EARLIEST ENGLISH EXPLORATION—CHRISTIE AND POTTINGER

The Arabs of the MediÆval period, whose footsteps we have been endeavouring to trace, were after their fashion true geographers and explorers. True that with them the process of empire-making was usually a savage process in the first instance, followed by the peaceable extension of commercial interests. Trade with them (as with us) followed the flag, and the Semitic instinct for making the most of a newly-acquired property was ever the motive for wider exploration. With the Chinese, during the Buddhist period, the ecstatic bliss of pilgrimage, and the acquirement of special sanctity, were the motive power of extraordinary energies; but with this difference of impulse the result was much the same. Arab trader and Chinese pilgrim alike gave to the world a new record, a record of geographical fact which, simple and unscientific as it might be, was yet a true revelation for the time being. But when Buddhism had become a memory, and Arab domination had ceased to regulate the affairs of the Indus valley; when the devastating hordes of the Mongol swept through Afghanistan to the plains of India, geographical record no longer formed part of the programme, and exploration found no place in the scheme of conquest. The Mongol and the Turk were not geographers, such as were the Chinese pilgrim and the Arab, and one gets little or nothing from either of geographical record, in spite of the abundance of their historical literature and the really high standard of literary attainment enjoyed by many of the Turk leaders. That truly delightful historical personage Babar, for instance, "the adventurer," the founder of the Turk dynasty in India, good-looking, intellectual, possessed of great ability as a soldier, endowed with true artistic temperament as painter, poet, and author, the man who has left to all subsequent ages an autobiography which is almost unique in its power of presenting to the mind of its reader the impression of a "whole, real, live, human being," with all his faults and his fancies, his affections and aspirations, was apparently unimpressed with the value of dull details of geography. He can say much about the human interests of the scenes of his wanderings; he can describe landscape and climate, flowers and fruits (especially melons); but though he doubtless possessed the true bandit's instinct for local topography (which must, indeed, have been very necessary in many of the episodes of his remarkable career) he makes no systematic attempt to place before us a clear notion of the geographical conditions of Afghanistan as they existed in his time. His literary cousin Haidar is far more useful as a geographer. To him we owe something more than a vague outline of the elusive kingdom of Bolar and the limits of Kafiristan, but he merely touches on Afghanistan in its connection with Tibet, and says little of the country with which we are now immediately concerned.

The one pre-eminent European traveller of the thirteenth century (1272-73), the immortal Marco Polo, hardly touched Afghanistan. He and his kinsmen passed by the high valleys of Vardos and Wakhan on their way to Kashgar and Cathay, but his geographical information is so vague as to render it difficult (until the surveys of these regions were completed) to trace his footsteps. The raid of Taimur into Kafiristan early in the fifteenth century, when it is said that he reached Najil from the Khawak Pass over the Hindu Kush, will be referred to again in dealing with Masson's narrative; but even to this day it is doubtful how far he succeeded in penetrating into Kafiristan, although the geographical inference of a practicable military line of communication between Andarab and the head of the Alingar River is certain. Three hundred and thirty years after Polo's journey another European traveller passed through Badakshan and across the Pamirs. This was the lay Jesuit, Benedict GoËs, a true geographer, bent on the exploration of Cathay and the reconnaissance of its capabilities as a mission field. He crossed the Parwan Pass of the Hindu Kush from Kabul to Badakshan and journeyed thence to Yarkand; but he did not survive to tell his story in sufficient detail to leave intelligible geography. We find practically no useful geographical records of Afghanistan during many centuries of its turbulent history, so that from the time of Arab commercial enterprise to the days of our forefathers in India, when Afghanistan began to loom large on the political horizon as a factor in our relations with Russia and it became all important to know of what Afghanistan consisted, there is little to collect from the pages of its turbid history which can fairly rank as a record of geographical exploration. It took a long time to awaken an intelligent interest in trans-Indus geography in the minds of India's British administrators. But for Russia it is possible that it would have remained unawakened still; but early in the nineteenth century the shadow of Russia began to loom over the north-western horizon, and it became unpleasantly obvious that if we did not concern ourselves with Afghan politics, and secure some knowledge of Afghan territory, our northern neighbours would not fail to secure the advantages of early action.

