I have given this very curtailed sketch of what has been happening in Afghanistan during the last hundred and fifty years, so that one may see _who_ Amîr Abdurrahman is and why he is Amîr. We may now go back to our former subject, the peoples inhabiting Afghanistan. [Sidenote: Origin of the Ghilzais.] The Ghilzai Afghans are of doubtful origin: they are sometimes reckoned as Pathan. Their language is Pukhtu, and their manners, customs, and religion the same as those of the Duranis; but they are said to have come into the country with the Turkoman Sabaktakin in the tenth century, and to be the representatives of a Turk tribe from beyond the Jaxartes, called Khilichi, “swordsmen.” More recent investigation seems to point, however, to their being of Rajput (Scythian) descent; for the clans into which the tribe is divided have mostly Indian names. The Ghilzai is a very numerous and powerful tribe occupying that part of the country which lies between the provinces of Kandahar and Kabul. They are a race of fighting men, but have not given a ruler to Afghanistan. One reason for their submission to the government of the Duranis at Kabul, is the fact that a large portion of the tribe is nomadic in its habits, moving from highlands to lowlands with the seasons. They spend the summer among their villages on the uplands of the Sufféd Kôh, Tobah, and Khôjah Amràn Mountains, and in the winter packing their belongings on camels, asses, and bullocks, and driving their flocks before them, they descend and camp on the warm plains. Without their winter quarters on the plains they could not exist, neither themselves nor their flocks. Of the numerous tribes of Pathans or Border Afghans I will speak only of the two to which I have already referred in the course of my narrative: the Afridis, who occupy the mountains around Peshawur and the east of the Khyber; and the Shinwaris, who occupy the western extremity of the Khyber. The Afridis, who number about thirty thousand families, say they were transplanted by Mahmûd of Ghuzni from the Ghor country, which lies between Kabul and Herat, to their present hills as military colonists for the defence of the Khyber Pass. Two centuries later the colony was increased by fresh arrivals planted by Shahabuddin Ghori. They are probably of Turkish descent. The Afridis are partly cave dwellers, but live also in movable huts of matting and wickerwork--a rough imitation of the Turkoman _Khirgar_. They have few villages and no tents. They are described by Dr. Bellew (a keen observer, who spent many years on the frontier in the study of the Pathan) as a warlike and predatory people, “of lean wiry build, with keen eyes and hungry features, and of light complexion, but not of fine physique.” Other of the Pathan tribes near them differ in physical conformity, for they are tall and manly, being often as fair and as strongly built as Englishmen.