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 AFIUN—AFRICA of the tribal groups has been dislocated, the defeat or mutiny of the regular forces may lead to widespread confusion in Afghanistan. The extent of the territories subject to the rulers of Afghanistan has varied from time to time with political ., . vicissitudes._ ii* Abdurrahman governed a kingAfguBtl . tribes on dom strictly delimited between the possessions Indian 0r dependencies of Russia, Persia, and India. frontier. should be mentioned, however, that the geographical boundaries of Afghanistan would include on the eastward all the highlands down to the skirts of the mountains that slope towards the Indian plains; for up to this line, and indeed beyond, the language, habits, and general character of the people are identical. But the frontier laid down in 1894 to mark the eastern limit of the Amir’s jurisdiction, cut off from it a zone of tribal territory that had previously been for the most part under the nominal suzerainty of Kabul; though in reality it lias always been a debateable land held by unruly and independent tribes. The zone thus interposed between British India and the Afghan rulership may be roughly described as stretching from the southern border of the Chitral state, along the whole north-western frontier of India southwards to the confines of Baluchistan. It is traversed by all the passes that lead out of the Afghan mountains into India; it is occupied at several points by British garrisons or levies in British pay; and it is inhabited by fierce, free, and warlike tribes, whose annals, so far as they have any, belong to the general history of the Afghan people. From time immemorial they have held the valleys and high ranges which overhang the main routes towards the low country; they have taken part in the incessant border wars and the great invasions of India, admitting allegiance to be due from them, as from all Afghans, to the chief ruler of their race, but acknowledging no master. Since 1849 the protection of the Indian borderland has necessitated sending into these hills frequent military expeditions, which have twice entangled the British in serious and prolonged fighting. In 1863 the
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obstinate resistance made by the tribes to a large British force sent into their country was not overcome without great exertions; and in 1897-98 an insurrection of the tribes in the Swat valley was followed by a general rising of the Afridis, who destroyed a post of British levies in the Khyber Pass, and were only brought to terms after an arduous and harassing campaign. Since 1894, when the Amir of Kabul renounced all claim to jurisdiction over this region, the tribes of the outer hills and valleys on the Indian border have been gradually brought under the superintendence of the British Government by the location of posts inside their country, by enrolling tribal levies, and by other methods for strengthening control. Yet the management of these intractable and fanatic highlanders is still by far the most troublesome of the political and military difficulties that confront the Government along the whole external frontier of the Indian Empire. R a we ix.sox. England and Russia in the East, 1875.—Sir H. M. Due and. The First Afghan JVar, 1879.—Wyllie’s Essays on the External Policy of India, 1875.—Lady Betty Balfoue. Lord Lytton's Indian Administration, 1899. — Elphinstone. Account of the Kingdom, of Kabul, 1809.—Parliamentary Payers, “Afghanistan.”—Lord Cuezon. Problems of the Far East, 1894. Aflun Kara-Hissar, the popular name of Karahissar Sahib, an important trade centre in Asia Minor, in the Bnisa vilayet. Called Nicopolis by Leo III. after his victory over the Arabs, in 740, its name was changed by the Seljiik Turks to Kara-hissar, “'black, castle.” The town is in the centre of the opium, afiun, district, and is connected by railway with Smyrna, Konia, Angora, and Constantinople. Population, 18,000 (Moslems, 13,000; Christians, 5000). Afragola, a town in the province of Naples, Campania, Italy, 5 miles from Naples. • It is on the steam tramway from Naples to Caivano. The principal industries are in straw hats, wine, and the manufacture of wooden articles of all sorts. There is a great annual fair on the second Sunday in May. Population about 20,000.

AFRICA. I. Physical Geography. AFRICA, the largest of the three great southward projections from the main mass of the earth’s surface, includes within its remarkably regular outline an area, according to the most recent computations, of 11,280,000 square miles, excluding the islands. Its main structural lines show both the east-to-west direction characteristic, at least in the eastern hemisphere, of the more northern parts of the world, and the north-tosouth direction seen in the southern peninsulas. The continent is thus composed of two segments at right angles, the northern running from east to west, the southern from north to south, the subordinate lines corresponding in the main to these two directions. Except quite in the north, the most striking feature in African geology is the great age of the fundamental structures and the absence of signs of recent Structure disturbance of the crust leading to the elevation of folded mountain ranges. Both in the east and west of the meridional portion of the continent a broad zone parallel to the coast-line is composed mainly of ancient crystalline rocks (some of these showing signs of folding), on the flanks of which rocks of palaeozoic age still remain in the position in which they were first deposited. In the east a band of gneissose and schistose

rocks, supposed to represent the primitive axis of the continent, has been traced at intervals for over half its length. Parallel with this and farther inland run broader belts of ancient rocks, forming in places wide granitic domes. In the west an almost continuous band of crystalline rocks—chiefly schists of varying character— accompanies the whole coast-line of the southern segment, as well as a large part of the southern margin of the western limb. Finally in the centre of the continent, near the meeting-line of the two segments, these ancient rocks seem to occur in lines intermediate between the two main directions. The wide basin between the eastern and western crystalline belts seems to be occupied largely by sedimentary strata, among which horizontally-bedded sandstones figure largely. Owing to the imperfection of the data, and in many cases to the absence of fossils, the age of the strata cannot yet be determined; but apart from recent fluviatile and subaerial deposits, they seem to belong chiefly to the palaeozoic or older mesozoic periods. Along the eastern main axis the crystalline rocks are largely overlaid with sheets of volcanic rocks, while numerous volcanoes, some long since extinct, some partially active, have thrust up piles of matter above them. In Northern Africa the whole geologic structure dates from much more recent times. The most important feature here is the existence of a folded mountain range