a foreign source. To say nothing of the Book of Mormon, a
considerable number of persons have been found to propagate
the doctrine that the English people are descended from the
tribes of Israel. But the Hebrew ancestry of the Afghans
is more worthy at least of consideration, for a respectable
number of intelligent officers, well acquainted with the
Afghans, have been strong in their belief of it; and though
the customs alleged in proof will not bear the stress laid on
them, undoubtedly a prevailing type of the Afghan physiognomy
has a character strongly Jewish. This characteristic is
certainly a remarkable one; but it is shared, to a considerable
extent, by the Kashmiris (a circumstance which led Bernier
to speculate on the Kashmiris representing the lost tribes of
Israel), and, we believe, by the Tajik people of Badakshan.
Relations with the Greeks.---In the time of Darius Hystaspes
(500 B.C.) we find the region now called Afghanistan
embraced in the Achaemenian satrapies, and various parts
of it occupied by Sarangians (in Seistan), Arians (in
Herat), Sattagydians (supposed in highlands of upper
Helmund and the plateau of Ghazni), Dadicae (suggested
to be Tajiks), Aparytae (mountaineers, perhaps of Safed
Koh, where lay the Paryetae of Ptolemy), Gandarii (in
Lower Kabul basin) and Paktyes, on or near the Indus.
In the last name it has been plausibly suggested that we
have the Pukhtun, as the eastern Afghans pronounce their
name. Indeed, Pusht, Pasht or Pakht would seem to be the
oldest name of the country of the Afghans in their traditions.
The Ariania of Strabo corresponds generally with the existing
dominions of Kabul, but overpasses their limits on the west and south.
About 310 B.C. Seleucus is said by Strabo to have given to
the Indian Sandrocottus (Chandragupta), in consequence of a
marriage-contract, some part of the country west of the Indus
occupied by an Indian population, and no doubt embracing a
part of the Kabul basin. Some sixty years later occurred
the establishment of an independent Greek dynasty in Bactria.
(See BACTRIA, MEDIA, EUCRATIDES, MENANDER of India,
EUTHYDEMUS, and PERSIA, Ancient History.) Of the details
of their history and extent of their dominion in different
reigns we know almost nothing, and conjecture is often
dependent on such vague data as are afforded by the collation
of the localities in which the coins of independent princes
have been found. But their power extended certainly over
the Kabul basin, and probably, at times, over the whole of
Afghanistan. The ancient architecture of Kashmir, the tope
of Manikyala in the Punjab, and many sculptures found in the
Peshawar valley, show unmistakable Greek influence. Demetrius
(c. 190 B.C.) is supposed to have reigned in Arachosia
after being expelled from Bactria, much as, at a later date,
Baber reigned in Kabul after his expulsion from Samarkand.
Eucratides (181 B.C.) is alleged by Justin to have warred in
India. With his coins, found abundantly in the Kabul basin,
commences the use of an Arianian inscription, in addition to the
Greek, sulnosed to imply the transfer of rule to the south of
the mountains, over a people whom the Greek dynasty sought to
conciliate. Under Heliocles (147 B.C.?), the Parthians, who
had already encroached on Ariana, pressed their conquests into
India. Menander (126 B.C.) invaded India at least to the
Jumna, and perhaps also to the Indus delta. Tbe coinage of
a succeeding king, Hermaeus, indicates a barbaric irruption.
There is a general correspondence between classical and Chinese
accounts of the time when Bactria was overrun by Scythian
invaders. The chief nation among these, called by the
Chinese Yue-Chi, about 126 B.C. established themselves
in Sogdiana and on the Oxus in five hordes. Near the
Christian era the chief of one of these, which was called
Kushan, subdued the rest, and extended his conquests over the
countries south of the Hindu Kush, including Sind as well as
Afghanistan, thus establishing a great dominion, of which
we hear from Greek writers as Indo-Scythia. (See YUE-CHI.)
Buddhism had already acquired influence over the people of the
Kabul basin, and some of the barbaric invaders adopted that
system. Its traces are extensive, especially in the plains
of Jalalabad and Peshawar, but also in the vicinity of Kabul.
Various barbaric dynasties succeeded each other. A notable
monarch was Kanishka (see INDIA, History) or Kanerkes,
whose date is variously fixed at from 58 B.C. to A.D.
125, and whose power extended over the upper Oxus basin,
Kabul, Peshawar, Kashmir and probably far into India. His
name and legends still filled the land, or at least the
Buddhist portion of it, 600 years later, when tho Chinese
pilgrim, Hsuan Tsang, travelled in India; they had even
reached the great Mahommedan philosopher, traveller and
geographer, Abu-r-Raihan Muhammad al-Biruni (see
BIRUNI), in the 11th century; and they are still celebrated
in the Mongol versions of Buddhist ecclesiastical story.
Turkoman Dynasties.---In the time of Hsuan Tsang (A.D.
