Although the Herat province for a long time has been the seat of Afghan government, sometimes in subordination to Kabul or upon occasion independent, it has been, nevertheless, the object of constant attention from Persia. Since Ahmed Shah Durani founded the Durani empire Herat has ranked as one of the three chief cities of the country; and, even with the downfall of the dynasty which Ahmed Shah established and his son Timur wrecked, it has contrived to play an interesting part in the fortunes of the State, if not always an important one. But from the time when it was incorporated in the Afghan kingdom by Dost Mahommed forty-three years ago, it has experienced without any serious interruption the yoke of the Kabul Government, until, freed from the menace of Persian aggression by British intervention, it needs to-day only a period of equitable government to restore its fortunes. At the present date the province comprises between five and six hundred villages, with some forty-five thousand households distributed over the centres of Ghorian, Sabzawar, Farah Bakwa, Kurak, Obeh, Ghor and Kala Nao. In the days when it formed a separate principality, many tribes, now lying within the Persian and Russian boundaries, were allied in arms with Herat, the prestige of its reputation enforcing a general recognition of its position and obedience to its behests. The old order has now quite disappeared. With the advance of Russia to the northern frontier of Afghanistan the independence of these roving peoples has been curtailed and their love of war suppressed, the new arrangement depriving the former khanate of no small proportion of its earlier glories. As a province of Afghanistan, Herat is the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the north-western frontier and the seat of a provincial governor; it remains to be seen whether it becomes a centre of industrial activity in connection with the army.