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December 20, 1856.] THE LEADER, 1213
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PERSIA AND OUR NOBTII-WEST FRONTIER. Wjo...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Dr. Livingstone. Db. Livingstone's Great...
ligent though simple race of people , is a pledge to Africa of future intercourse with Europe , and of comparative civilization . The most extraordinary circumstance announced by Di \ IiiYiNasTOifE is the salubrity of these vast countries . ¦ " Some of the districts of tlie interior are perfect sanatoria , and among the pure Negro family many diseases that affected the people of Europe are unknown . Small-pox and consumption have not teen known for twenty years , and
consumption , scrofula , cancer , and hydrophobia are seldom heard of . " So healthy are the natives , and so free from vreakening taint ' s , that pure-blooded Negroes from l > eyond the twentieth degree of south latitude are treasures in the Cuban or Brazilian market . They are brought down to the coast , men and women , in chains , and so far from being willing to quit their homes , are iix most cases captured after a fierce and sanguinary battle
with the tribe to-which they belong . The traffic is becoming so difficult , and its profits so precarious , that numbers of the merchants are abandoning it for the culture of coftee , introduced , by the Jesuits into Angola , and said to have been propagated by birds throughout the whole country , as spices are propagated iii the East . Several fibrous substances of great strength , hitherto unknown to commerce—one of them resembling flax
—were discovered by Dr . Xivingstoxe , " who adds that the southern interior abounds in the sugar-eaue , though the natives have no idea of sugar , with indigo , quinine , senna , wax , And honey , as well as with very fine iron ore and malachite , from which copper is extracted . " There are also coalfields , in \ yorking which gold is occasionally found . The people , indeed , have been washing gold from - . time- - immemorial , and are doing 80 still : Near the Portuguese settlement at Tete there are no fewer than eleven
seams of coal , one of which is fifty-seven inches thick . The country is so fertile , that in the gardens cultivated by the natives a constant process of sowiug and reaping goes on all the year round . It likewise grows immense quantities of grain . " This picture will remind the reader acquainted witli Eastern agriculture of tlie richest provinces of the richest island in the world , Java . Clearly , the poetical description of an African territory " whose soil is fire and wind a flame , " does not apply to the regions discovered by Dr . Livingstone .
This great traveller deserves a monument , and will , probably , build one for himself . He will publish the record of his wanderings , and that book will be a more enduring and appropriate memorial of his unostentatious genius and simple heroism than any tablet , or statue , or emblem whatever . But he has not yet completed the great work of his life . He is again preparing to carry the sympathies of civilization into the depths of Africa .
December 20, 1856.] The Leader, 1213
December 20 , 1856 . ] THE LEADER , 1213
Persia And Our Nobtii-West Frontier. Wjo...
PERSIA AND OUR NOBTII-WEST FRONTIER . Wjoi has been formally proclaimed against Persia by the Indian ' Government , acting under instructions from the Ministers of the Crown , and as formally accepted by the King of Kings . The grounds for this declaration of hostilities against our former ally and protege are clearly enunciated in the official document issued by the Governor-General in Council . The specific allegation in defence of this extreme measure is the violation , on tlie part of the Shah , of a Convention concluded in 1853 between his Prime Minister
and the English Ambassador . The Persian Q-o vernment thereby pledged itself not to seud any troops towards Herat , unless a hostile demonstration in that direction were made by the Aftghaua or any other foreign
Power . It also engaged to abstain from interfering in . tlio internal administration of that free city , and to waive all pretensions to the rights of suzerainty . Twelve months , however , have already " elapsed since the articles of this agreement were first infringed by a notification in the Teheran official Gazette that an armed demonstration in the direction of Herat was necessitated by the occupation of Kandahar by Dost Mahohmed , A more flimsy pretext could hardly have been devised . Kandahar has all along been a feudatory of the Ameer , though under the immediate government of his brothers . Like the Western baron 3 in the olden time , these vassals frequently proved
/¦»/¦* V ^ rn * t- \ nmnun « - •»¦ % i ~ l •»* - ^ J nnJ — ,, 1 J '^» _^ . _ : » _ " 1 T _ Jl i . contumacious , and indeed seldom adhered to heir allegiance whenever the troubled state of public affairs favoured the assumption of independence . There can be no question as to the Ameer ' s right to reduce these refractory subjects to submission , and to consolidzite his power by ruling from frontier to frontier with an iron hand . The Persian Government , indeed , alleges that he intended to advance upon Herat in compliance with the suggestions of his " neighbours , " but this is a simple and gratuitous assertion , in support of which not the shadow of a proof
has been adduced ; and the Indian . Government distinctly repudiates the insinuation that it administered fuel to the Ameer ' s ambition . The Shah ' s army , however , in spite of friendly remonstrances and warnings , has for many months bean engaged in prosecuting tlie siege of Herat , and probably by this time is in possession of that city . To permit such an infraction of Coloiiel Sjieil' s
convention to pass unnoticed and unpunished , would be to invite insult and outrage from every petty Power on the outskirts of our Indian Empire , . and- even within its bosom . There remained no alternative but to declare war , and this is admitted by even the jealous journalists of JTran . ce . Other reasons equally cogent may be advanced in justification ot this" measure .
