Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/256

Rh 238 AFGHANISTAN [HISTORY. the Hindus pay the separate poll-tax (jazeya). Taxes are paid on horses, &c., kept, and on the sale of animals in the public market. The aggregate of taxation is not great, but the smallest exaction seems a tyrannical violence to an Afghan. Nor does payment guarantee the cultivator from further squeez ing. In many parts of the country collections are only made spasmodically by military force. The people are let alone for years, till need and opportunity arise, when a force is marched in, and arrears extorted. Customs dues at Kabul and Kandahar are only 2 per cent, nominally, but this is increased a good deal by exactions. There is a considerable tax on horses ex ported for sale, and a toll on beasts of burden exporting merchandise, from 6 rupees on a loaded camel to 1 rupee on a donkey. MILITARY FORCE. According to the old system the Afghan forces were entirely composed of the ulus, or tribesmen of the chiefs, who were supposed to hold their lands on a condition of service, but who, as frequently as not, went over to the enemy in the day of need. As a counterpoise, the late Amir Dost Mahommed began to form a regular army. In 1858 this contained 16 infantry regiments of (nominally) 800 men, 3 of cavalry of 300 men, and about 80 field-pieces, besides a few heavy guns. The pay was bad, and extremely irregular, and punish ments were severe. The men were fine, but recruited in the worst manner, viz., the arbitrary and forcible seizure of able-bodied men. There were also Jezailchi (riflemen), irregulars, some in the Amir s pay, others levies of the local chiefs ; and a considerable number of irregular cavalry. We have failed to obtain recent data on this subject. LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. Persian is the vernacular of a large part of the non- Afghan population, and is fami liar to all educated Afghans. But the proper language of the Afghans is Pushtu, or Pukhtu (these are dialectic variations). Currency has been given to the notion that this language has a Semitic character, but this appears to be quite erroneous, and is entirely rejected by competent authorities, the majority of whom class Pushtu positively as an Aryan or Indo-Persian language. The Pushtu vocabulary preserves a number of ancient forms and con nections with words that remain isolated in other Aryan languages. Interesting illustrations of this and other points connected with Pushtu will be found in a paper by Isidor Lowenthal in the J. of the As. Soc. of Bengal, vol. xxix. Pushtu does not seem to be spoken in Herat, or (roughly speaking) west of the Helmand. There is a respectable amount of Afghan literature. The oldest work in Pushtu as yet mentioned is a history of the conquest of Swat by Shaikh Mali, a chief of the Yusufzais, and leader in the conquest (A.D. 1413-24). In 1494 Kaju Khan became chief of the same clan; during his rule Buner and Panjkora were completely con quered, and he wrote a history of the events. But these works have not been met with. In the reign of Akbar, Bayazid Ansari, called Pir-i-Roshan, &quot; The Saint of Light,&quot; the founder of an heretical sect, wrote in Pushtu ; as did his chief antagonist, a famous Afghan saint called Akhund Darweza. The literature is richest in poetry. Abdarrahman (17th century) is the best known poet. Another very popular poet is Khushal Khan, the warlike chief of the Khattaks in the time of Aurangzib. Many other members of his family were poets also. Ahmed Shah, the founder cf the monarchy, likewise wrote poetry. Ballads are numerous. HISTORY. The Afghan chroniclers call their people Bani-Israil (Arab, for Children of Israel), and claim descent from King Saul (whom they call by the Mahommedan cor ruption TCilat] through a son whom they ascribe to him, called Jeremiah, who again had a sou called Afghiiua. The numerous stock of Afghana were removed by Nebu chadnezzar, and found their way to the mountains of Glair and Feroza (east and north of Herat). Only nine years after Mahonimed s announcement of his mission they heard of the new prophet, and sent to Medina a deputation headed by a wise and holy man called Kais, to make inquiry. The deputation became zealous converts, and on their return converted their countrymen. From Kais and his three sons the whole of the genuine Afghans claim descent. This story is repeated in great and varying detail in sundry books by Afghans, the oldest of which appears to be of the 1 6th century ; nor do we know that any trace of the legend is found of older date. In the version given by Major liaverty (Introd. to Afghan Grammar], Afghanah is settled by King Solomon himself in the Sulimani moun tains; there is nothing about Nebuchadnezzar or Ghur. The historian Firishta says he had read that the Afghans were descended from Copts of the race of Pharaoh. And one of the Afghan histories, quoted by Mr Bellew, relates &quot; a current tradition &quot; that previous to the time of Kais, Bilo the father of the Biluchis, Uzbak (evidently the father of the Uzbegs), and Afghana were considered as brethren. As Mahommed Uzbeg Khan, the eponymus of the medley of Tartar tribes called Uzbegs, reigned in the 14th century A.D., this gives some possible light on the value of these so-called traditions. We have analogous stories in the literature of almost all nations that derive their religion or their civilisation from a foreign source. To say nothing of the farce of the Book of Mormon, there is in our own age and in our own country a considerable number of persons who seriously hold and propagate the doctrine that the English people are descended from the tribes of Israel, and the literature of this whimsi cal theory would fill a much larger shelf than the Afghan histories. But the Hebrew ancestry of the Afghans is more worthy at least of consideration, for a respectable number of intelligent officers, well acquainted with the Afghans, have been strong in their belief of it ; and though the customs alleged in proof will not bear the stress laid on them, undoubtedly a prevailing type of the Afghan physi ognomy has a character strongly Jewish. This characteristic is certainly a remarkable one ; but it is shared, to a considerable extent, by the Kashmiris (a circumstance which led Bernier to speculate on the Kashmiris represent ing the lost tribes of Israel), and, we believe, by the Tajik people of Badakhshan. In the time of Darius Hystaspes (B.C. 500) we find tlie region now called Afghanistan embraced in the Achasmenian satrapies, and various parts of it occupied by Sarangians (in Seistan ), Ariaiu (in Herat), Sattagydicms (supposed in highlands of upper Helmand and the plateau of Ghazni), Dadicce (suggested to be Tajiks), Aparylce (mountaineers, perhaps of Safed Koh, where lay the Paryctcc of Ptolemy), Gandarii (in Lower Kabul basin), and Pak- tycs, on or near the Indus. In the last name it has been plausibly suggested that we have the Pukhtun, as the eastern Afghans pro nounce their name. Indeed, Pusht, Paslit, or Pakht, would seem to be the oldest name of the country of the Afghans in their tradi tions. Alexander s march led him to Artacoana (Herat ?), the capital of Aria, and thence to the country of the Zarangce (Seistan), to that of the Euergctce, upon the Etymandcr (Helmand river), toArachosia, thence to the Indians dwelling among snows in a barren country, probably the highlands between Ghazni and Kabul. Thence he- marched to the foot of Caucasus, and spent the winter among the Paropamisadce, founding a city, Alexandria, supposed to be Hupian, near Charikar. On his return from Bactria he prosecuted his march to India by the north side of the Kabul river. The Ariana of Strabo corresponds generally with the existing dominions of Kabul, but overpasses their limits on the west and south. About 310 B.C. Seleucus is said by Strabo to have given to the Indian Sandrocottus (Chandragupta), in consequence of a marriage-