It is strange to recall the fact that we are indebted to the Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte for the first exploration made by British officers into the trans-frontier regions of Afghanistan and Baluchistan in British political interests. Nearly a century ago (in 1810) the uneasiness created by the ambitious schemes of that most irrepressible military freebooter resulted in the nomination of two officers of Bombay Infantry to investigate the countries lying to the west of what was then British India, with a view to ascertaining the possibilities of invasion. The Punjab and Sind intervened between British India and the hinterland of the frontier, and their independence and jealous suspicion of the expansive tendency of the British Raj added greatly to the difficulties and the risks of any such trans-frontier enterprise. The Bombay Infantry has ever been a sort of nursery for explorers of the best and most famous type, and the two young gentlemen selected for this remarkable exploit were worthy forerunners of Burton and Speke. The traditions of intelligence service may almost be said to have been founded by them. The rule of exploration a century ago admitted of no elaborate preparation: a knowledge of the languages to be encountered was the one acquisition which was deemed indispensable; and there can be little doubt that the knowledge of Oriental tongues was an advantage which in those days very rapidly led to distinction. It was probably less widespread but much more thorough than it is at present. Captain Christie and Lieutenant Pottinger started fair in the characters which they meant to assume during their travels. They embarked as natives in a native ship, and from the very outset they found it necessary to play up to their disguise. The port of Sonmiani on the north-eastern shores of the Arabian Sea was the objective in the first instance, and the rÔle of horse-dealers in the service of a Bombay firm was the part they elected to play. How far it really imposed on Baluch or Afghan it is difficult to say. One cannot but recollect that when another gallant officer in later years assumed this disguise on the Persian frontier, he was regarded as a harmless but eccentric European, who injured nobody by the assumption of an expert knowledge which he did not possess. He was known locally for years after his travels had ceased as the English officer who "called himself" a horse-dealer.

Sonmiani was a more important port a century ago than it is now that Karachi has absorbed the trade of the Indus coast; but even then the mud flats which render the village so unapproachable from the coast were in process of formation, and it was only with favourable conditions of tide that this wretched and long overlooked little seaport could be reached. Sonmiani, however, may yet again rise to distinction, for it is a notable fact that the facility for reaching the interior of Baluchistan and the Afghan frontier by this route, which facility decided its selection by Christie and Pottinger, is no less nowadays than it was then. The explanation of it lies in the fact that the route practically turns the frontier hills. It follows the extraordinary alignment of their innumerable folds, passing between them from valley to valley instead of breaking crudely across the backbone of the system, and slips gently into the flat places of the plateau land which stretch from Kharan to Kandahar. The more obvious reason which presented itself to these early explorers was doubtless the avoidance of the independent buffer land of Sind. They experienced little difficulty, in spite of many warnings of the dangers in front of them, when they left Sonmiani for Bela. At Bela they interviewed an interesting and picturesque personality in the person of the Jam, and were closely questioned about the English and their proceedings. Apparently the Jam was prepared to accept their description of things European generally, until they ventured to describe a 100-gun warship and its equipment. Such an astounding creation he was unable to believe in, and he frankly said so. From Bela the great northern high-road led to the old capital, Khozdar, through a district infested with Brahui robbers; but there was no better alternative, and the two officers followed it. On the whole, the Brahui tribespeople treated them well, and there was no serious collision. Khozdar was an important centre in those days, with eight hundred houses, and certain Hindu merchants from Shikarpur drove a thriving business there. Nothing was more extraordinary in the palmy days of Sind than the widespread commercial interests of Shikarpur. Credit could be obtained at almost all the chief towns of Central Asia through the Shikarpur merchants, and it was by draft, or "hundi," on Hindu bankers far and wide that travellers were able to keep themselves supplied with cash as they journeyed through these long stages.

