AFGHANISTAN

Q7

The Turkish element in the Afghan population is redresented
 by Turkomans and Usbegs in the Oxus regions,
and Ghilzais in Central Afghanistan. The Turkoman,
once the terror of the peaceful country side throughout
the Persian border and the open desert regions of the
Oxus Valley, is gradually, under civilising influences,
developing agricultural proclivities, and he now lives in
peaceful relations with his neighbours, contenting himself
with the stirring records of raids and robberies of no
very ancient date. In common with the Usbeg (who
has long since lost the fierce fighting qualities that he
possessed in the days of Babar, the outcast prince of
a Central Asian Khanate, who founded the Turk dynasty
of India) the Turkoman talks Turki, a comparatively
pure and very ancient language which is the basis of the
bastard tongue of Constantinople; differing in this
particular, as in many physical characteristics, from those
Turkish races south of the Hindu Kush and Koh-i-Baba
who have enrolled themselves amongst Pathans and talk
Pushtu, These southern tribes are called Ghilzai (or
Khilje), and were introduced into Afghanistan within
historic times. They form a very powerful confederation
of tribes, second only to the Durani in power and in-Auence,
 and it is from the Ghilzai that the Durani
dynasties of Kabul have ever experienced the most
dangerous opposition. Those “povindahs,” or Khafila
leaders, who annually spread through India, and who
are noted for their strength and magnificent physique,
are mostly Ghilzais of the Nasir and Sulimani clans.
The Mongol tribes of Afghanistan are represented by
the Hazéra people, whose origin in their present habitat
(which is along the skirts of the northern slopes of the
Hindu Kush west of Kafiristan, and that great central tract
of elevated country which stretches between Kabul and
Herat, and reaches south-westward toward the Helmund
lagoons), is traced to the invasions of Chenghiz Khan early
in the thirteenth century. They are of the Shiah sect of
Muhammadan, differing in appearance but little from the
Sognate Ghurkha of Nipal, although they are generally of

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