630-645) there were both Indian and Turk princes in the Kabul
valley, and in the succeeding centuries both these races seem
to have predominated in succession. The first Mahommedan
attempts at the conquest of Kabul were unsuccessful, though
Seistan and Arachosia were permanently held from an early
date. It was not till the end of the 10th century that a Hindu
prince ceased to reign in Kabul, and it fell into the hands
of the Turk Sabuktagin, who had established his capital at
Ghazni. There, too, reigned his famous son Mahmud, and a
series of descendants, till the middle of the 12th century,
rendering the city one of the most splendid in Asia. We
then have a powerful dynasty, commonly believed to have been
of Afghan race; and if so, the first. But the historians
give them a legendary descent from Zohak, which is no Afghan
genealogy. The founder of the dynasty was Alauddin,
chief of Ghor, whose vengeance for the cruel death of his
brother at the hands of Bahram the Ghaznevide was wreaked
in devastating the great city. His nephew, Shahabuddin
Mahommed, repeatedly invaded India, conquering as far as
Benares. His empire in India indeed--ruled by his freedmen
who after his death became independent --may be regarded as
the origin of that great Mahommedan monarchy which endured
nominally till 1857. For abrief period the Afghan countries
were subject to the king of Khwarizm, and it was here
chiefly that occurred the gallant attempts of Jalaluddin
of Khwarizm to withstand the progress of Jenghiz Khan.
A passage in Ferishta seems to imply that the Afghans in the
Sulimani mountains were already known by that name in the first
century of the Hegira, but it is uncertain how far this may
be built on. The name Afghans is very distinctly mentioned
in `Utbi's History of Sultan Mahmud, written about A.D.
1030, coupled with that of the Khifjis. It also appears
frequently in connexion with the history of India in the
13th and 14th centuries. The successive dynasties of Delhi
are generally called Pathan, but were really so only in
part. Of the Khifjis (1288-1321) we have already spoken.
The Tughlaks (1321-1421) were originally Tatars of the Karauna
tribe. The Lodis (1450-1526) were pure Pathans. For a
century and more after the Mongol invasion the whole of the
Afghan countries were under Mongol rule; but in the middle
of the 14th century a native dynasty sprang up in western
Afghanistan, that of the Kurts, which extended its rule
over Ghor, Herat and Kandahar. The history of the Afghan
countries under the Mongols is obscure; but that regime
must have left its mark upon the country, if we judge from
the occurrence of frequent Mongol names of places, and
even of Mongol expressions adopted into familiar language.
The Mogul Dyniasty.---All these countries were included
in Timur's conquests, and Kabul at least had remained in
the possession of one of his descendants till 1501, only
three years before it fell into the hands of another and
more illustrious one, Sultan Baber. It was not till 1522
that Baber succeeded in permanently wresting Kandahar from
the Arghuns, a family of Mongol descent, who had long held
it. From the time of his conquest of Hindustan (victory at
Panipat, April 21, 1526), Kabul and Kandahar may be regarded
as part of the empire of Delhi under the (so-called) Mogul
dynasty which Baber founded. Kabul so continued till the
invasion of Nadir Shah (1738). Kandahar often changed hands
between the Moguls and the rising Safavis (or Sufis) of
Persia. Under the latter it had remained from 1642 till 1708,
when in the reign of Husain, the last of them, the Ghilzais,
provoked by the oppressive Persian governor Shahnawaz Khan
(a Georgian prince of the Bagratid house), revolted under Mir
Wais, and expelled the Persians. Mir Wais was acknowledged
sovereign of Kandahar, and eventually defeated the Persian
armies sent against him. but did not long survive (d. 1715).
Mahmud, the son of Mir Wais, a man of great courage and
energy, carried out a project of his father's, the conquest
of Persia itself. After a long siege, Shah Husain came
forth from Ispahan with all his court, and surrendered
the sword and diadem of the Sufis into the hands of the
Ghilzai (October 1722). Two years later Mahmud died mad,
and a few years saw the end of Ghilzai rule in Persia.
The Durani Dynasty.---In 1737-38 Nadir Shah both recovered
Kandahar and took Kabul. But he gained the goodwill of the
Afghans, and enrolled many in his army. Among these was a
noble young soldier, Ahmad Khan, of the Saddozai family of
the Abdali clan, who after the assassination of Nadir (1747)
was chosen by the Afghan chiefs at Kandahar to be their
leader, and assumed kingly authority over the eastern part
of Nadir's empire, with the style of Dur-i-Duran, ``Pearl
of the Age,'' bestowing that of Durani upon his clan, the
Abdalis. With Ahmad Shah, Afghanistan, as such, first took
a place among the kingdoms of the earth, and the Durani
dynasty, which he founded, still occupies its throne. During
the twenty-six years of his reign he carried his warlike
expeditions far and wide. Westward they extended nearly to
the shores of the Caspian; eastward he repeatedly entered
India as a conqueror. At his great battle of Panipat (January
6, 1761), with vastly inferior numbers, he inflicted on the
Mahrattas, then at the zenith of their power, a tremendous
defeat, almost annihilating their vast army; but the success
had for him no important result. Having long suffered from a
terrible disease, he died in 1773, bequeathing to his son Timur
a dominion which embraced not only Afghanistan to its utmost
limits, but the Punjab, Kashmir and Turkestan to the Oxus,
with Sind, Baluchistan and Khorasan as tributary governments.
Timur transferred his residence from Kandahar to Kabul, and
continued during a reign of twenty years to stave off the
anarchy which followed close on his death. He left twenty-three
sons, of whom the fifth, Zaman Mirza, by help of Payindah
Khan, head of the Barakzai family of the Abdalis, succeeded in
grasping the royal power. For many years barbarous wars raged
between the brothers, during which Zaman Shah, Shuja-ul-Mulk
and Mahmud successively held the throne. The last owed
success to Payindah's son, Fatteh Khan (known as the ``Afghan
Warwick''), a man of masterly ability in war and politics, the
eldest of twenty-one brothers, a family of notable intelligence
and force of character, and many of these he placed over the
