Herat 800,000 rupees = £80,000 Kandahar 800,000 ” = £80,000 Kabul 2,000,000 ” = £200,000 Nearly twenty years later, in 1857, during a conference with the Governor-General of India at Peshawar, Dost Mahommed submitted an estimate of his returns which, excluding a million rupees which had to be disbursed to tribal chiefs, was as follows: Kabul 2,222,000 rupees = £222,200 Kandahar 444,000 ” = £44,400 Turkestan 342,800 ” = £34,280 Supplementary sources 1,000,000 ” = £100,000 --------- -------- Total 4,008,800 ” = £400,880 While the receipts of Afghan Turkestan were incorporated with these figures, the Herat territory was still an independent sphere and its income on that account is not included. A few years later, under Shir Ali, the revenue from all sources rose to £710,000; which, together with the very handsome subsidy annually paid by the Government of India, and if it had been assisted by a liberal fiscal policy under Abdur Rahman, well might have expanded to an annual income of one million sterling. [Illustration: A CUSTOMS STATION IN THE PLAINS] Prior to their systematic collection under the arrangements which were devised by Abdur Rahman, the monies of Afghanistan were obtained by an elaborate process of taxation, which, if not altogether excessive, was accompanied by much unauthorised exaction. Taxes were imposed upon all live-stock, upon cultivated ground, upon all varieties of produce, upon houses and upon certain classes of the population, the apparent aim of the authorities, irrespective of their actual needs, being to extract as much as possible from their unhappy subjects. The following table represents the taxes which were imposed in the territories of Herat, Kandahar and Kabul. _Article._ _Imposts._ £ _s._ _d._ Merchants’ shops 336 jindeks[33] per annum = 5 12 0 Nomads’ tent-tax 44 ” ” = 0 14 8 Afghans’ hut-tax 6 ” ” = 0 2 0 Camels and horses 16 ” ” = 0 5 4 Cows 3½ ” ” = 0 1 0 Sheep ⎫ ewes ½ ” ” = 0 0 2 Goats ⎭ Farm produce 8 ” ” = 0 2 8 Fruit gardens 30 ” ” = 0 10 0 Kitchen gardens 37½ ” ” = 0 12 6 Poll-tax, Hindu 15 ” ” = 0 5 0 Horses exported 73 ” ” = 1 4 4 In addition to these taxes there were the inter-territorial levies upon merchandise in transit from one principality to another. These were upon--