Journal of the Royal United
Service Institution
VOL. XIX. 1875. No. LXXX.
LECTURE.
Page 9
with India, European
merchandize reached Herat from the west, via Tehran,
Indian caravans bringing only muslin and silk
handkerchiefs, or silver for Hindu usurers, and taking
back pistachios, gall nuts, and manna. He found, in
short, European commerce in this quarter in a languishing
condition, and was struck by a circumstance, already
noted at Tabriz and Tehran, that our goods had almost
wholly disappeared from the markets of Central Asia,
where the English cloths had been .replaced by German
cloths and Swiss printed calicoes. French velvets,
brocades, and jewelry were not in great demand, and
Russia was disposing, here as elsewhere, of bar iron,
cast iron, brass, steel, and such like, with the full
confidence that the Caspian route would remain beyond the
reach of all hurtful opposition, though strengthened by a
completed network of Indian railways.
In coming now to the question of the
road, I must apologize for a delay which would be
unpardonable if our journey were from London, but is
hardly irrelevant when the starting-point is in Afghanistan.
Abbott's and Shakespeare's Journeys. — Captain
Abbott left Herat on Christmas Eve, 1839; Captain
Shakespeare followed on the 4th of May, 18-10, not five
months afterwards. The former, besides his mirza or
secretary and personal attendants, was accompanied by a
relative of the Wazir Yar Muhammad, but was induced to
rid himself of this comfortless escort on reaching the
Khivan frontier. The latter was perhaps more fortunate in
his assistants, and gives a good report of his Herati
Kadhi and son, besides a third Afghan, a gallant Indian
irregular trooper, and others of his mixed suite. It must
be borne in mind that these missions were conducted at a
time when Central India was disturbed, not only by
movements from Orenburg and the Caspian, but by rumors
from an English camp which had pitched in the very heart
of Afghanistan, unsettling men's minds and stirring up
national jealousies and religious prejudices on either
side the Hindu Kush.
Herat to Merv. — Both Abbott and Shakespeare made
their first march to Parwanah, a village 11 miles north
of Herat, reached by a good road rising through low
hills. Hence, while Abbott was led, two marches off the
direct road, to Khushk, the black-tented capital of the
Jamshidis, Shakespeare appears to have pushed on in a
straight course; first, for 12 1/2 miles, by a good easy
road, to a handsome but spacious caravanserai, 1 old, but
not quite a ruin; on the next day, for 45 miles, to a
grassy spot on the banks of the Khushk river. Of the
second march he describes the first 17 miles of the road
as “truly beautiful," and estimates the
elevation of the passage over the mountain crest at 7,000
feet. “There are hundreds of hills," he writes,
“sloping off in” all directions, and covered
with the most luxuriant grass; every “variety of
color was to be found in the weeds, and every
little” valley had its own peculiar stream of the
purest water." They afterwards met many black-tented
"Khails" or nomad camps, with
1 I learn from General Abbott that
it must have been from this point that the two routes
actually divaricated. — F. J. Q.
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