The route to Kalat passed by Sohrab and Rodinjo, and the two wayfarers reached Kalat on February 9, 1810. The cold was intense; they were quite unprepared for it, and suffered accordingly. Living with the natives and putting up at the Mehman Khana (the guest house) of such principal villages or towns as possessed one, they naturally were thrown very closely into contact with native life, and learned native opinions. The views of such travellers when dealing with the social details of native existence are especially valuable, and the opinions expressed by them of the character and disposition of the people amongst whom they lived, and with whom they daily conversed on every conceivable subject, are infinitely to be preferred to those of the state officials of that time who lived in an artificial atmosphere. Thus we find very considerable divergence in the opinions expressed regarding Baluch and Afghan character between such close observers as Pottinger or Masson and such eminent authorities as Burnes and Elphinstone. The splendid hospitality and the affectation of frankness which is common to all these varied types of frontier humanity, combined with their magnificent presence, and very often with a determined adherence to certain rules of guardianship and the faithful discharge of the duties which it entails, are all of them easily recognizable virtues which are much in the minds and mouths of official travellers with a mission. The counteracting vices, the spirit of fanatical hatred, of thievish malevolence, and the utter social demoralization which usually (but not always) distinguishes their domestic life and disgusts the stranger, is not so much en evidence, and is only to be discerned by those who mix freely with ordinary natives of the jungle and bazaar. As an instance, take Pottinger's estimate of Persian character; it is really worth recording as the impression of one of the earliest of English soldier travellers. "Among themselves, with their equals, the Persians are affable and polite; to their superiors, servile and obsequious; towards their inferiors, haughty and domineering. All ranks are equally avaricious, sordid, and dishonest.... Falsehood they look on ... as highly commendable, and good faith, generosity, and gratitude are alike unknown to them. In debauchery none can exceed them, and some of their propensities are too execrable and infamous to admit of mention.... I feel inclined to look upon Persia, at the present day, to be the very fountainhead of every species of tyranny, cruelty, meanness, injustice, extortion, and infamy that can disgrace or pollute human nature, and have ever been found in any age or nation." These are strong terms to use about a people of whom we have been assured that the basis of their youthful education is to "ride, to shoot, and to speak the truth!" and yet who is it who knows Persia who will say even now that they are undeserved? May the Persian parliament mend their morals and reform their methods—if, indeed, such a "silk purse" as a parliament can be made out of such crude material as the Persian plebs!

In spite of endless vexations and much spiteful malevolence, which included endless attempts to trip up Pottinger in his assumed disguise (and which, it must be admitted, were met by a not too strict adherence to the actual truth on Pottinger's part), he does not condemn the Baluchi and the Afghan in such terms as he applies to the Persian; but he illustrates most forcibly the dangers arising from habitual lawlessness due to the semi-feudal system of the Baluch federation, and consequent want of administrative responsibility. In spite, however, of endless difficulties, he finally got through, and so did Christie; and for the getting through they were both largely indebted to the vicarious hospitality of village chiefs and heads of independent clans.

At Kalat they found it far easier to get into the timber and mud fortress than to get out again, and this difficulty repeated itself at Nushki. At Nushki begins the real interest of their adventures. Christie (after the usual wrangling and procrastination which attended all arrangements for onward movement) took his way to Herat on almost the exact line of route (via Chagai, the Helmund, and Seistan) which was followed seventy-three years later by the Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission. Pottinger made what was really a far more venturesome journey via Kharan to Jalk and Persia. The meeting of these two officers eventually at Ispahan in the darkness of night, and their gradual recognition of each other, is as dramatic a story as the meeting of Nearkhos with Alexander in Makran, or of Nansen with Jackson amongst the ice-floes of the Far North.

Christie gives us but small detail of his adventures. He necessarily suffered much from thirst, but met with no serious encounters. Beyond a well-deserved tribute to the sweet beauty of that picturesque wayside town of Anardara in his careful record of his progress northward from Seistan, where he made Jalalabad (which he calls Doshak) his base for further exploration, he says very little about the country he passed through. Incidentally he mentions Pulaki (Poolki) as a very remarkable relic of past ages. He describes the ruins of this place as covering an area of 16 square miles. Ferrier mentions the same place subsequently, and locates it about a day's march to the north of Kala-i-Fath (which Christie did not visit), and it must have been one of the most famous of mediÆval towns in Seistan. But as collective ruins covering an area of 500 square miles have been noted by Mr. Tate, the surveyor of the late Seistan mission, who camped in their midst to the north of Kala-i-Fath, the exact site of Pulaki may yet require careful research before it is identified. Seistan is the land of half-buried ruins. No such extent of ruins exists anywhere else in the world. It seems probable, therefore, that, like the sites of many another ancient city of Seistan, Pulaki has been either partially or absolutely absorbed in the boundless sea of desert sand, which envelops and hides away each trace of the past as its waves move forward in irresistible sequence before the howling blasts of the north-west.

