what policy the young man, Habi Bullah Khan, would adopt.  During the last three years of the old man’s life he yielded his power very largely to his son, and selected him twenty wives from the twenty most influential families in the kingdom in order to strengthen his throne.  Although Habi Bullah is not so able or determined as his father, he has held his position without an insurrection or a protest, and is no longer in danger of being overthrown by one of the bloody conspiracies which have interlarded Afghanistan history for the last two centuries.

The British were fortunate in having a viceroy at that critical period who was personally acquainted with the young ameer and a friend of his father.  When Lord Curzon was a correspondent of the London Times, before he entered parliament, he visited Cabul and formed pleasant relations with the late ameer, who speaks of him in most complimentary terms in his recently published memoirs.  The old man happened to die during the darkest period of the South African war, and Russia took occasion at that critical moment to demand the right to enter into independent diplomatic negotiations with Afghanistan for the survey of a railroad across that country.  Only a few years before, Great Britain fought a war with Afghanistan and overthrew Shere Ali, the shah, because he received a Russian ambassador on a similar errand, after having refused to allow a British envoy to reside at his court or even enter his country.  And there is no telling what might have happened had not Lord Curzon taken advantage of his personal relations and former friendship.  Russia selected a significant date to make her demands.  It was only a fortnight after the British repulse at Spion Kop, and Ladysmith was in a hopeless state of siege.  Such situations have a powerful influence upon semi-civilized soldiers, who are invariably inclined to be friendly to those who are successful at arms.  However, Lord Curzon had influence enough to hold the ameer to the British side, and the latter has ever since shown a friendly disposition to the British and has given the Russians no public encouragement.

The official report of the viceroy to the secretary of state for India in London, covering the ten years ending Dec. 31, 1902, contains the following interesting paragraph concerning the greatest source of anxiety: 

“Relations with Afghanistan have been peaceful throughout the decade.  Although there is reason to believe that Afghan influence among the turbulent tribes on the northwestern frontier was at times the cause of restlessness and disorder, the Durand agreement of 1893, followed by the demarcation of the southern and nearly all the eastern Afghan boundary, set a definite limit to the legitimate interference of Afghanistan with the tribes included in the British sphere of influence.  Under that agreement the annual subsidy paid by the British government to the ameer was increased from L80,000 to L120,000.  A further demarcation,