river, which flanks that range almost from end to end on the west, places the doors of communication with Afghanistan in British hands, and gives command of their hills.

Westwards, looking towards Afghanistan, line upon line of broken jagged ridges and ranges, folds in the Cretaceous series overlaid by coarse sandstones and shales, follow each other in order, preserving their approximate parallelism until they touch the borders of Baluchistan.

The boundary between Baluchistan and Afghanistan, starting from Nushki, cuts across the Lora hamun, leaving the frontier post of Chagai to Baluchistan, and from this point to the Malik Siah Koh it is based partly on the central moun tainous water-divide already referred to, and partly runs in straight lines through the desert south of the salt swamps of the Gaud-i-Zirreh.

In 1839, when the British army advanced through the Bolan Pass towards Afghanistan, the conduct of Mehrab Khan, the ruler of Baluchistan, was considered so treacherous and dangerous as to require " the exaction of retribution from that chieftain," and " the execution of such arrangements as would establish future security in that quarter."

There is considerable through trade with Afghanistan by the Gomal Pass, and there are local manufactures of cotton cloth scarves and inlaid wood-work.

The alpine flora is slower in changing its character as we pass from east to west, but in Kashmir the vegetation of the higher mountains hardly differs from that of the mountains of Afghanistan, Persia and Siberia, even in species.

His elder brother, the chief of the Barakzai, Fatteh Khan, took an important part in raising Mahmud to the sovereignty of Afghanistan in 1800 and in restoring him to the throne in 1809.

He was then set at liberty, in consequence of the resolve of the British government to abandon the attempt to intervene in the internal politics of Afghanistan.

From 1846 he renewed his policy of hostility to the British and allied himself with the Sikhs; but after the defeat of his allies at Gujrat on the 21st of February 1849 he abandoned his designs and led his troops back into Afghanistan.

He plays a principal part in the later campaigns of Alexander in Afghanistan and India.

The cultivation of the poppy is also carried on in Afghanistan, Kashmir, Nepal and the Shan states of Burma, but the areas and production are not known.

From the Gomal river southward commences the true Suliman system, presenting an impenetrable barrier between the plains of the Indus and Afghanistan.

Alhagi manna (Persian and Arabic tar-angubin, also known as terendschabin) is the produce of Alhagi maurorum, a small, spiny, leguminous plant, growing in Arabia, Asia Minor, Persia, Afghanistan, Baluchistan and northern India.

Owing to complications arising from the demarcation of the boundary of Afghanistan which was being carried out at that time, and the ambitious projects of Umra Khan, chief of Jandol, which was a tool in the hands of Sher Afzul, a political refugee from Chitral supported by the amir at Kabul, the mehtar (or ruler) of Chitral was murdered, and a small British and Sikh garrison subsequently besieged in the fort.

At the same time, though acting with Russia in the Levant, the British government engaged in the affairs of Afghanistan to defeat her intriguesn Central Asia, and a contest with China was terminated by the conquest of Chusan, afterwards exchanged for the island of Hong-Kong.

The Helmund, which is identical with the ancient Etymander, is the most important river in Afghanistan, next to the Kabul river, which it exceeds both in volume and length.

Its southern limits, on the Pamirs, were fixed by an Anglo-Russian commission in 1885, from Zor-kul (Victoria Lake) to the Chinese frontier; and Shignan, Roshan and Wakhan were assigned to Bokhara in exchange for part of Darvaz (on the left bank of the Panj), which was given to Afghanistan.

In modern times it became a capital again, under Timur Shah (see Afghanistan), and so has continued both to the end of the Durani dynasty, and under the Barakzais, who now reign.

Returning to Asia, we find in Ladak, Astor, Afghanistan and the Punjab ranges, a sheep whose local races are variously known as urin, urial and shapo, and whose technical name is 0.

A controversy on the boundary of Canada and the United States was provoking increasing bitterness on both sides of the Atlantic. The intervention of Lord Palmerston in Syria, which resulted in a great military success at Acre, was embittering the relations between France and England, while the unfortunate expedition to Afghanistan, which the Whigs had approved, was already producing embarrassment, and was about to result in disaster.

In the earlier years of his administration the disaster in Afghanistan was repaired in a successful campaign; and Lord Ellenborough, who was sent over to replace Lord Auckland as governor-general, increased the dominion and responsibilities of the East India Company by the unscrupulous but brilliant policy which led to the conquest of Sind.

Afghanistan was again invaded.

A British army was again sent into Afghanistan, and Kabul was again occupied.

His policy entailed far more serious consequences than the mission to Afghanistan.

