Kabul Sentence Examples

The north-eastern portion of this range is of great altitude, and separates the headwaters of the Oxus, which run off to the Aral Sea, from those of the Indus and its Kabul tributary, which, uniting below Peshawar, are thence discharged southward into the Arabian Sea.

From the Khawak to the head of the Ghorband (a river of the Hindu Kush which, rising to the north-west of Kabul, flows north-east to meet the Panjshir near Charikar, whence they run united into the plains of Kohistan) the Hindu Kush is intersected by passes at intervals, all of which were surveyed, and several utilized, during the return of the Russo-Afghan boundary commission from the Oxus to Kabul in 1886.

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.

The YashkunChitral-Kunar river (it is called by all three names) is the longest affluent of the Kabul, and it is in many respects a more important river than the Kabul.

It joins the Kabul river a few miles below the city of Kabul.

Whilst the heavier troops moved down the Kabul valley to Pencelaotis (Charsadda) under Perdiccas and Hephaestion, Alexander with a body of lighter-armed troops and cavalry pushed up the valleys which join the Kabul from the north - through the regions now known as Bajour, Swat and Buner, inhabited by Indian hill peoples, as fierce then against the western intruder as their Pathan successors are against the British columns.

The Kabul (ancient Kophes), which is the most important (although not the largest) river in Afghanistan, rises at the foot of the Unai pass leading over the Sanglakh range, an offshoot of the Hindu Kush towards Bamian and Afghan Turkestan.

Its basin forms the province of Kabul, which includes all northern Afghanistan between the Hindu Kush and the Safed Koh ranges.

From its source to the city of Kabul the course of the river is only 45 m., and this part of it is often exhausted in summer for purposes of irrigation.

Half a mile east of Kabul it is joined by the Logar, a much larger river, which rises beyond Ghazni among the slopes of the Gul Koh (14,200 ft.), and drains the rich and picturesque valleys of LGgar and Wardak.

Below the confluence the Kabul becomes a rapid stream with a great volume of water and gradually absorbs the whole drainage of the Hindu Kush.

It rises in the northern slopes of the Koh-i-Baba to the west of Kabul, and finally loses itself in the Tejend oasis north of the Trans-Caspian railway and west of Merv.

He appears to have ascended from Kabul to the plateau of the Pamir, and thence onwards by Yarkand, Khotan and Aksu.

But in 1514 he was utterly defeated by the Uzbegs and with difficulty reached Kabul.

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.

The Kabul valley indicates the north-western entrance, and Makran indicates that on the west.

By the Kabul valley route, which includes at its head the group of passes across the Hindu Kush which extend from the Khawak to the Kaoshan, all those central Asian hordes, be they Sacae, Yue-chi, Jats, Goths or Huns, who were driven towards the rich plains of the south, entered the Punjab.

Later most of the historic invasions of India from central Asia followed the route which leads directly from Kabul to Peshawar and Delhi.

Antiochus next, following in the steps of Alexander, crossed into the Kabul valley, received the homage of the Indian king Sophagasenus and returned west by way of Seistan and Kerman (206/5).(206/5).

Its north-eastern boundaries were decided by the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1873, which expressly acknowledged "Badakshan with its dependent district Wakhan" as "fully belonging to the amir of Kabul," and limited it to the left or southern bank of the Oxus.

In 1765 the country was invaded and ravaged by the ruler of Kabul.

The Khawak, at the head of the Panjshir tributary of the Kabul river, leading straight from Badakshan to Charikar and the city of Kabul, is now an excellent kafila route, the road having been engineered under the amir Abdur Rahman's direction, and it is said to be available for traffic throughout the year.

Other passes across this important water-divide are the Shandur (12,250 ft.), between Gilgit and Mastuj; the Lowarai (10,450 ft.), between the Panjkora and Chitral valleys; and farther south certain lower crossings which once formed part of the great highway between Kabul and India.

Deep down in the trough of the Chitral river, about midway between its source and its junction with the Kabul at Jalalabad, is.

At length, however, the capture of Kabul in 1866 roused him to action; but in spite of his own bravery he suffered general defeat until 1868, when he regained Kabul.

Supported by the viceroys of India, Lord Lawrence and Lord Mayo, Shere Ali remained on good terms with the British government for some years; but after the rebellion of his son Yakub Khan, 1870-74, he leaned towards Russia, and welcomed a Russian agent'at Kabul in 1878, and at the same time refused to receive a British mission.

Southward lies Seistan (200 m.), and eastward Kabul (550 m.); while on the west four routes lead into Persia by Turbet to Meshed (215 m.), and by Birjend to Kerman (400 m.), to Yezd (500 m.), or to Isfahan (boo m.).

