As a race the Afghans are very handsome and athletic, often
with fair complexion and flowing beard, generally black or
brown, sometimes, though rarely, red; the features highly
aquiline. The hair is shaved off from the forehead to the
top of the head, the remainder at the sides being allowed
to fall in large curls over the shoulders. Their step is
full of resolution; their bearing proud and apt to be rough.
The women have handsome features of Jewish cast (the
last trait often true also of the men); fair complexions,
sometimes rosy, though usually a pale sallow; hair braided
and plaited behind in two long tresses terminating in silken
tassels. They are rigidly secluded, but intrigue is frequent.
The Afghans, inured to bloodshed from childhood, are familiar
with death, and audacious in attack, but easily discouraged
by failure; excessively turbulent and unsubmissive to law or
discipline; apparently frank and affable in manner, especially
when they hope to gain some object, but capable of the grossest
brutality when that hope ceases. They are unscrupulous in
perjury, treacherous, vain and insatiable, passionate in
vindictiveness, which they will satisfy at the cost of their
own lives and in the most cruel manner. Nowhere is crime
committed on such trifling grounds, or with such general
impunity, though when it is punished the punishment is
atrocious. Among themselves the Afghans are quarrelsome,
intriguing and distrustful; estrangements and affrays are of
constant occurrence; the traveller conceals and misrepresents
the time and direction of his journey. The Afghan is by breed
and nature a bird of prey. If from habit and tradition he
respects a stranger within his threshold, he yet considers it
legitimate to warn a neighbour of the prey that is afoot, or
even to overtake and plunder his guest after he has quitted his
roof. The repression of crime and the demand of taxation
he regards alike as tyranny. The Afghans are eternally
boasting of their lineage, their independence and their
prowess. They look on the Afghans as the first of nations,
and each man looks on himself as the equal of any Afghan.
They are capable of enduring great privation, and make
excellent soldiers under British discipline, though there
are but few in the Indian army. Sobriety and hardiness
characterize the bulk of the people, though the higher classes
are too often stained with deep and degrading debauchery.
The first impression made by the Afghan is favourable. The
European, especially if he come from India, is charmed by
their apparently frank, open-hearted, hospitable and manly
manners; but the charm is not of long duration, and he finds
that the Afghan is as cruel and crafty as he is independent.
No trustworthy statistics exist showing either present numbers
or fluctuations in the population of Afghanistan. Within the
amir's dominions there are probably from four to five millions
of people, and of these the vast majority are agriculturists.
The cultivators, including landowners, tenants, hired labourers
and slaves, represent the working population of the country,
and as industrious and successful agriculturists they are
unsurpassed in Asia. They have carried the art of irrigation
to great perfection, and they utilize every acre of profitable
soil. Certain Ghilzai clans are specially famous for their skill
in the construction of the karez or underground water-channel.
Religion.
The religion of the country throughout is Mahommedan. Next to
Turkey, Afghanistan is the most powerful Mahommedan kingdom in
existence. The vast majority of Afghans are of the Sunni sect;
but there are, in their midst, such powerful communities of
Shiahs as the Hazaras of the central districts, the Kizilbashes
of Kabul and the Turis of the Kurram border, nor is there
between them that bitterness of sectarian animosity which is
so marked a feature in India. The Kafirs of the mountainous
region of Kafiristan alone are non-Mahommedan. They are sunk
in a paganism which seems to embrace some faint reflexion
of Greek mythology, Zoroastrian principles and the tenets of
Buddhism, originally gathered, no doubt, from the varied
elements of their mixed extraction. Those contiguous Afghan
tribes, who have not so long ago been converted to the faith of
Islam, are naturally the most fanatical and the most virulent
upholders of the faith around them. In and about the centre of
civilization at Kabul, instances of Ghazism are comparatively
rare. In the western provinces about Kandahar (amongst the
Durani Afghans---the people who claim to be Beni-Israel),
and especially in Zamindawar, the spirit of fanaticism runs
high, and every other Afghan is a possible Ghazi---a man
who has devoted his life to the extinction of other creeds.
Language and literature.
Persian is the vernacular of a large part of the non-Afghan
population, and is familiar to all educated Afghans; it
is the language of the court and of literature. Pushtu,
however, is the prevailing language, though it does not seem
to be spoken in Herat, or, roughly speaking, west of the
Helmund. Turki is spoken in Afghan Turkestan. There is a
respectable amount of Afghan literature. The oldest work in
Pushtu is a history of the conquest of Swat by Shaikh Mali,
a chief of the Yusafzais, and leader in the conquest (A.D.
1413-24). In 1494 Kaju Khan became chief of the same
clan; during his rule Buner and Panjkora were completely
conquered, and he wrote a history of the events. In the
reign of Akbar, Bayazid Ansari, called Pir-i-Roshan, ``the
Saint of Light,'' the founder of an heretical sect, wrote
in Pushtu; as did his chief antagonist, a famous Afghan
saint called Akhund Darweza. The literature is richest in
poetry. Abdur Rahman (17th century) is the best known poet.
