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Updated: June 29, 2025
An intimate friend of Lord Palmerston, who observed him closely for twenty years, has said that he never saw him angry, with perhaps one exception; and that was when the ministry responsible for the calamity in Affghanistan, of which he was one, were unjustly accused by their opponents of falsehood, perjury, and wilful mutilation of public documents.
Yet Parliament would consent almost without a question perhaps amidst the cheers of all parties to the expenditure of this amount in piratical incursions, such as those made upon the inhabitants of Affghanistan, Scinde, Syria, and other nations, who have never injured us." The fourth letter is a continuation of the same subjects. The fifth discusses the railway question, then in its infancy.
The prospect which awaited that successor was indeed dark, troubled, and bloody. An army, alas! dreadfully defeated in one quarter, and dangerously disaffected in another; a war of extermination in Affghanistan; probable hostilities with Burmah and Nepaul; an almost hopelessly involved foreign policy; and, moreover, under these desperate circumstances, with a treasury empty!
Lead was procurable from Bactria, Armenia, Korman, and many parts of Affghanistan; orpiment from Bactria, Kerman, and the Hazareh country; antimony from Armenia, Affghanistan, and Media; hornblende, quartz, talc, and asbestos, from various places in the Taurus. Of all necessary minerals probably none was so plentiful and so widely diffused as salt.
But they prefer wandering about in tents, and living upon plunder, to settling in one place and living by their labor. The Tartar has good reason for roaming over his plains, because the land is bad; but the Affghan has no reason, but the love of roaming. The plains of Affghanistan are sultry, but the mountains are cool; for their tops are covered with snow.
Cyrus, as we have seen, had extended the Persian sway over the mountains of Affghanistan and the highlands from which flow the tributaries of the Upper Indus. From these eminences the Persian garrisons looked down on a territory possessing every quality that could attract a powerful conqueror.
Vid. also Elphinstone, vol. ii. p. 366. "Our victorious army bears the gates of the temple of Somnauth in triumph from Affghanistan, and the despoiled tomb of Sultan Mahmood looks upon the ruins of Ghuznee. The insult of 800 years is at last avenged," etc., etc. Proclamation of the Governor-General to all the princes, chiefs, and people of India. Gibbon. Universal Hist. Baronius, Pagi. Gibbon.
A few days after the battle Alexander entered Babylon, "the oldest seat of earthly empire" then in existence, as its acknowledged lord and master. There were yet some campaigns of his brief and bright career to be accomplished. Central Asia was yet to witness the march of his phalanx. He was yet to effect that conquest of Affghanistan in which England since has failed.
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