According to the most recent investigations, the Afghans, though they assert themselves to be a Jewish nation descended from Saul, are a conglomerate race, some tribes, or sections of tribes, having in their veins strains of Persian, others of Indian, Greek, or Scythian blood. Of the tribes at the present day some bear the very names and occupy the same positions that Herodotus tells us of as existing in the Persian satrapies of Darius, and others, the names of Macedonian and Greek tribes, who were introduced after the conquest of Alexander. Others again, especially in eastern Afghanistan, bear the names of Rajput tribes renowned in Indian history. [Sidenote: The First Afghan King.] In the tenth century was the invasion by Tartar hordes headed by the Turk Sabaktakin, who established himself in southern Afghanistan, making Ghuzni his capital. He and his son, Mahmûd of Ghuzni, founded a dynasty in Afghanistan. They were recent converts to Islam, and destroying the then dominant religion of the country, Buddhism, shrouded under the cloak of Mahomed the strains of different nations that existed in the country. This wild mixed race, called collectively Afghan, was at all times turbulent and difficult to govern, and the tribes fought against each other without the least scruple. Their present unsettled condition, therefore, can be somewhat better understood when we consider that it has existed, and in a far greater degree, from remote ages. It would be tedious merely to enumerate the multitudinous divisions into which the Afghan nation is divided, and I have grouped many important tribes under the comprehensive term Border Afghans. These, as the name implies, occupy the mountains on the Indian frontier, and it is they who, by their raidings, thievings, and turbulence, cause so much trouble to the Government of India. From their position, it has been possible for investigators among the Indian Frontier Officials to study the customs, laws, and descent of these tribes more closely than those of the Afghans occupying the interior of the country. Of the latter, the Durani and the Ghilzai tribes are, from their numerical superiority, the more important. In addition, the Durani tribe has, from two of its branches, given to the country its Afghan Kings. It was in the last century, 1747, that Ahmad Khan, of the Suddozai division of the Duranis, created himself Ahmad Shah and founded a dynasty. It occurred in the following manner. Nadir Shah, a Turkoman robber chief, invaded Persia, driving thence the Afghans, who had held the country for some six or seven years. He placed himself on the throne, and then proceeded to annex Afghanistan, seizing first Herat, and after a nearly two years’ siege Kandahar, and finally Kabul.