Another nation, and in point of numbers the most important, occupying Afghanistan, is the Hazara. They are mostly of the Tartar type, and occupy the mountains of the west and north-west of Afghanistan. They, like the Afghan, are a mixed race. Though chiefly Turk they have tribes among them of Rajput, Kopt, Abyssinian, and Persian descent. The Hazara proper, who inhabit the Ghor country, claim to be descendants of military colonists planted in this country by Ghengis Khan, the Turkestan chief, in 1200. Probably, however, the influx was slow, extending over several generations, and was more the migration of a nation than a purely military conquest. The language of the Hazaras is an old dialect of Persian with some admixture of Turki words. At the Kabul Hospital when a Hazara came for treatment I found his language so difficult to understand, that in the absence of my Armenian interpreter, I often had to call upon some one to translate for me into modern Persian. With their high cheek-bones, small oblique eyes, and scanty beards, they differ much in physiognomy from the Afghan, and their form of government, manners, and morals are equally divergent. The government of their chiefs is more despotic and less republican than that of the Afghan chiefs. Though some tribes are said to be nomadic, predatory, and the poorest and most barbarous of all the races in Afghanistan, those I came in contact with seemed, compared with the Afghans, a hard working peaceful people, unless they were roused by cruelty and oppression; then, indeed, they fought with dogged persistence. They seemed to have a certain simplicity of character which contrasted strongly with the duplicity of the Afghan. Though undersized, they are of great physical strength, and as slaves taken in war, or servants for hire, they seemed to me to do all the hard work in Kabul. In religion they are mostly Shiah Mahomedans, and therefore to the Sunni Afghans they seem almost as much infidels as the Christians. They make their own powder and rifles, are excellent shots, and, in spite of the mountainous country in which they dwell, are excellent horsemen. As a nation they have an intense love of liberty, and have been more or less independent for generations. The last monarch who subjugated them was Timûr Shah or Tamerlane. They have, however, paid tribute to the present Amîr, though many a battle was fought before they yielded. [Sidenote: Cause of Hazara Rebellions.] To this day the Hazaras are constantly breaking out in rebellion, but from stories I heard in Kabul I gather they would willingly pay tribute to the Amîr as King, but for the outrages and atrocious cruelties practised upon them by His Highness’s troops. In their day these Hazaras formed a very powerful sovereignty, which extended from the Euphrates to the Ganges. They it was who supplanted the Turk at Ghuzni, and who overthrew the Rajput dynasty, conquered India, and established the Mahomedan religion in that country.