Another very popular poet is Khushal Khan, the warlike chief
of the Khattaks in the time of Aurangzeb. Many other members
of his family were poets also. Ahmad Shah, the founder of
the monarchy, likewise wrote poetry. Ballads are numerous.
Education.
Education is confined to most elementary principles in
Afghanistan. Of schools or colleges for the purposes of a
higher education befitted to the sons of noblemen and the
more wealthy merchants there are absolutely none; but the
village school is an ever-present and very open spectacle
to the passer-by. Here the younger boys are collected and
instructed in the rudiments of reading, writing and religious
creed by the village mullah, or priest, who thereby acquires
an early influence over the Afghan mind. The method of
teaching is confined to that wearisome system of loud-voiced
repetition which is so annoying a feature in Indian schools;
and the Koran is, of course, the text-book in all forms of
education. Every Afghan gentleman can read and speak
Persian, but beyond this acquirement education seems to
be limited to the physical development of the youth by
instruction in horsemanship and feats of skill. Such
advanced education as exists in Afghanistan is centred in the
priests and physicians; but the ignorance of both is extreme.
Constitution and laws.
The government of Afghanistan is an absolute monarchy under the
amir, and succession to the throne is hereditary. There are
five chief political divisions in the country---namely, Kabul,
Turkestan, Herat, Kandahar and Badakshan, each of which is ruled
by a ``naib'' or governor, whom is directly responsible to the
amir. Under the governors of provinces the nobles and kazis
(or district judges) dispense justice much in the feudal
fashion. There are three classes of chiefs who form the council
or durbar of the king. These are the sirdars, the khans and the
mullahs. The sirdars are hereditary nobles, the khans are
representatives of the people, and the mullahs of Mahommedan
religion. The khan is elected by the clan or tribe. The
clannish attachment of the Afghans is rather to the community
than to the chief. These three classes of representatives
are divided into two assemblies, the Durbar Shahi or royal
assembly, and the Kharwanin Mulkhi or commons. The mullahs
take their place in one or the other according to their
individual rank. The executive officials of the amir have
a selected body, called the Khilwat, which acts as a cabinet
council, but no member can give advice to the crown without
being asked to do so, or beyond the jurisdiction of his own
department. The amir, in addition to being chief executive
officer, is chief judge and supreme court of appeal. Any one
has the right to appeal to the amir for trial, and the great
amirs, Dost Mahommed and Abdurrahman,were accessible at all
times to the petitions of their subjects. Next to the amir
comes the court of the kazi, the chief centre of justice,
and beneath the kazi comes the kotwal, who performs, as in
India, the ordinary functions of a magistrate. In large
provincial towns there is a punchait, or council, for the trial
of commercial cases. There are government departments for
the administration of revenue, customs, post-office, military
affairs, &c. The general law administered in all the courts
of Afghanistan is that of Islam and of the customs of the
country, with developments introduced by the Amir Abdur Rahman.
Defence.
The Afghan army probably numbers 50,000 regulars distributed
between the military centres of Herat, Kandahar, Kabul,
Mazar-i-Sharif, Jalalabad and Asmar, with detachments at
frontier outposts on the side of India. Abdur Rahman claimed
that he could put 100,000 men into the field within a week
for the defence of Herat. In 1896 he introduced a system of
semi-enforced service whereby one man in every eight between
the ages of sixteen and seventy takes his turn at military
training. In this way he calculated that he could have raised
1,000,000 men armed with modern weapons, but his chief difficulty
would be money and transport. The pay of the army is apt to be
irregular. The amir's factories at Kabul for arms and ammunition
are said to turn out about 20,000 cartridges and 15 rifles
daily, with 2 guns per week; but the arms thus produced are
very heterogeneous, and the different varieties of cartridge
used would cause endless complications. The two chief
fastnesses of Northern Afghanistan are Herat and Dehdadi near
Balkh. The latter fort took twelve years to build, and
commands all the roads leading from the Oxus into Afghan
Turkestan. It is armed with naval quick-firing guns, Krupp,
Hotchkiss, Nordenfeld and Maxim. The chief cantonment for
the same district is at Mazar-i-Sharif, 12 m. from Balkh.
Finance.
Financially, Afghanistan has never, since it first became a
kingdom, been able to pay for its own government, public
works and army. There appears to be no inherent reason why
this should be so. Whilst it can never (in the absence of
any great mineral wealth) develop into a wealthy country,
it can at least support its own population; and it would,
but for the short-sighted trade policy of Abdur Rahman,
certainly have risen to a position of respectable solvency.
Its revenues (about which no trustworthy information is
available) are subject to great fluctuations, and probably
never exceed the value of one million sterling per annum.
They fell in Shere Ali's time to L. 700,000. The original
subsidy to the amir from the Indian government was fixed
at 12 lakhs of rupees (L. 80,000) per annum, but in 1893, in
connexion with the boundary settlement, it was increased to
Minerals.
Few minerals are wrought in Afghanistan, though Abdur Rahman
claims in his autobiography that the country is rich in