The Heratis are an agricultural race, and are not nearly so warlike as the Pathans from the neighbourhood of Kabul or Kandahar.

Let it suffice to say that Herat has been throughout the seat of an Afghan government, sometimes in subordination to Kabul and sometimes independent.

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 1808 he was appointed the first British envoy to the court of Kabul, with the object of securing a friendly alliance with the Afghans; but this proved of little value, because Shah Shuja was driven from the throne by his brother before it could be ratified.

The most valuable permanent result of the embassy was the literary fruit it bore several years afterwards in Elphinstone's great work on Kabul.

Although his father, Afzul Khan, who had none of these qualities, came to terms with the Amir Shere Ali, the son's behaviour in the northern province soon excited the amir's suspicion, and Abdur Rahman, when he was summoned to Kabul, fled across the Oxus into Bokhara.

After some delay and desultory fighting, he and his uncle, Azim Khan, occupied Kabul (March 1866).

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.

After some negotiations, an interview took place between him and Mr (afterwards Sir) Lepel Griffin, the diplomatic representative at Kabul of the Indian government, who described Abdur Rahman as a man of middle height, with an exceedingly intelligent face and frank and courteous manners, shrewd and able in conversation on the business in hand.

He led a force from Kabul, met Ayub's army close to Kandahar, and the complete victory which he there won forced Ayub Khan to fly into Persia.

Shortly afterwards (1892) he succeeded in finally beating down the resistance of the Hazara tribe, who vainly attempted to defend their immemorial independence, within their highlands, of the central authority at Kabul.

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.

He showed great ability at an early age, and was made governor of Herat by his father, but broke into open rebellion against him in 1870, and was imprisoned in 1874 in Kabul.

This outrage was instantly avenged, for in October Earl (then Sir Frederick) Roberts with a large force defeated the Afghans on the 6th and took possession of Kabul on the 12th.

But Mahmud found he had not yet sufficiently subdued the idolaters nearer his own border, between Kabul and the Indus, and the campaign of 1022 was directed against them, and reached no.

The rulers of these provinces bore the title of Satrap (Kshatrapa or Chhatrapa) and were apparently subordinate to a king who ruled over the valley of Kabul and the Punjab.

At the time of the latter's death his eldest surviving son, Prince Muazim, was governor of Kabul, and in his absence the next brother, Azam Shah, assumed the functions of royalty.

Muazim came down from Kabul, and with characteristic magnanimity offered to share the empire with his brother.

The range of the Safed Koh flanks the Kurram valley and encloses the Kabul basin, which finds its outlet to the Indus through the Mohmand hills.

Little control was exercised by the rulers of Kabul, and the country was administered by local chiefs or Afghan Sirdars very much as they pleased.

Geographically the Safed Koh is not an isolated range, for there is no break in the continuity of water divide which connects it with the great Shandur offshoot of the Hindu Kush except the narrow trough of the Kabul river, which cuts a deep waterway across where it makes its way from Dakka into the Peshawar plains.

Strategically it is an important topographical feature, for it divides the basin of the Kabul river and the Khyber route from the valley of Kurram, leaving no practicable pass across its rugged crest to connect the two.

Its western slopes, where it abuts on the mountain masses which dominate the Kabul plain, are forest-covered and picturesque, with deep glens intersecting them, and bold craggy ridges; the same may be said of the northern spurs which reach downward through the Shinwari country towards Gandamak and Jalalabad.

From Kabul, on the N.E., it is distant 315 m., by Kalat-iGhilzai and Ghazni - Kalat-i-Ghilzai being 85 m., and Ghazni 225 m.

Other routes there are, open to trade, between Herat and northern India, either following the banks of the Hari Rud, or, more circuitously, through the valley of the Helmund to Kabul; or the line of hills between the Arghandab and the Tarnak may be crossed close to Kalat-i-Ghilzai; but of the two former it may be said that they are not ways open to the passage of Afghan armies owing to the hereditary hostility existing between the Aeimak and Hazara tribes and the Afghans generally, while the latter is not beyond striking distance from Kandahar.

To the north-west, and parallel to the long ridges of the Tarnak watershed, stretches the great road to Kabul, traversed by Nott in 1842, and by Stewart and subsequently by Roberts in 1880.

Thus Kandahar becomes a sort of focus of all the direct routes converging from the wide-stretching western frontier of India towards Herat and Persia, and the fortress of Kandahar gives protection on the one hand to trade between Hindustan and Herat, and on the other it lends to Kabul security from invasion by way of Herat.

The walls of the city are pierced by the four principal gates of "Kabul," "Shikarpur," "Herat" and the "Idgah," opposite the four main streets, with two minor gates, called the Top Khana and the Bardurani respectively, in the western half of the city.

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.