Imperialism, which had been excited by Lord Beaconsfields policy in 1878, and by the prospect of a war with a great European power, fell into discredit when it degenerated into a fresh expedition into Afghanistan, and an inglorious war with a savage African tribe.

The war in Afghanistan, which had begun with disaster, was creditably concluded.

In 1896 Dr Sven Hedin discovered in the desert not far from the town of Khotan, in a locality known as Borasan, objects in terra-cotta, bronze images of Buddha, engraved gems, coins and MSS.; the objects, which display artistic skill, give indications of having been wrought by craftsmen who laboured to reproduce Graeco-Indian ideals in the service of the cult of Buddha, and consequently date presumably from the 3rd century B.C., when the successors of Alexander the Great were founding their kingdoms in Persia, Khwarezm (Khiva), Merv, Bactria (Afghanistan) and northern India, and from that date to the 4th or 5th century A.D.

It was the active hostility between the amir of Kabul (who claimed sovereignty of the same districts) and Umra Khan that led, firstly to the demarcation agreement of 1893 which fixed the boundary of Afghanistan in Kunar; and, secondly, to the invasion of Chitral by Umra Khan (who was no party to the boundary settlement) and the siege of the Chitral fort in 1895.

In countries like Afghanistan the mullahs exert an influence over the populace which sometimes rivals that of the amir himself, and they have been responsible for many disturbances in Kabul.

The khanate is of importance as being one of the most northern in Afghanistan, on the Russian border.

The district was allotted to Afghanistan by the RussoAfghan boundary commission of 1885.

The most remarkable geographical feature of Seistan generally, in the modern acceptation of the term, is the Hamun, which stretches far and wide on the north, west and south, but is for a great part of the year dry or a mere swamp. It is a curious feature in the physical conformation of northern and western Afghanistan that none of the rivers flow to the sea, but that the Helmund and all the other rivers of western Afghanistan empty themselves into these lagoons, which spread over thousands of square miles.

Shortly after the death of Nadir (1751) Seistan passed, together with other provinces, into the hands of Ahmad Shah Abdali, the first sovereign in a united Afghanistan.

On the death of Ahmad Shah in 1773 the country became a recognized bone of contention, not so much between Persians and Afghans as between Herat and Kandahar; but eventually the internal dissensions of Afghanistan gave Persia the desired opportunity; and by a steady course of intrigue and encroachment she managed to get within her grasp the better lands on the left bank of the lower Helmund and something on the right bank besides.

The latter is buttressed against hills at a much higher elevation than the Kharan desert, which is separated from the great expanse of the Helmund desert within the borders of "Afghanistan by a transverse band of serrated hills forming a distinct watershed from Nushki to Seistan.

The greater part of the Pathan country was placed under British political control by the Durand agreement made with the Amir of Afghanistan in 1893.

Afghanistan, forming part of a thick series of marine beds known as the Salt Range group. This group of sediments in the extrapeninsular area of India includes a basal boulder-bed, referred on convincing evidence to the same geological horizon as the glacial deposits of the Indian peninsula (Talchir boulder-beds), South.

Many academics appeared complacent about the ongoing bombing of Afghanistan, while others viewed it with cheerful approval.

During this period the Pamir and West Nuristan blocks of northeast Afghanistan were also accreted onto Eurasia.

In October 2002, they visited Afghanistan for two intense weeks where they investigated the aftermath of war in the twenty-first century.

Yes, Clinton launched a cruise missile attack on the mountains of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan, a country troubled with conflict and drought, looks barren in recent news footage.

The US is already bombing eastern Afghanistan in an effort to prevent a buildup of opposition forces there.

Learn about Afghanistan and Vietnam, the war torn territories you'll be invading to smuggle contraband and make a quick buck.

Afghanistan is in the grip of a three-year drought, the worst in living memory.

Zarbang is a world percussion ensemble representing the finest percussionists from Iran and Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has entered a new era of hope " .

Picture shows ewer from the British Museum The British Museum has a handful of ancient materials from Afghanistan starting from 190 180 BC.

Its government has battled Islamist guerrillas, some of whom were based in Afghanistan.

And an American flying gunship shot up a civilian wedding engagement party in Afghanistan, provoking outrage throughout the Islamic world.

He claims to have been to Afghanistan and smoked very strong hashish there and wants to know how to get some into this country.

Afghani A pure variety, never hybridized, imported from Afghanistan, grown in Holland.

Afghanistan continues to face an armed insurgency, led by remnants of the country's former Taleban regime.

Last spring Islamic insurgents from Afghanistan battled with Kyrgyz security forces, and President Askar Akayev warned of worse to come this year.

Afghanistan itself is an amazing and endlessly intriguing place, fascinating to experience.

