OF AFGHANISTAN, FROM THE EARLIEST PERIOD TO THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR OF 1878. BY COLONEL G. B. MALLESON, C.S.I. AUTHOR OF HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE NATIVE STATES OF INDIA," "Let us tell persons in high places that cunning is not caution, and Mr. Disraeli's Speech, 11th April 1845. FIRI IO!! JAN 79 ODLEIAN! LONDON: W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE, DEDICATION. TO RICHARD EVERARD WEBSTER, ESQ., Q.C. MY DEAR WEBSTER, FIFTEEN years ago I saw you to me a perfect stranger-win, under most trying circumstances-the two mile champion race at Cambridge. Little did I then think that I should one day rank you among my cherished friends. Since we met some years later, I have watched with the keenest interest every stage of your career, and have often been reminded of that day at Cambridge. I believe that the qualities you then displayed have in no small degree enabled you to achieve at so early an age the success which has marked your professional life. It is, however, not because you have been successful, but because your life has been marked throughout by a generous sympathy with and a clinging to all that is good and true, and by a thorough distaste for all that is the reverse, that I ask you to become sponsor to this my youngest literary offspring on his introduction to the world. He will need a protector, for his name alone will provoke controversy. Always most truly yours, G. B. MALLESON. 27 West Cromwell Road, 16th December 1878. INTRODUCTION. In the Preface to my work-"An Historical Sketch of the Native States of India”—published in 1875, I stated that the history of the practically independent countries on the borders of India, countries such as Persia, Bilúchistán, and Afghánistán, might possibly engage my attention at some future period. For that period, whenever it might be, I had collected notes and had drawn up a general sketch containing marginal references to the works necessary to be consulted. These I carefully stowed away, little dreaming that the time was so near at hand when I should be called upon to work them into shape. In the latter half of the month of September last public interest was suddenly excited by the intelligence that a distinguished soldier was about to proceed with |