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In the poverty of his apparel, the all-round contempt of personal appearance and cleanliness, and the total absence of individual ambition, this young person reminds me forcibly of our happy-go-lucky friend Osman, in the garden at Herat. In striking contrast to him is the dandified individual who brings up the rear, about ten paces behind the bicycle.
In the meantime the Shah of Persia, instigated by Russia, besieged Herat, but after months of fruitless effort, and in consequence of our sending troops to the Persian Gulf, the Shah at length withdrew his army.
The direct results of Mirza Gholam Ahmed's visit and favorable report to the Governor of Herat, are made manifest on the following day by the appearance of his companion of yesterday in charge of two attendants, bringing me boxes of sweetmeats, almonds, raisins, and salted nuts, together with a package of tea and a fifteen-pound cone of loaf-sugar; all backsheesh from the Governor of Herat.
The mission of these two officers is apparently to prepare me gradually for the intelligence that I am to be taken back to Herat. So skillfully and diplomatically does the old khan in the cerulean gown acquit himself of this mission, that I thoroughly understand what is to be my disposition, although Herat is never mentioned.
So we started, and this is what happened, in his own words: "From the time we left Herât it snowed incessantly; the farther we advanced the deeper it became. After three days it reached above the stirrups. In places the horses' feet did not reach the ground; yet the snow continued to fall. One Bishâi was our guide.
The Viceroy, however, true to his earlier resolve to break up Afghanistan, added the unpleasant condition that the districts of Candahar and Herat must now be severed from the north of Afghanistan.
A division may be conveyed, complete, in 36 trains. Thus, in six days a division would be assembled at Sarakhs ready to move on the advanced guard. An army corps, with all its equipments and departments, would be conveyed in 165 trains in 17 days. It would then be 200 miles another 17 days' march from Herat.
The three great capitals of Khorasan were destroyed by his orders, and a reckoning made of the slain; at Maru were killed 1,300,000; at Herat, 1,600,000; and at Neisabour, 1,747,000; making a total of 4,647,000 deaths. Say these numbers are exaggerated fourfold or tenfold; even on the last supposition you will have a massacre of towards half a million of helpless beings.
He comes and squats beside me, and, with much soothing patting of my shoulder, he says: "The Wali is only taking you to Herat to obtain Ridgeway Sahib's and Faramorz Khan's permission for you to go through. Inshallah, after you have seen Herat, if it is the will of Allah, and your kismet to go to Kandahar, the Ameer will let you go."
III. From the Tashkend-Bokhara base a route exists via Charjui, the Oxus, direct to Merv; and there is IV. Also the well-known road by Balkh and Mamiana, direct to Herat. Routes III. and IV. having just been discussed, let us look at Routes I. and II.
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