It is only since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan that Pakistan has entered the region.

Journalists in Pakistan also faced difficulties, mainly reporting from the often lawless and extremely dangerous tribal regions that border Afghanistan.

This was seen as an analogous occupation to that of the Soviets in Afghanistan, and particularly odious in the land of Mecca.

She also presented the open-ended coverage for ITV News on the night the US started their bombing offensive in Kabul in Afghanistan.

The Bundeswehr needs the base in Termez for the peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan.

But we do care about the humanitarian plight of people in Afghanistan.

For Afghanistan we had several statements on humanitarian relief.

In any case, the US does not have the right to attack Iraq under the same rubric that it claimed for Afghanistan.

But even a miracle of western statecraft would only lead to Afghanistan's impoverished neighbors seizing a greater share of this lucrative trade.

However, they did not represent the totality of the people inside Afghanistan.

In Afghanistan, Islamic traditionalism was strong, and warlords and traditional leaders had much to lose from foreign interference.

The charter will then travel to Paris, pick up more young failed asylum seekers from Afghanistan in France for onward transit to Kabul.

After ignoring several British ultimatums, in November 1878, British forces invaded Afghanistan.

The new priest has been a naval chaplain and is not unaccustomed to entering Afghanistan and Iraq by helicopter.

But that strategy has left Afghanistan at the mercy of brutal warlords and at perpetual risk of chaos.

Of course Afghanistan like everywhere has whores but it is very much hidden here.

In Afghanistan, Nato does indeed appear to be failing, judged by the most obvious yardsticks.

The great elevations above the sea-level of the central part of Asia, and of the table-lands of Afghanistan and Persia, tend to exaggerate the winter cold; while the sterility of the surface, due to the small rainfall over the same region, operates powerfully in the opposite direction in increasing the summer heat.

Peculiar forms of Leguminosae also prevail, and these, with many of the other plants of the southern and drier regions of Siberia, or of the colder regions of the desert tracts of Persia and Afghanistan, extend into Tibet, where the extreme drought and the hot (nearly vertical) sun combine to produce a summer climate not greatly differing from that of the plains of central Asia.

South of Arnawai the Kunar valley becomes a part of Afghanistan (see Kunar).

Khan is still applied to semi-independent rulers, such as the khans of Russian Turkestan, or the khan of Kalat in Baluchistan, and is also used immediately after the name of rulers such as the sultan of Turkey; the meaning of the term has also extended downwards, until in Persia and Afghanistan it has become an affix to the name of any Mahommedan gentleman, like Esquire, and in India it has become a part of many Mahommedan names, especially when Pathan descent is claimed.

The principal regions of which the population is still a matter of mere conjecture are the Turkish empire, Persia, Afghanistan, China and the Indo-Chinese peninsula, in Asia, nearly nine-tenths of Africa, and a considerable portion of South America.

From that time Abdur Rahman was fairly seated on the throne at Kabul, and in the course of the next few years he consolidated his dominion over all Afghanistan, suppressing insurrections by a sharp and relentless use of his despotic authority.

In 1885, at the moment when (see Afghanistan) the amir was in conference with the British viceroy, Lord Dufferin, in India, the news came of a collision between Russian and Afghan troops at Panjdeh, over a disputed point in the demarcation of the north-western frontier of Afghanistan.

These do not hunt in packs, but will sometimes singly attack a bullock; they and the wolves make havoc among sheep. A favourite feat of the boldest of the young men of southern Afghanistan is to enter the hyena's den, single-handed, muffle and tie him.

The nebulous claims of Afghanistan to Sibi and Pishin were disposed of by the treaty of Gandamak in the spring of 1879, and the final consolidation of the existing form of Kalat administration was effected by Sandeman's expedition to Kharan in 1883, and the reconciliation of Azad Khan, the great Naushirwani chief, with the khan of Kalat.

Shir Khist, a manna known to writers on materia medica in the 16th century, is imported into India from Afghanistan and Turkestan to a limited extent; it is the produce of Cotoneaster nummularia (Rosaceae), and to a less extent of Atraphaxis spinosa (Polygonaceae); it is brought chiefly from Herat.

A confused and unsatisfactory war in Afghanistan, troubles yet more unsatisfactory in South Africa, conspired with two or three years of commercial distress to invigorate "the swing of the pendulum" when he dissolved parliament in 1880.

Washington blamed bin Laden and retaliated with missile strikes on his alleged bases in Afghanistan and Sudan.

He said he is satisfied with the progress of the anti-terrorism campaign underway in Afghanistan.

Parts of Afghanistan, one of the problem countries, are snowbound for months every year.