Mahmud was reinstated by Fateh Khan, whom he appointed his vizier, and whose nephews, Dost Mahommed Khan and Kohn dil Khan, he placed respectively in the governments of Kabul and Kandahar.

While Dost Mahommed held Kabul, Kandahar became temporarily a sort of independent chiefship under two or three of his brothers.

Dost Mahommed was defeated near Kabul, and after surrender to the British force, was deported into Hindustan.

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 high road from Kabul to Kandahar passes this way (another reason for supposing the Tarnak to be Arachotus), and the people live off the road to avoid the onerous duties of hospitality.

Capital data are possibly waiting there under ground - the Kabul valley for instance is almost virgin soil for the archaeologist - and any conclusion we can arrive at is merely provisional.

Between it and Peshawar intervenes the Khyber Pass, and between it and Kabul the passes of Jagdalak, Khurd Kabul, &c. The site was chosen by the emperor Baber, and he laid out some gardens here; but the town itself was built by his grandson Akbar in A.D.

It resembles the city of Kabul on a smaller scale, and has one central bazaar, the streets generally being very narrow.

About 1765 the wazir of Ahmad Shah Abdali of Kabul invaded Badakshan, and from that time until now the domination of the countries on the south bank of the Oxus from Wakhan to Balkh has been a matter of frequent struggles between Afghans and Uzbegs.

Its remains lie in a valley of the Hazara country, on the chief road from Kabul towards Turkestan, and immediately at the northern foot of that prolongation of the Indian Caucasus now called Koh-i-Baba.

The passes on the Kabul side are not less than 11,000 and 12,000 ft.

There are hundreds of caves in this neighbourhood, all pointing to a line of Buddhist occupation connecting Balkh with Kabul.

Here the Bashgol and Chitral valleys unite and the boundary passes to the water-divide east of the Chitral river, after crossing it by a spur which leaves the insignificant Arnawai valley to the north; along this water-divide it extends to a point nearly opposite the quaint old town of Pashat in the Kunar valley (the Chitral river has become the Kunar in its course southwards), and then stretches away in an uneven and undefined line, dividing certain sections of the Mohmands from each other by hypothetical landmarks, till it strikes the Kabul river near Palosi.

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 geographical divisions of the country are created by the basins of its chief rivers, the Kabul, the Helmund, the Hari Rud and the Oxus.

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

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.

The culminating peaks of the Koh-i-Baba overlooking the sources of the Hari Rud, the Helmund, the Kunduz and the Kabul very nearly reach 17,000 ft.

On the south this great band of roughly undulating central plateau is bounded by the Koh-i-Baba, to the west of Kabul, and by the Hindu Kush to the north and north-east of that city.

Thus the main routes from Kabul to Afghan Turkestan must cross either one or other of these ranges, and must traverse one or other of the terrific defiles which have been carved out of them by the upper tributaries of the rivers running northwards towards the Oxus.

From this central dominating peak it falls gently towards the west, and gradually subsides in long spurs, reaching to within a few miles of Kabul and barring the road from Kabul to Ghazni.

At a point which is not far east of the Kabul meridian an offshoot is directed southwards, which becomes the water-parting between the Kurram and the Logar at Shutargardan, and can be traced to a connexion with the great watershed of the frontier dividing the Indus basin from that of the Helmund.

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.

Such as are known and worked at present have been worked from very ancient times, and their capacity is not likely to develop greatly under the Kabul government.

In the mountains west of Kabul glaciers have retired, leaving the moraines perfectly undisturbed.

Kabul is linked with Afghan Turkestan and Badakshan by three main lines of communication across the Koh-i-Baba and the Hindu Kush.

From Bamian it passes over the central mountain chain to Kabul either by the well-known passes of Irak (marking the water-divide of the Koh-i-Baba) and of Unai (marking the summit of the Sanglakh, a branch of the Hindu Kush), or else, turning eastwards, it crosses into the Ghorband valley by the Shibar, a pass which is considerably lower than the Irak and is very seldom snowbound.

From the foot of the Unai pass it follows the Kabul river, and from the foot of the Shibar it follows the circuitous route which is offered by the drainage of the Ghorband valley to Charikar, and thence southwards to Kabul.

That this has for centuries been regarded as the main route northward from Kabul, the Buddhist relics of Bamian and Haibak bear silent witness; but it may be doubted whether Abdur Rahman's talent for roadmaking has not opened out better alternative lines.

It is a recently developed route and one of great importance to Kabul, both strategically and commercially.

Between Kabul and Jalalabad there are two roads, one by the Lataband pass, and the other and more difficult by the Khurd-Kabul and Jagdalak passes, the latter being the scene of the massacre of a British brigade in 1842.

The Khyber was not in ancient times the main route of advance from Kabul to Peshawar.

