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Soon after the return of Stewart and Biddulph to Candahar, orders arrived that the former should retain in Candahar, Quetta, and Pishin a strong division of all arms, sending back to India the remainder of his command under Biddulph the march to be made by the previously unexplored Thal-Chotiali route to the eastward of the Pisheen valley.
This centre has been visited by missionaries. Afghanistan and Beluchistan both bar missionaries, but there are C.M.S. frontier posts from Quetta, in British Beluchistan, to Peshawar, near the Afghan border. They do good hospital work, otherwise their evangelising activities over the border are confined to native colporteurs and the circulation of vernacular Scriptures.
From the latter port I was to strike due north to Kelát and Quetta, and "that," added the general, "will bring you across eighty or a hundred miles of totally unexplored country. You will have had quite enough of it when you get to Kelát if you ever do get there," he added encouragingly. The route now finally decided upon, preparations were made for a start as soon as possible.
There were ten wars: the two Chinese Wars of 1860 and 1900, the Bhutan War of 1864-65, the Abyssinian War of 1868, the Afghan War of 1878-79, and, after the massacre of the Kabul Mission, the second War of 1879-80, ending in an advance of the frontier, in the search for an ever receding "scientific frontier"; on this occasion the frontier was shifted, says Keene, "from the line of the Indus to the western slope of the Suleiman range and from Peshawar to Quetta"; the Egyptian War of 1882, in which the Indian troops markedly distinguished themselves; the third Burmese War of 1885 ending in the annexation of Upper Burma in 1886; the invasions of Tibet in 1890 and 1904.
The Panjdeh affair having relegated the policy of "masterly inactivity" to the limbo of benevolent futilities, the materials for the Quetta railway, which had been in large part sent back to Bombay in the year 1881, were now brought back again; and an alternative route was made to Quetta. The Quetta district was annexed to India in 1887 under the title of British Baluchistan.
On the 4th of that month Lord Ellenborough wrote to him, reiterating injunctions for his withdrawal from Afghanistan, but permitting him the alternatives of retiring by the direct route along his line of communications over Quetta and Sukkur, or of boxing the compass by the curiously circuitous 'retirement' via Ghuznee, Cabul, and Jellalabad.
Nott marched down from Candahar with a strong force, occupied Khelat, and fully re-established communications with the line of the Indus, while fresh troops moved forward into Upper Scinde, and thence gradually advancing to Quetta and Candahar, materially strengthened the British position in Southern Afghanistan.
Only a few weeks previous to my visit, a Kelát merchant, proceeding with a large caravan to Kermán, in Persia, was robbed and murdered in the frontier district west of Kharán. Few now attempt the journey, most of the goods being sent to Quetta, and thence by rail to various parts of India, by sea to Persia.
He comes of a soldier race and family, his father having served in the East India Company's army before him, and he having from his youth followed the same profession for the past eighteen years, serving successively as Private, Lance-Corporal, Corporal, and Sergeant in a native Regiment. He went through the last Afghan campaign, having been to Cabul, Quetta, and other places.
One, formerly much used, is that over which we had travelled from the coast, and which, on leaving Beïla, leads due north to Quetta viâ Wadd and Sohrab. An ordinary caravan by this route occupies at least forty days in transit.
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