Christie's route through Seistan followed the track connecting Jalalabad on the Helmund with Peshawaran on the Farah Rud in dry seasons, but which disappears in seasons of flood, when the two hamÚns or lakes of Seistan become one. Pushing on to Jawani he passed Anardara on April 4, and reached Herat on the 18th. His description of Herat is of a very general character, but is sufficient to indicate that no very great change took place between the time of his visit and that of the 1883 Commission. He was fairly well received, and remained a month without any incident worthy of note, leaving on May 18 for Persia.

This century-old visit of a British officer to Herat is chiefly notable for its revelations as to the attitude of the Afghan Government and people towards the English at the time it was made. With the exception of the risk inseparable from travel in a lawless country infested with organised bands of professional robbers, there appears to have been no hostility bred by fanaticism or suspicion of the trend of British policy. Afghanistan was socially in about the same stage of development that France was in the days of Louis XI.—or England a little earlier; and it is only the solidity conferred on Afghan administration by the moral support of the British Government which has effected any real change. Were England to abandon India to-morrow there would be nothing to prevent a lapse into the same condition of social anarchy which prevailed a century ago. India would become the bait for ceaseless activity on the part of every Afghan border chief who thought he had following sufficient to make a raid effective. A thin veneer of civilization has crept into Afghanistan with motors and telegraphs, but with it also has arisen new incentives to hostility from dread of a possible loss of independence, and (in the western parts of Afghanistan) from real fanatical hatred to the infidel. Thus Afghanistan is actually more dangerous as a field of exploration to the individual European at the present moment than it was in the days of Christie and Pottinger. At the same time, British military assistance would not only be welcome nowadays in case of a conflict with a foreign enemy, but it would be claimed as the fulfilment of a political engagement and expected as a right.

Christie's stay at Herat seems to have been quite uneventful, and when he left for Persia no one barred his way. The Persian frontier then seems to have been rather more than 20 miles distant from Herat—Christie places it a mile beyond the village of "Sekhwan," 22 miles from the city. The only place which appears to correspond with the position of Sekhwan now is Shakiban, which probably represents another village. Making rapid progress westward through Persia, he eventually reached Ispahan, where he rejoined Pottinger on June 30. It must have been a hot and trying experience!

Lieutenant Pottinger's adventures after leaving Nushki (from which place he had considerable difficulty in effecting his departure) were more exciting and apparently more risky than those of Christie. He selected a route which no European has subsequently attempted, and which it would be difficult to follow from his description of it were it not that this region has now been completely surveyed. He struck southwards down the Bado river, which leads almost directly to Kharan and the desert beyond it stretching to the Mashkhel "hamÚn" or swamp. He did not visit Kharan itself, and he apparently misplaces its position by at least 50 miles, unless, indeed (which is quite possible), the present site of the Naoshirwani capital is far removed from that of a century ago. I am unaware, however, that any evidence exists to that effect.