From Kabul the old route followed the Kabul river through the valley of Laghman (or Lamghan, as the Afghans call it) over a gentle water-parting into the Kunar valley, leaving Ningrahar and Jalalabad to the south.

Between Kabul and Herat there is no " royal " road, the existing route passing over the frequently snowbound wastes that lie below the southern flank of the great Koh-iBaba into the upper valleys of the Hari Rud tributaries.

Between Kabul and Kandahar exists the well-known and oft-traversed route by Ghazni and Kalat-i-Ghilzai.

At Kabul, and over all the northern part of the country to the descent at Gandamak, winter is rigorous, but especially so on the high Arachosian plateau.

In Kabul the snow lies for two or three months; the people seldom leave their houses, and sleep close to stoves.

At Kabul the summer sun has great power, though the heat is tempered occasionally by cool breezes from the Hindu Kush, and the nights are usually cool.

As the emperor Baber said of Kabul, at one day's journey from it you may find a place where snow never falls, and at two hours' journey a place where snow almost never melts!

The universal custom of sleeping on the house-top in summer promotes rheumatic and neuralgic affections; and in the Koh Daman of Kabul, which the natives regard as having the finest of climates, the mortality from fever and bowel complaint, between July and October, is great, the immoderate use of fruit predisposing to such ailments.

In and about the centre of civilization at Kabul, instances of Ghazism are comparatively rare.

There are five chief political divisions in the country - namely, Kabul, Turkestan, Herat, Kandahar and Badakshan, titu- ' 'flon Cons and each of which is ruled by a " naib " or governor, who is directly responsible to the amir.

TheAfghan army probably numbers 50,000 regulars distributed between the military centres of Herat, Kandahar, Kabul, Mazari-Sharif, Jalalabad and Asmar, with detachments at frontier outposts on the side of India.

The amir's factories at Kabul for arms and ammunition are said to turn out about 20,000 cartridges and 15 rifles daily, with 2 guns per week; but-the arms thus produced are very heterogeneous, and the different varieties of cartridge used would cause endless complications.

Kabul is chiefly supplied with iron from the Permuli (or Farmuli) district, between the Upper Kurram and Gomal, where it is said to be abundant.

In the highlands of Kabul edible rhubarb is an important local luxury.

In the valleys of Kabul mulberries are dried, and packed in skins for winter use.

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.

Pointers are bred in the Kohistan of Kabul and above Jalalabad - large, heavy, slow-hunting, but fine-nosed and staunch; very like the old double-nosed Spanish pointer.

The value of the imports from Kabul to India in 1892-1893 was estimated at 221,000 Rx(or tens of rupees).

All this trade emanates from Kabul, there being no transit trade with Bokhara owing to the heavy dues levied by the amir.

The value of the exports from India to Kabul also shows great fluctuation.

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.

The basin of the Kabul river especially abounds in remains of the period when Buddhism flourished.

Bamian is famous for its wall-cut figures, and at Haibak (on the route between Tashkurghan and Kabul) there are some most interesting Buddhist remains.

In the Koh-Daman, north of Kabul, are the sites of several ancient cities, the greatest of which, called Beghram, has furnished coins in scores of thousands, and has been supposed to represent Alexander's Nicaea.

Nearer Kabul, and especially on the hills some miles south of the city, are numerous topes.

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.

The Ariana of Strabo corresponds generally with the existing dominions of Kabul, but overpasses their limits on the west and south.

About 310 B.C. Seleucus is said by Strabo to have given to the Indian Sandrocottus (Chandragupta), in consequence of a marriage-contract, some part of the country west of the Indus occupied by an Indian population, and no doubt embracing a part of the Kabul basin.

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

Demetrius (c. 190 B.C.) is supposed to have reigned in Arachosia after being expelled from Bactria, much as, at a later date, Baber reigned in Kabul after his expulsion from Samarkand.

With his coins, found abundantly in the Kabul basin, commences the use of an Arianian inscription, in addition to the Greek, supposed to imply the transfer of rule to the south of the mountains, over a people whom the Greek dynasty sought to conciliate.

Its traces are extensive, especially in the plains of Jalalabad and Peshawar, but also in the vicinity of Kabul.

The first Mahommedan attempts at the conquest of Kabul were unsuccessful, though Seistan and Arachosia were permanently held from an early date.

It was not till the end of the 10th century that a Hindu prince ceased to reign in Kabul, and it fell into the hands of the Turk Sabuktagin, who had established his capital at Ghazni.

All these countries were included in Timur's conquests, and Kabul at least had remained in the possession of one of his descendants till 1501, only three years before it fell into the hands of another and more illustrious one, Sultan Baber.

