England and Russia in Central Asia (Volume 2); With Two Maps and Appendices in Two Volumes
(This historic book may have numerous typos and missing te...)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879. Excerpt: ... 126 CHAPTER IV. AFGHANISTAN. The past history of Afghanistan has been so recently and so admirably narrated by Colonel Malleson, the historian of many periods and events in Indian affairs, that it would be presumptuous for anyone to dream" of treating upon the same subject unless they followed closely in his footsteps. Yet, in order to make the later phases of the political question clear, it is necessary to give a resume of Afghan history at this stage of our survey, and it will have so far conferred a service upon the reader that it may whet his appetite for more, and thus induce him to refer to Colonel Malleson's vigorous pages for himself. In the year 1506, Baber, expelled from his kingdom of Ferghana by his rebellious subjects, and fleeing after the rout of his Persian allies before the walls of Bokhara, crossed the Hindoo Koosh, and advanced against the town of Cabul at the head of a miscellaneous following, which could scarcely be honoured-with the appellation of an army. Alone among the great successful invaders of India, Baber approached its frontier in the guise of a distressed prince, and not as a conqueror. He crossed the Hindoo Koosh because north of it there was no safety for him; and that his flight from his own realm proved to be but the road to greater power and empire must be held to be one of the most striking instances of the freaks fortune finds pleasure in playing upon us at times. Before the year 1511 he had conquered Afghanistan as far south as Candahar, and a considerable portion of the Punjab, and by this latter conquest he was brought face to face with Ibrahim Lodi, an Afghan chief at that time reigning in Delhi, and between them a war broke out which resulted, in 1525, in the triumph of Baber and the flight of Ibrahim. For five...
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