The country of the Vizeerees abounds in iron, as does Bajour and the adjoining hills, where there are also indications of copper. Sulphur is found in Bulkh and in Seestaun. The greatest place for salt has been mentioned rock salt is also found in Bulkh, and salt is made from springs and ponds in Khorassaun. Saltpetre is made every where from the soil. Alum is got from the clay at Calla-baugh, and orpiment is found in Bulkh and in the Hazaureh country.

BOOK II.

GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE INHABITANTS OF

AFGHAUNISTAUN.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION, ORIGIN, AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE AFGHAUNS.

THE description which I have attempted of the country of the Afghauns has been rendered difficult by the great variety of the regions to be described, and by the diversity even of contiguous tracts. No less a diversity will be discovered in the people who inhabit it; and, amidst the contrasts that are apparent in the government, manners, dress, and habits of the different tribes, I find it difficult to select those great features, which all possess in common, and which give a marked national character to the whole of the Afghauns. This difficulty is increased by the fact, that those qualities which distinguish them from all their neighbours are by no means the same which, without reference to such a comparison, would appear to Europeans to predominate in their character. The freedom which forms their grand distinction among the nations of the East, might seem to an Englishman a mixture of anarchy and arbitrary power; and the manly virtues that raise them above their neigh

bours, might sink in his estimation almost to the level of the opposite defects. It may, therefore, assist in appreciating their situation and character to figure the aspects they would present to a traveller from England, and to one from India.

If a man could be transported from England to the Afghaun country, without passing through the dominions of Turkey, Persia, or Tartary, he would be amazed at the wide and unfrequented desarts, and the mountains, covered with perennial snow. Even in the cultivated part of the country, he would discover a wild assemblage of hills and wastes, unmarked by enclosures, not embellished by trees, and destitute of navigable canals, public roads, and all the great and elaborate productions of human industry and refinement. He would find the towns few, and far distant from each other; and he would look in vain for inns or other conveniences, which a traveller would meet with in the wildest parts of Great Britain. Yet he would sometimes be delighted with the fertility and populousness of particular plains and valleys, where he would see the productions of Europe mingled in profusion with those of the torrid zone, and the land laboured with an industry and a judgment nowhere surpassed. He would see the inhabitants following their flocks in tents, or assembled in villages, to which the terraced roofs and mud walls give an appearance entirely new. He would be struck at first with their high and even harsh features, their sun-burned countenances, their long beards, their loose garments, and their shaggy mantles of skins. When he entered into the society, he would notice the absence of regular courts of justice, and of every

thing like an organized police. He would be surprised at the fluctuation and instability of the civil institutions. He would find it difficult to comprehend how a nation could subsist in such disorder; and would pity those who were compelled to pass their days in such a scene, and whose minds were trained by their unhappy situation to fraud and violence, to rapine, deceit, and revenge. Yet he would scarce fail to admire their martial and lofty spirit, their hospitality, and their bold and simple manners, equally removed from the suppleness of a citizen and the awkward rusticity of a clown; and he would probably, before long, discover, among so many qualities that excited his disgust, the rudiments of many virtues.

But an English traveller from India, would view them with a more favourable eye. He would be pleased with the cold climate, elevated by the wild and novel scenery, and delighted by meeting many of the productions of his native land. He would first be struck with the thinness of the fixed population, and then with the appearance of the people; not fluttering in white muslins, while half their bodies are naked, but soberly and decently attired in dark-coloured woollen clothes, and wrapped up in brown mantles, or in large sheep-skin cloaks. He would admire their strong and active forms, their fair complexions and European features, their industry and enterprise, the hospitality, sobriety, and contempt of pleasure which appear in all their habits; and, above all, the independence and energy of their character. In India, he would have left a country where every movement originates in the government or its agents,

and where the people absolutely go for nothing; and he would find himself among a nation where the control of the government is scarcely felt, and where every man appears to pursue his own inclinations, undirected and unrestrained. Amidst the stormy independence of this mode of life, he would regret the ease and security in which the state of India, and even the indolence and timidity of its inhabitants, enable most parts of that country to repose. He would meet with many productions of art and nature that do not exist in India; but, in general, he would find the arts of life less advanced, and many of the luxuries of Hindoostaun unknown. On the whole, his impression of his new acquaintances would be favourable; and although he would feel that, without having lost the ruggedness of a barbarous nation, they were tainted with the vices common to all Asiatics, yet he would reckon them virtuous, compared with the people to whom he had been accustomed, would be inclined to regard them with interest and kindness, and could scarcely deny them a portion of his esteem.

Such would be the impressions made on an European, and an Indian traveller, by their ordinary intercourse with the Afghauns. When they began to investigate their political constitution, both would be alike perplexed with its apparent inconsistencies and contradictions, and with the union which it exhibits. of turbulent independence and gross oppression. But the former would, perhaps, be most struck with the despotic pretensions of the general government, and the latter with the democratic licence which prevails in the government of the tribes.