From the time of his conquest of Hindustan (victory at Panipat, April 21, 1526), Kabul and Kandahar may be regarded as part of the empire of Delhi under the (so-called) Mogul dynasty which Baber founded.

Kabul so continued till the invasion of Nadir Shah (1738).

In 1737-38 Nadir Shah both recovered Kandahar and took Kabul.

Timur transferred his residence from Kandahar to Kabul, and continued during a reign of twenty years to stave off the anarchy which followed close on his death.

The Saddozais were driven from Kabul, Ghazni and Kandahar, and with difficulty reached Herat (1818).

The rest of the country was divided among the Barakzais - Dost Mahommed, the ablest, getting Kabul.

During the two following years Shah Shuja and his allies remained in possession of Kabul and Kandahar.

On the 2nd of November 1841 the revolt broke out violently at Kabul, with the massacre of Burnes and other officers.

On the 6th of January 1842, after a convention to evacuate the country had been signed, the British garrison, still numbering 4500 soldiers (of whom 690 were Europeans), with some 12,000 followers, marched out of the camp. The winter was severe, the troops demoralised, the march a mass of confusion and massacre, and the force was finally overwhelmed in the Jagdalak pass between Kabul and Jalalabad.

Of those who left Kabul, only Dr Brydon reached Jalalabad, wounded and half dead.

But General Nott held Kandahar with a stern hand, and General Sale, who had reached Jalalabad from Kabul at the beginning.of the outbreak, maintained that important point gallantly.

After a long halt there he advanced (August 20), and gaining rapid successes, occupied Kabul (September 15), where Nott, after retaking and dismantling Ghazni, joined him two days later.

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

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.

Sir Donald Stewart's force, marching up through Baluchistan by the Bolan Pass, entered Kandahar with little or no resistance; while another army passed through the Khyber Pass and took up positions at Jalalabad and other places on the direct road to Kabul.

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.

In the meantime Yakub Khan, one of Shere Ali's sons, had announced to Major Cavagnari, the political agent at the headquarters of the British army, that he had succeeded his father at Kabul.

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.

For in September the envoy, Sir Louis Cavagnari, with his staff and escort, was massacred at Kabul, and the entire fabric of a friendly alliance went to pieces.

A fresh expedition was instantly despatched across the Shutargardan Pass under Sir Frederick Roberts, who defeated the Afghans at Charasia near Kabul, and entered the city in October.

Yakub Khan, who had surrendered, was sent to India; and the British army remained in military occupation of the district round Kabul until in December (1879) its communications with India were interrupted, and its position at the capital placed in serious jeopardy, by a general rising of the tribes.

After they had been repulsed and put down, not without some hard fighting, Sir Donald Stewart, who had not quitted Kandahar, brought a force up by Ghazni to Kabul, overcoming some resistance on his way, and assumed the supreme command.

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.

The viceroy of India, Lord Lytton, on hearing of his reappearance, instructed the political authorities at Kabul to communicate with him.

The province of Kandahar was severed from the Kabul dominion; and the sirdar Shere Ali Khan, a member of the Barakzai family, was installed by the British representative as its independent ruler.

In July 1880, a few days after the proclamation of Abdur Rahman as amir at Kabul, came news that Ayub Khan, Shere Ali's younger son, who had been holding Herat since his father's death, had marched upon Kandahar, had utterly defeated at Maiwand a British force that went out from Kandahar to oppose him, and was besieging that city.

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.

He marched rapidly from Kabul at the head of a force, with which he encountered Ayub Khan under the walls of Kandahar, and routed his army on 22nd September, taking all his guns and equipage.

With these resources, and with the advantage of an assurance from the British government that he would be aided against foreign aggression, he was able to establish an absolute military despotism inside his kingdom, by breaking down the power of the warlike tribes which held in check, up to his time, the personal autocracy of the Kabul rulers, and by organizing a regular army well furnished with European rifles and artillery.

An invitation from the viceroy to meet him in India, with the hope that these points might be settled in conference, was put aside by dilatory excuses, until at last the project was abandoned, and finally the amir agreed to receive at Kabul a diplomatic mission.

The mission, whose chief was Sir Louis Dane, foreign secretary to the Indian government, reached Kabul early in December 1904, and remained there four months in negotiation with the amir personally and with his representatives.

But the mountain wall is pierced at the corner where it strikes southwards from the Himalayas by an opening through which the Kabul river flows into India.

Alexander the Great entered India early in 327 B.C. Crossing the lofty Khawak and Kaoshan passes of the Hindu Kush, he advanced by Alexandria, a city previously founded in the Koh-i-Daman, and Nicaea, another city to the west of Jalalabad, on the road from Kabul to India.

In return for five hundred elephants, he ceded the Greek settlements in the Punjab and the Kabul valley, gave his daughter to Chandragupta in marriage, and stationed an ambassador, Megasthenes, at the Gangetic court (302 B.C.).