Until the desert was encountered there was no great difficulty on this route, but the horror of that desert crossing fully atoned for any lack of unpleasant incident previously. It would even now be regarded as a formidable undertaking, and we can easily understand the deadly feelings that beset this pioneer explorer as he made his way in the month of April from Kharan on a south-westerly track to the border of Persia at Jalk. His description of this desert, like the rest of his narrative, is full of instructive suggestion. The scope of his observation generally, and the accuracy of the information which he collected about the infinitely complex nationality of the Baluch tribes, renders his evidence valuable as regards the natural phenomena which he encountered; and no part of this evidence is more interesting than his story of the Kharan desert, especially as no one since his time has made anything like a scientific examination of its construction and peculiarities. He describes it as a sea of red sand, "the particles of which were so light that when taken in the hand they were scarcely more than palpable; the whole is thrown into an irregular mass of waves, principally running from east to west, and varying in height from 10 to 20 feet. Most of them rise perpendicularly on the opposite side to that from which the prevailing wind blows (north-west), and might readily be fancied at a distance to resemble a new brick wall. The side facing the wind slopes off with a gradual declivity to the base (or near it) of the next windward wave." He further describes a phenomenon which he observed in the midst of this sand sea, which I think has not been described by any later traveller or surveyor. He says "the desert seemed at a distance of half a mile or less to have an elevated or flat surface from 6 to 12 inches higher than the summits of the waves. This vapour appeared to recede as we advanced, and once or twice completely encircled us, limiting the horizon to a very confined space, and conveying a most gloomy and unnatural sensation to the mind of the beholder; at the same moment we were imperceptibly covered with innumerable atoms of small sand, which, getting into our eyes, mouths and nostrils, caused excessive irritation, attended with extreme thirst that was increased in no small degree by the intense heat of the sun." This was only visible during the hottest part of the day. Pottinger's explanation of this curious phenomenon is that the fine particles of this dust-sand, which are swept into the air almost daily by the force of the north-west winds, fail to settle down at once when those winds cease, but float in the air by reason of some change in their specific gravity due to rarefaction from intense heat; and he adds that he has seen this condition of sand-haze at the same time that, in an opposite quarter, he has observed the mirage or luminous appearance of water which is common to all deserts. Crossing the bed of the Budu (the Mashkhel nullah—dry in April), he makes a curious mistake about the direction of its waters, which he says run in a south-easterly direction towards the coast. It actually runs north-west and empties itself (when there is water in it) into the Mashkhel swamps. I must admit, however, that, from personal observation, it is often exceedingly difficult to decide from a casual inspection in which direction the water of these abnormally flat nullahs runs. Shortly after passing the Mashkhel, he encountered an ordinary dust-storm, followed by heavy rain, which much modified the terrors of the awful heat.

Pottinger has something to say about the hot winds that occur between June and September in these regions, known as the Bad-i-Simun, or pestilential winds, which kill men exposed to them and destroy vegetation, but his information was not derived from actual observation, and it is difficult to get any really authentic account of these winds. Parts of the Sind desert are equally subject to them. After losing his way (which was inexcusable on the part of his guide with the hills in sight), he arrived finally at the delightful little valley of Kalagan, near Jalk, where the terrors of nature were exchanged for those of his human surroundings. Kalagan is one of the sweetest and greenest spots of the Baluch frontier, and it is easy to realize Pottinger's intense joy in its palm groves and orchards. He was now in Persia, and his subsequent proceedings do not concern our present purpose. He travelled by Sib and Magas to Pahra and Bampur, maintaining his disguise as a Pirzada, or wandering religious student, with some difficulty, as he was insufficiently versed in the tenets of Islam. However, he acted up to his Moslem professions with a certain amount of success till he reached Pahra, where he was at once recognized as an Englishman by a boy who had previously met an English officer exploring in Southern Persia. But he was excellently well treated at Pahra, in strange contrast to his subsequent treatment at Bampur, close by. He eventually reached Kirman, and passed on by the regular trade route to Ispahan.

It is impossible to take leave of these two gallant young officers without a tribute of admiration for their magnificent pluck, the tenacity with which they held to their original purpose, the forbearance and cleverness with which they met the persistent and worrying difficulties which were set in their way by truculent native officials, and the accuracy of their final statements. Pottinger really left little to be discovered about the distribution of Baluch tribes, and if his mapping exhibits some curious eccentricities, we must remember that it was practically a compilation from memory, with but the vaguest means at his disposal for the measurement of distances. It was a first map, and by the light of it the success of the subsequent explorations of Masson (which covered a good deal of the same ground in Baluchistan) is fairly accounted for. Christie died a soldier's death early in his career, but Pottinger lived to transmit an honoured name to yet later adventurers in the field of geography.