United States or Montenegro ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Russia showed her annoyance at this Mission by seeking to seize an Afghan town, Murghab; but the Ameer's troops beat them off . Lord Lansdowne claimed that this right of permanently controlling very troublesome tribes would end the days of futile "punitive expeditions." In the main he was right.
It has walls thirty-five feet high, and a wet ditch, but is not considered in any sense formidable by modern engineers, as it is commanded by neighboring heights; it will always be a rendezvous for the natives, and forms a station or an important line of communication between the Indus and the Murghab.
Finding me ignorant of the latter language, he openly accuses me of being a Russian, raising his finger and wagging his head in a deprecatory manner. He is a simple-minded individual, however, and open to easy conviction, and moreover inclined to be amiable and courteous. "Merg Sahib," the political agent of the Boundary Commission, he says is at Murghab, and "Ridgeway Sahib" at Maimene.
He was engaged in this work when the information was brought him by a messenger that Sultán Husen Mirzá was dead. He at once pushed on, and after a march of eight hundred miles joined the sons of the late Sultán and their army on the river Murgháb. Two of the sons of the Sultán had succeeded him as joint-rulers.
As to the Afghan border he says: 'The three or four hundred miles of country through which the new north-western frontier of Afghanistan runs is a sandy, treeless, waterless desert, except where it is traversed from south to north by the Heri-Rood, the Murghab and the Oxus.
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.
Word Of The Day