It was well said on the occasion of the former siege of Herat in . 1837-38 , that Russia had opened her first parallel against our Indian Empire . To counteract the hostile influence of that Power , the Indian G-ovemment instructed Captain , afterwards Sir Alexander Buiinjes , to open friendly relations with Dost
Maiiommed , and conciliate the good-will of the other Aftghau chiefs . It would be tedious , nor is it necessary , to recapitulate the various causes that combined to render that mission iufructive , and which finally induced the Ameer to turn a credulous ear to the insidious counsels of Captain Vicovicu . That untoward circumstance Avas the source of
many misfortunes both to the Affghans and to ourselves . Had an alliance at that time been formed between , the Indian Government nnd the Ameer , historians would have been spared tho ungrateful task of recording the evanescent triumphs and subsequent annihilation of a British army . But ifc is useless to refer to tho past unless to obtain a beacon to light our future path . Herat is tlie pivot on which turns the destiny of Aflghanistan . It is , and , with rare intervals , ever has been , an Aifghan city , into which ,
indeed , a Persian colony was introduced by Nad in Sir ah . " Within comparatively a few years after tho death of that conqueror the majority of these settlers returned into their own country . A sufficient number , however , of Persian subjects have sinec continued to reside within the walls of Herat , to afford specious pretexts for interference ou their behalf , on the same principle that Russia has pleaded to justify her intervention in the internal administration of Turkey . The Persians and the Aftghans , though equally
followers of the Prophet , hate each other with as fervent a fanaticism as has ever been , exhibited by the two great sections of Christendom . At Herat the Soonnees . being the more numerous and powerful , ifc naturally happened thafc the Sheabs were oftentinie ' a subjected to insult , and occasionally to persecution . To protect his co-religionists is one of the professed motives of the Shah for undertaking the sjege of that city . Unfortunately , the possession of that city is of too much importance to the independence of Central Asia , as well as the security of our own frontier , to be abandoned to Persian caprice or Muscovite ambition . So long as Herat continues to be a free city of Affbanistanso long
g , will our north-west frontier be unassailable , provided that country remains on friendly terms with our Government . But so soon as Herat falls within the dominions of Russianized Persia , it will become imperative upon the rulers of British India to form a , new line of defence . The demonstration in . the Persian Gulf cannot be considered as anything more than a point . If Persia were unsupported by any European power , ¦ it might probably prove as effective as in 1838 ; but it may now be accepted as a moral certainty that tb * 3 court of Teheran , acts in full confidence of
being succoured and strengthened from the north . It would be no arduous undertaking to transport a Russian auxiliary corps from Astrakan to Astrabad , and then . ee to march it upo 7 i Herat by way of Meshed ; or to land it on the nearest point of the Caspian to Teheran , and thence direct it- on Bushire . In the latter case reiuforcements could , certainly , be rapidly despatched from Bombay , but not—as the anonymous pamphleteer welL ob 3 erves ^ - ~\ vithout temporarily denuding the
line of the Indus , and thereby weakening our ' frontier , and exposing it to the attack of an enterprising enemy . Supposing , however , that the British squadron in the Persian Gulf were left to its own . devices , and tlie allied forces proceeded direct to Herat , the wholes of Aftghauistan might be overrun and occupied : before the Anglo-Indian army had been set in motion . It is said , indeed , that arms and money have been , or are about to be , forwarded to the Ivhaii of Khiva and
tlie friendly chieftains of Afghanistan . We sincerely trust that this report is unfounded . We have had something too much of subsidies iu our past wars . It is time that we relied solely on ourselves . Voc what is there to prevent these notable subsidiaries from turning against ourselves the very "weapons we so fondly confided to their honour ? In all emergencies , safety is best secured by a happy audacity . Our course , then , is clear . We must advance our frontier so far as to
enclose the mountain passes that lead from Afghanistan into the plains of India . A river is no line of defence . It is impossible to occupy its bauka throughout its entire length and militnry chronicles abound in instance .- ) of rivers being crossed almost in the face of equal , and not uiifrcqiienfciy of superior forces . The Indus is no insuperable barrier
for a Europeani / ed nrmy . Our advanced posts must hold the heads of the passed . " Establish a sufficiently large military body at sonic point immediately above the Bolan Pass , nnd a second at Peshawur ; confide our diplomatic relations along the entire frontier to one good and able man , and then mark what would be tlie result .
The gates themselves would be closed and defended ; friendly relations would be gradually cxtonded throughout Afghanistan ; that vast tract of billy country which lies between our frontier and tho present position of tho Persian army , along tlio line of Herat , svould become our shiold . Without assuming direct military control of tho Anglian and
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 20, 1856, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_20121856/page/13/
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