Under instructions addressed to Lieutenant-General Sir Donald Stewart, commanding the forces in Northern and Eastern Afghanistan, by the Marquess of Ripon as Viceroy of India, Sir Lepel Griffin on July 20, 1880, communicated the following promise in the course of a letter to Abdur Rahman on his recognition as Amir of Afghanistan by the Afghan Sirdars at Kabul in 1880. ... If any Power should attempt to interfere in Afghanistan, and if such interference should lead to unprovoked aggression on the dominions of your Highness, in that event the British Government would be prepared to aid you to such extent and in such manner as may appear to the British Government necessary in repelling it, provided that your Highness follows unreservedly the advice of the British Government in regard to your external relations.... In the first years of his reign Abdur Rahman certainly complied with the conditions stipulated by Sir Lepel Griffin, the correctness of his general conduct prompting Lord Ripon nearly three years later, June 16, 1883, in the course of a letter to write: ... Impressed by these considerations, I have determined to offer to your Highness personally ... a subsidy of 12 lakhs of rupees a year, payable monthly, to be devoted to the payment of your troops and to the other measures required for the defence of your north-western frontier.... In the following year, 1884, the gradual advance of Russia across Central Asia gave rise to apprehensions about the position of Afghanistan. Merv had been annexed in February of this year, when, after repeated inquiries on the part of Great Britain, it was arranged that an Anglo-Russian Boundary Commission should meet in October at Sarakhs, which had just been occupied. The course of events did not improve with this decision since, although Sir Peter Lumsden was despatched to the rendezvous, the Russian commissioner evaded a meeting. Fears for the situation of Afghanistan were not set aside by the seizure of Pul-i-Khatun in the very month--October 1884--for which the Sarakhs meeting had been originally convened, and the existence of very evident preparations for a further forward movement. The legitimacy of these proceedings was debated between St. Petersburg and London, Kabul and Calcutta, but, in spite of all pledges, the Russians in February of 1885 took possession of Zulfikar and Akrobat. Meanwhile in India plans for a full state Durbar at Rawal Pindi on April 8, in honour of T.R.H. the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, were in hand. The presence of the Amir of Afghanistan had been invited by the Viceroy, between whom and Abdur Rahman a conference upon the defence and demarcation of the north-western frontier, the strengthening of Herat, and the extension of the Sakkur-Sibi Railway to Quetta had been settled. While Anglo-Russian friction on the Afghan border did not prevent Abdur Rahman from paying homage to the august pair, the