United States or British Virgin Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
With a force of 7500 men and 10 guns he left Herat on June 15, and moved towards the River Helmand, gathering around him numbers of tribesmen and ghazis . In order to break this gathering cloud of war betimes, the Indian Government ordered General Primrose, who commanded the British garrison at Candahar, to despatch a brigade to the Helmand.
But more interesting still, and an incentive to further exploration in that region, is another of his discoveries last year, also made near the Afghan border. At two sites in the Helmand Delta, well above the level of inundation, he came across fragments of pottery inscribed in early Aramaic characters, though, for obvious reasons, he has left them with all his other collections in India.
In front of him, at no great distance, was a far superior force flushed with fanaticism and the hope of easy triumph; the River Helmand offered little, if any, protection, for at that season it was everywhere fordable; behind him stretched twenty-five miles of burning desert.
During that period Bábar chastised the Afgháns of the mountains, took Swát, and finally acquired Kandahár by right of treaty . He took possession of, and incorporated in his dominions, that city and its dependencies, including parts of the lowlands lying chiefly along the lower course of the Helmand.
The discovery in Chinese Turkestan, to the east of the Caspian, of a prehistoric culture resembling that of Elam has now been followed by the finding of similar remains by Sir Aurel Stein in the course of the journey from which he has lately returned. They were discovered in an old basin of the Helmand River in Persian Seistan, where they had been laid bare by wind-erosion.
Accordingly, Brigadier-General Burrows, with 2300 British and Indian troops, marched out from Candahar on July 11. On the other side of the Helmand lay an Afghan force, acting in the British interest, sent thither by the Sirdar, Shere Ali. Two days later the whole native force mutinied and marched off towards Ayub Khan.