Proceedings in connection with the Russo-Afghan Boundary question dragged on through 1886 until, after being transferred to St. Petersburg and London, and again returning to the scene itself, they were concluded in the winter of 1887. Difficulties between Russia and India, on behalf of Afghanistan, were for the moment at an end, when, in 1888, the Marquess of Dufferin gave place to the Marquess of Lansdowne as Viceroy of India. With the newcomer an active frontier policy was inaugurated. In quiet furtherance of this the Quetta railway, which in January 1888 had been carried to Kila Abdulla, was continued through the Khwaja Amran beyond Old Chaman to New Chaman. The Amir of Afghanistan professed to regard this extension as a violation of the Treaty of Gandamak which placed the Afghan-Baluch boundary at the foot of the Khwaja Amran--an undesirable site for a railway terminus. This undertaking was the forerunner of much military activity, and twice in this year expeditions took the field against the Hazaras of the Black Mountain. These ventures introduced a disturbing element into conditions prevailing upon the frontier and had an inflammatory effect upon Afghan opinion. At the moment, 1889, the Amir was on service in Afghan-Turkestan superintending certain defensive measures along the northern and north-western frontier, but by the summer of 1890 he had returned to Kabul. In the spring of this year the turbulence of the Khidarzais in the Zhob valley had been suppressed, the increasing energy of the Government of India bringing the danger of a rupture of relations between India and Afghanistan appreciably closer. In view of the position of affairs, the Government of India refused to permit the passage of war materials into Afghanistan, stopping not only the rifles, artillery and ammunition, but also all imports of iron, steel and copper. To this action the Amir replied by repudiating the subsidy of twelve lakhs which had been granted by Lord Ripon. At the same time he wrote a letter to Lord Salisbury, who was then Prime Minister, and, as a more practical measure and a protest against our occupation of New Chaman, he prohibited his people from using the railway from the terminus at the northern foot-hills of the Khwaja Amran to the first station on the south side of the tunnel through the mountains.