“Oh! all this we are obliged to have off by heart in the General Staff College, if we are not to be miserably ploughed in examination.  In November, 1878, we were rather weak in Central Asia through having to devote all our resources to bringing the war with Turkey to a close, and so the English again entered Afghanistan.  They meant to take advantage of our embarrassments to bring the country entirely under their suzerainty.  They advanced in three columns by way of the Bolan Pass, the Kuram Valley, and the Khyber Pass.  But on this occasion too they were unable to stand their ground, and had to retire with great loss.  No Power will ever be able to establish itself in Afghanistan without the sympathies of the natives on its side.  And the sympathies of the Afghans are on our side.  We understand how to manage these people; the English are solely infidels in their eyes.”

“Do you believe that Russia merely covets the buffer-state Afghanistan, or do its intentions go further?”

“Oh, my dear comrade, at present we mean India.  For more than a hundred years past we have had our eye on this rich country.  The final aim of all our conquests in Central Asia has been India.  As early as 1801 the Emperor Paul commanded the Hetman of the army of the Don, Orlov, to march upon the Ganges with 22,000 Cossacks.  It is true that the campaign at that time was considered a far simpler matter than it really is.  The Emperor died, and his venturesome plan was not proceeded with.  During the Crimea General Kauffmann offered to conquer India with 25,000 men.  But nothing came of this project.  Since then ideas have changed.  We have seen that only a gradual advance can lead us to our objective.  And we have not lost time.  In the west we have approached Herat, until now we are only about sixty miles away, and in the east, in the Pamirs, we have pushed much nearer still to India.”

“It is most interesting to hear all this.  I have done my best to get at the lie of the land, but till now the Pamir frontiers have always been a mystery to me.”

“They mystify most people, you will find.  Only a person who has been there can understand the situation.  And he who has been there does not know the frontier line either, for there is, in fact, no exact boundary.  The Pamir plateau lies to the north of Peshawar, and is bounded in the south by the Hindu-Kush range.  The territorial spheres of government are extremely complicated.  The Ameer of the neighbouring country of Afghanistan claims the sovereignty over the khanates Shugnan and Roshan, which form the larger portion of the Pamirs.  Moreover, he likewise raises pretensions to the province of Seistan, which is also claimed by Persia.  Now this province is of peculiar importance, because the English could seize it from Baluchistan without much difficulty, and, if so, they would obtain a strong flank position to the south of our line of march, Merv-Herat, by way of Kandahar-Quetta.”