--Having devoted a share of our limited space to an account
of the roads leading to Herat, from India, we may consider, briefly,
certain approaches to Afghanistan or India from the northwest. This
subject has been so clearly treated in a recent paper read before
the Royal United Service Institution by Captain Holdich, R.E., who
surveyed the region referred to, in 1880, that we quote liberally as
follows:
In improving our very imperfect acquaintance, both with the
present military resources and position of Russia in Central
Asia, and of the difficulties presented both geographically and
by the national characteristics of the races that she would have
to encounter in an advance south of the Oxus, a good deal has
been already learned from the Afghans themselves. Among the
turbulent tribes dwelling in and around Kabul, whose chief and
keenest interest always lies in that which bears, more or less
directly, on their chances of success in mere faction fights,
which they seem to regard as the highest occupation in life, the
Russian factor in the general game must be a matter of constant
discussion.
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