The later Guptas were overwhelmed (c. 470) by the White Huns, or Ephthalites, who after breaking the power of Persia and assailing the Kushan kingdom of Kabul, had poured into India, conquered Sind, and established their rule as far south as the Nerbudda.

Timur marched back to Samarkand as he had come, by way of Kabul, and Mahmud Tughlak ventured to return to his desolate capital.

Kabul submitted in 1581, Kashmir in 1587, Sind in 1592, and Kandahar in 1594.

All looked peaceful until Lord Auckland, prompted by his evil genius, attempted by force to place Shah Shuja upon the throne of Kabul, an attempt which ended in gross mismanagement and the annihilation of the British garrison in that city.

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

A Russian envoy was at Kabul at the same time as Burnes.

Lord Auckland forthwith resolved upon the hazardous plan of placing a more subservient ruler upon the throne of Kabul.

The catastrophe occurred in November 1841, when Sir Alexander Burnes was assassinated in the city of Kabul.

The rest perished in the defiles of Khurd Kabul and Jagdalak, either from the knives and matchlocks of the Afghans or from the effects of cold.

General Pollock, who was marching straight through the Punjab to relieve General Sale, was ordered to penetrate to Kabul, while General Nott was only too glad not to be forbidden to retire from Kandahar through Kabul.

The great bazar at Kabul was blown up with gunpowder to fix a stigma upon the city; the prisoners were recovered; and all marched back to India, leaving Dost Mahommed to take undisputed possession of his throne.

A treaty was entered into with his son, Yakub Khan, at Gandamak, by which the British frontier was advanced to the crests or farther sides of the passes and a British officer was admitted to reside at Kabul.

Yakub Khan abdicated, and was deported to India, while Kabul was occupied in force.

Shortly after wards a British brigade was defeated at Maiwand by the Herati army of Ayub Khan, a defeat promptly and completely retrieved by the brilliant march of General Sir Frederick Roberts from Kabul to Kandahar, and by the total rout of Ayub Khan's army on the 1st of September 1880.

Abdur Rahman Khan, the eldest male representative of the stock of Dost Mahommed, was then recognized as amir of Kabul.

Other generals penetrated as far as the Indus and conquered Kabul, Sijistan, Makran and Kandahar.

Balkh and Tokharistan, Bokhara, Samarkand and Khwarizm (modern Khiva), even Kabul and Kandahar had been subdued; but in the time of the civil war a great deal had been lost again.

The rebel then retired to Sijistan, and afterwards sought an asylum with the king of Kabul.

The pretender was betrayed by the king of Kabul and killed himself.

After the retreat of the British troops from Kabul, Shah Shuja shut himself up in the Bala Hissar.

Returning to the court of Uzbeg, at Sarai on the Volga, he crossed the steppes to Khwarizm and Bokhara; thence through Khorasan and Kabul, and over the Hindu Kush (to which he gives that name, its first occurrence).

A hill fortress dominates the town and overlooks the debouchment of the road from Haibak and Kabul into the plains of the Oxus.

Sultan Ahmad, eldest son of Abu Said, reigned in Bokhara; his brother, Ornar Sheikh, in Ferghana; but the son of the latter, the great Babar, was driven by the Uzbegs to Kabul and India.

In the mountainous districts of Kandahar and Kabul the hardy tribes of Afghans had for centuries led a wild and almost independent life.

Mirza Mahdi relates that from the Kabul plain he addressed a new remonstrance to the Delhi court, but that his envoy was arrested and killed, and his escort compelled to return by the governor of Jalalabad.

On the 5th of May 1739 he left the gardens of Shalamar, and proceeded by way of Lahore and Peshawar through the passes to Kabul.

Three years before Timur had died, and his third son, Zaman Shah, by the intrigues of an influential sirdar, Paiyanda Khan, and been proclaimed his successor at Kabul.

Now, however, that she marched her army against the place, Firuzu d-Din called in the aid of his brother Mahmud Shah of Kabul, who sent to him the famous vizier, Fath Khan Barakzai.

About this time Kohan Dil Khan, one of the chiefs of Kandahar, died, and Dost Mahommed of Kabul annexed the city to his territory.

The khanate is one of the "four domains," which were long in dispute between Bokhara and Kabul, but were allotted to the Afghans by the Anglo-Russian boundary agreement of 1873.

After this he visited Malwa, Cutch, Surashtra (peninsular Gujarat, Syrastrene of the Greeks), Sind, Multan and Ghazni, whence he rejoined his former course in the basin of the Kabul river.

On the death of Nadir Shah in 1747, he acknowledged the title of the king of Kabul, Ahmad Shah (Durani).

