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The two main objects of the venturesome offensive movement to which Lord Auckland had committed himself were, first, the raising of the Persian siege of Herat if the place should hold out until reached the recapture of it if it should have fallen; and, secondly, the establishment of Shah Soojah on the Afghan throne.
The Commander-in-Chief was strong enough to counteract the pressure which Macnaghten brought to bear on Lord Auckland in favour of an expedition against Herat, which his lordship at length finally negatived, to the great disgust of the Envoy, who wrote of the conduct of his chief as 'drivelling beyond contempt, and 'sighed for a Wellesley or a Hastings. The ultimate result of Macnaghten's negotiations with Shah Kamran was Major Todd's withdrawal from Herat.
For twenty days he had travelled by caravan across the Persian uplands, through Herat, and Meshed and Bokhara, striking off with his guide alone toward the Sea of Aral and the eastern shores of the Caspian, thence through the Ural foothills to the old Roman highway that led down into the sweet green valleys of a land he had thought of as nothing more than the creation of a hairbrained fictionist.
It was seen that the possession of this territory would at once free Russia from much difficulty in case of an advance and give her the means of threatening Herat as well as Kabul from her base in Turkestan, and even to some extent to carry forward that base beyond the Oxus.
He was to proceed by way of Sind to Pesháwar, and in passing through Sind he received news of the siege of Herat, the significance of which he was not slow to appreciate. Thenceforward his mission inevitably assumed a political complexion, since the future of Afghánistán became a practical question.
Large bazaars, containing numerous shops, and the Mechedé Djouna, or Mosque of Friday, are its chief ornaments. No town has less waste land or a denser population. Christie estimates it at 100,000. Herat is the most commercial of all Asiatic towns under the dominion of native princes.
II. That, after the death of Ali Mohammed aforesaid, as Fyzoola Khân, together with his elder brother, was then a prisoner of war at a place called Herat, "the Rohilla chiefs took possession of the ancient estates" of the captive princes; and the Nabob Fyzoola Khân was from necessity compelled to waive his hereditary rights for the inconsiderable districts of Rampoor and Shahabad, then estimated to produce from six to eight lacs of annual revenue.
The Russo-Persian failure at Herat was scarcely calculated to maintain in the astute and practical Afghans any hope of fulfilment of the promises which the western powers had thrown about so lavishly, while it made clear that, for some time at least to come, the Persians would not be found dancing again to Russian fiddling.
When the project of Russian invasion of India, suggested by Napoleon, was under consideration in Persia, a British envoy was sent, in 1809, to the then Shah Sujah, and received the most cordial reception at Peshawur. But Shah Sujah was, in 1810, superseded by his brother, Mahmud, and the latter was pressed hard by the son of his Wazir to such an extent that Herat alone remained to him.
Examination of the stock of any importer of high grade rugs will convince one who knows moths, that many of our commonest or their near relatives native to the Orient are really used as models for colour combinations in rug weaving. The Herat frequently has moths in its border. The Modest moth has a wing sweep in large females of from five and one-half to six inches.
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