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"Then tell them from me," cried the Khan, excitedly, half rising from his seat, "tell Queen Victoria from me that it is not so. Tell her to beware of Abdur Raman. He is her enemy." "Is England afraid of Russia?" continued the Khan after a long pause. "No; the English fear no one." "Will England reach Kandahár before Russia takes Herat?"
Competent enough to maintain themselves against the comparatively small tribes in their near neighborhood, the Chorasmians, Hyrcanians, Arians of Herat, Bactrians, and Sagartians, it was not possible for them to make an effectual resistance to a monarch who brought against them the entire force of a mighty empire. Cyrus had, it is probable, little difficulty in obtaining their submission.
The road is a decided improvement over anything we have struck since leaving Herat, and by noon we arrive at Karize. For some inexplicable reason the Sooltan of Karize receives our party with very ill grace. He looks sick, and is probably suffering from fever, which may account for the evident sourness of his disposition.
Four of these miles separate the town from the northern and twelve from the southern hills, while at one quarter of the greater distance runs the Her-i-Rud or Herat River, which, rising near the Kuh-i-Baba, pursues a westerly course till, passing the city, it sweeps, first gradually, then decidedly, to the north, eventually to lose its identity in the environs of Sarakhs.
Nothing but the formal salaams has yet been said; but intuition is a faithful forerunner, and ere another word is spoken, I know well enough that the khan and the colonel have been sent to break the disagreeable news that I am to be taken to Herat, and that Kiftan Sahib and Bottle Green have dropped in out of curiosity to see how I take it.
But one must be very simple not to discern their real intentions." "And may I ask, Colonel, what you are thinking of doing?" Colonel Baird must really have held the young German for a very trustworthy or, at least, for a very harmless personage, for he replied to his question at once "The Russian advance guard has crossed the Amu Darya and is marching up the Murghab Valley upon Herat.
He moved his army from Herat; and after meeting his son, Reza Kuli, and bestowing valuable presents upon him and the other princes of his family, he moved toward Bulkh, where he had ordered preparations to be made for his crossing the Oxus to punish the sovereign of Bokhara, who, unmindful of his established alliance, had taken advantage of his absence in India to make inroads into the province of Khorasan.
Seleucus Nicator, who had inherited the Asiatic possessions of Alexander and wished to assert his authority, came into collision with Candragupta but was completely worsted and about 303 B.C. concluded a treaty by which he ceded the districts of Kabul, Herat and Kandahar.
The siege, conducted under Russian officers, lasted ten months, and its ultimate failure was hailed as a triumph of British policy, for Herat was recognised, since the days of Alexander the Great, as the western gate of India. About the same time the question of a shorter route to India attracted much attention both in Russia and in England.
At the close of the year, he reported to Napoleon that, for the march overland from Syria to the Ganges, Cyprus was an indispensable base of supplies: he recommended the route Bir, Mardin, Teheran, Herat, Cabul, and Peshawar: forty to fifty thousand French troops would be needed, and thirty or forty thousand Persians should also be taken up.
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