The khan frequently distinguished himself in the subsequent wars of Kabul; and, as a reward for his services, the king bestowed upon him several districts in perpetual and entire sovereignty.

Of these Dost Mahommed received for his share Ghazni, to which in 1826 he added Kabul, the richest of the Afghan provinces.

Rejecting overtures from Russia, he endeavoured to form an alliance with England, and welcomed Alexander Burnes to Kabul in 1837.

Shah Shuja was proclaimed amir, and entered Kabul on the 7th of August, while Dost Mahommed sought refuge in the wilds of the Hindu Kush.

He remained in captivity during the British occupation, during the disastrous retreat of the army of occupation in January 1842, and until the recapture of Kabul in the autumn of 1842.

On his return from Hindustan Dost Mahommed was received in triumph at Kabul, and set himself to re-establish his authority on a firm basis.

In the west wall are the Farash Khana and Ajmere gates, while the Kabul and Lahore gates, have been removed.

The khanate was for long in dispute between Bokhara and Kabul, but in 1868 Abdur Rahman laid siege to the town, and it was compelled to come to terms. Its political status as an Afghan province was definitely fixed by the Russo-Afghan boundary commission of 1885.

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.

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.

It rises in the recesses of the Koh-i-Baba to the west of Kabul, its infant stream parting the Unai pass from the Irak, the two chief passes on the well-known road from Kabul to Bamian.

Ethnically and historically Afghan Turkestan is more connected with Bokhara than with Kabul, of which government it has been a dependency only since the time of Dost Mahommed.

The sovereignty over Andkhui, Shibarghan, Saripul and Maimana was in dispute between Bokhara and Kabul until settled by the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1873 in favour of the Afghan claim.

Under the strong rule of Abdur Rahman these outlying territories were closely welded to Kabul; but after the accession of Habibullah the bonds once more relaxed.

Lying at the foot of the bare and rocky mountains forming the western boundary of the Kabul valley, just below the gorge made by the Kabul River, the city extends a mile and a half east to west and one mile north to south.

As the key of northern India, Kabul has been a city of vast importance for countless ages.

Indeed from the time of Baber to that of Nadir Shah (1526-1738) Kabul was part of the empire of Delhi.

Kabul was formerly walled; the old wall had seven gates, of which two alone remain, the Lahori and the Sirdar.

Pollock on evacuating Kabul in 1842 as a record of the treachery of the city.

Kabul is now connected by well-planned and metalled roads with Afghan Turkestan on the west, with the Oxus and Bokhara on the north, and with India on the east.

The road southwards to Ghazni and Kandahar was always naturally excellent and has probably needed little engineering, but the general principle of road-making in support of a military advance has always been consistently maintained, and the expeditions of Kabul troops to Kafiristan have been supported by a very well graded and substantially constructed road up the Kunar valley from Jalalabad to Asmar, and onwards to the Bashgol valley of Kafiristan.

Here, on a summer's day, with the scent of roses pervading the heated air, the cool refreshment of the passing breezes and of splashing fountains may be enjoyed by the officials of the Kabul court, whilst they look across the beauty of the thickly planted plains of Chardeh to the rugged outlines of Paghman and the snows of the Hindu Kush.

It is pleasant to record that the graveyard of those officers who fell in the Kabul campaign of 1879-1880, which lies at the northern end of the Bemaru ridge, is not uncared for.

Kabul is believed to be the Ortospanum or Ortospana of the geographies of Alexander's march, a name conjectured to be a corruption of Urddhasthana, " high place."

In the early Mahommedan histories and geographies we find (according to a favourite Arabic love of jingle) Kabul and Zabul constantly associated.

Kabul first became a capital when Baber made himself master of it in 1504, and here he reigned for fifteen years before his invasion of Hindustan.

Kabul is also the name of the province including the city so called.

Eastward it extends to the border of Jalalabad at Jagdalak; southward it includes the Logar district, and extends to the border of Ghazni; north-westward it includes the Paghman hills, and the valley of the upper Kabul river, and so to the Koh-i-Baba.

The history of the century and a half that follows is very obscure; short-lived Saka dynasties succeeded one another until, about 388, the country was conquered by the Guptas of Magadha, who kept a precarious tenure of it till about 470, when their empire was destroyed by the White Huns, or Ephthalites, who, after breaking the power of Persia and assailing the Kushan kingdom of Kabul, poured into India, conquered Sind, and established their dominion as far south as the Nerbudda.

A Russian envoy was sent to Kabul, where Shere Ali, who had succeeded his father Ddst Mahommed in 1863, was amir; and the British-government, alarmed at this new embarrassment, decided on sending a mission to the Afghan capital.

Kabul and Kandahar were occupied; and Shere Au was forced to fly, and soon afterwards died.

