' I may fortify my own
experience by what was told me by an Austrian gentleman who visited
India about seven years ago. He paid a visit to the Maharaja, of
Cashmere, who said to him: 'From you I hope to get the truth; you
are not an Englishman nor a Russian. Tell me which is the stronger--
the English power or the Russian; because it will be necessarily my
duty, if Russia should advance, and if I should find Russia stronger
than England, to go for the defence of my throne on the side of
Russia.'"]
The same authority approves Sir Michael Biddulph's recommendation to
utilize the strong natural positions near Girishk on the Helmund. As
to Afghanistan he testifies: "With a power like Russia closing on
it, holding Persia and Persian resources subject to its will, it is
in vain to think that Afghanistan will be long independent even in
name. It is between hammer and anvil, or, to use a still more
expressive metaphor, between the devil and the deep sea. Bound to us
by no traditions, by no strong political influences such as might
have been used to constrain them, the Afghan tribes, mercenary and
perfidious to a proverb, an aggregate of tribes--not a nation,--will
lose no time, when the moment occurs, in siding with the great power
which promises most lavishly, or which can lay strongest hold on
them.
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