were stored in proportionate quantities.  Finally, Sher Ali had expended upon the construction of the Sherpur cantonments an astonishing amount of labour and money.  The extent and cost of this work may be judged of from the fact that the whole of the troops under my command will find cover during the winter within the cantonment, and the bulk of them in the main line of rampart itself, which extends to a length of nearly two miles under the southern and western slopes of the Bimaru hills.  Sher Ali’s original design was apparently to carry the wall entirely round the hills, a distance of nearly five miles, and the foundations were already laid for a considerable portion of this length.  All these military preparations were quite unnecessary except as a provision for contemplated hostilities with ourselves, and it is difficult to understand how their entire cost could have been met from the Afghan treasury, the gross revenue of the country amounting only to about eighty lakhs of rupees per annum.

7.  I have referred to the prevalence of Russian coin and wares in Kabul as evidence of the growing connexion between Russia and Afghanistan.  I am unable to find proof that the Czar’s coin was introduced in any other way than by the usual channels of trade.  It is quite possible that the bulk of it, if not the whole, came in gradually by this means, the accumulation of foreign gold in particular being considerable in this country, where little gold is coined.  Nevertheless, it seems to me a curious fact that the amount of Russian money in circulation should be so large.  No less than 13,000 gold pieces were found among the Amir’s treasure alone; similar coins are exceedingly common in the city bazaar; and great numbers of them are known to be in possession of the Sirdars.  Of course English goods of all kinds are plentiful here—­that is inevitable, particularly with a considerable body of Hindu merchants settled in the city, but Russian goods also abound.  Glass, crockery, silks, tea, and many other things which would seem to be far more easily procurable from India than from Russian territory, are to be found in great quantities.  A habit, too, seems to have been growing up among the Sirdars and others of wearing uniforms of Russian cut, Russian buttons, Russian boots, and the like.  Russian goods and Russian ways seem, in fact, to have become the fashion in Afghanistan.

* * * * *

APPENDIX VII.

(Referred to in Chapter LIII, Footnote 3.)

Translations of letters from GENERAL-ADJUTANT VON KAUFFMANN, Governor-General of Turkestan, to the address of the AMIR OF AFGHANISTAN, received on 10th, Shaban, 1295, through GENERAL STOLIETOFF, 9th August, 1878.