Under the terms of this treaty the In.diangovernment undertook to pay the new amir a subsidy of 60,000 a year; and Yakub Khan consented to receive a British mission at Kabul, and to cede some territory in the Himalayas which the military advisers of Lord Beaconsfield considered necessary to make the frontier more scientific. This apparent success was soon followed by disastrous news.

The new envoy reached Kabul, but was soon afterwards murdered.

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

At the period of their earliest literature, which may be assigned roughly to about 1000 B.C., they were still settled in the valley of the Indus, and at this time the separation probably had not long taken place, the Eastern portion of the stock having pushed their way along the Kabul valley into the open country of the Indus.

Haibak derives its importance from its position on the main line of communication between Kabul and Afghan Turkestan.

Across this barrier the old road from Kabul to India ran before the Khyber Pass was adopted as the main route.

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.

Filmed in the Supreme Court in Kabul in October 2002 the film depicts a crowded, rather run-down courtroom presided over by armed guards.

When the advance party reached Fort Ali Masjid on the Afghan frontier, passage to Kabul was formally refused.

Much of the country beyond Kabul is considered insecure.

Because the Kabul regime has so badly mismanaged the economy, the Afghan people are starving.

In the center is the royal monogram VRI around which is a band with the text " Kabul to Kandahar 1880 " .

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

Never the less, inexperienced US troops overreacted, as they did in Kabul, and fired into the crowd killing 14 civilians.

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

Shaker suffered particularly vicious torture in the Dark Prison in Kabul.

For three years he wandered about trying in vain to recover his lost possessions; at last, in 5504, he gathered some troops, and crossing the snowy Hindu Kush besieged and captured the strong city of Kabul.

He returned to Kabul in time to quell a formidable rebellion, but two years later a revolt among some of the leading Moguls drove him from his city.

In 1802, during one of these wars, Elphinstone passed through Bikanir on his way to Kabul; and the maharaja, Surat Singh (1788-1828), applied to him for British protection, which was, however, refused.

The original inhabitants of Ariana were no doubt of the Aryan family, and immediately cognate with the Persian race, but they were probably intermixed at a very early period with the Sacae and Massagetae, who seem to have held the mountains from Kabul to Herat from the first dawn of history, and to whom must be ascribed - rather than to an infusion of Turco-Tartaric blood introduced by the armies of Jenghiz and Timur - the peculiar broad features and flattish countenance which distinguish the inhabitants of Herat, Seistan and the eastern provinces of Persia from their countrymen farther to the west.

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.

At Attock the Kabul river brings down to the Indus the whole drainage of Kafiristan, Chitral, Panjkora, Swat and Peshawar district (see Kabul River).

The vast majority of Afghans are of the Sunni sect; but there are, in their midst, such powerful communities of Shiahs as the Hazaras of the central districts, the Kizilbashes of Kabul and the Turis of the Kurram border, nor is there between them that bitterness of sectarian animosity which is so marked a feature in India.

The amir Abdur Rahman died on the 1st of October 1901; and two days later his eldest son, Habibullah, formally announced his accession to the rulership. He was recognized with acclamation by the army, by the religious bodies, by the principal tribal chiefs and by all classes of the people as their lawful sovereign; while a deputation of Indian Mahommedans was despatched to Kabul from India to convey the condolences and congratulations of the viceroy.

In the next century Eucratides, king of Bactria, conquered as far as Alexander's royal city of Patala, and possibly sent expeditions into Cutch and Gujarat, 181-161 B.C. Of the Graeco-Indian monarchs, Menander advanced farthest into north-western India, and his coins are found from Kabul, near which he probably had his capital, as far as 1Vluttra on the Jumna.'

Kandahar surrendered, Ghazni was taken by storm, Dost Mahommed fled across the Hindu Kush, and Shah Shuja was triumphantly led into the Bala Hissar at Kabul in August 1839.

The US appears unlikely to make the Soviet mistake of installing a puppet regime in Kabul.

When Taliban captured Kabul, mutual benefits and Taliban 's puritanical views brought bin Laden close to the Afghan militia.

Most are terrified at the thought of leading a youth group, let alone a youth group on a trip to Kabul !

But when Ahmad Shah returned to Kabul the Sikhs rose once more and re-established their religion.

Nor did he, when this was accomplished, again strike directly at Bactria, but made a wide turning movement through Seistan over Kandahar into the Kabul valley.

By the winter of 329-328 Alexander had reached the Kabul valley at the foot of the Paropamisadae (Hindu Kush).

The ordinarily received chronology makes Alexander reach the Kabul valley in the winter of 330-329.

On all sides there was danger and revolt, even Baber's own soldiers, worn out with the heat of this new climate, longed for Kabul.