28

INDIA

of Charikar and west of Kafiristan, and who were amongst
our most formidable opponents during the Afghan war of
1879, are of Persian extraction, largely admixed (as their
name denotes) with Arab blood. Persian-speaking communities
 (such as the Kizzilbashes of Kabul) are scattered
still throughout Northern Afghanistan, and Persian is
spoken by the educated classes amongst the conquering
races of Afghans and Ghilzais, whose domestic tongue is
Pushtu,
On to this Persian element, which exists in fading
evidence of the vast extent embraced by the ancient
Persian empire, are grafted all those other foreign races
who have taken their turn and played their parts in the
troubled history of the Indian trans-frontier. The province
 of Khorasan only shrunk to its present dimensions
in comparatively recent times. In the middle of the
eighteenth century the great bandit king of Persia (Nadir
Shah) still held all Baluchistan, Afghanistan, Sind, the
Punjab, and Kashmir under his undivided authority.
The Khorasan province was still intact. It was only after
his death that the Durani empire was carved out of
Khorasan by the Afghan adventurer Ahmad Shah; and
it was not till the beginning of the present century, when
the Durani empire (which extended as far east as Lahore)
fell to pieces in its turn from want of capacity amongst
its rulers and of the stability which is only born of
developed internal resources, that Baluchistan shaped
itself into a federation of powerful independent tribes
recognising the supremacy of the Kambarani Khan of
Kalat ; and that Afghanistan was moulded into the semblance
 of an independent kingdom by the strong hand of
Dost Mahomed, the Barakzai Afghan.
The boundaries of Baluchistan and Afghanistan alike
have been constant themes of irritation and discussion
between the government of India and her border neighbours
 (Russian, Persian, Afghan, and Baluch) for the last
half century, and it is only quite recently (within the last
few years) that territorial limits have been definitely set
to them. It is within those limits that we shall describe