that “Afrasiáb of Tur (the eponym of the Hiyátheleh) used Bakesir of Badgheis (_Baghshúrde_ of the Arabs; now called Kileh Maúr) as a stronghold and made his residence within it, and a myriad towns and villages were erected on its pleasant and prosperous territory,” The geographers enumerate some ten or twelve considerable towns, which continued to flourish till the time of the Suffaveans, the capital being Dehistán (probably modern Gulran or Gurlan), which must have been founded by the Dahæ when they accompanied the kindred tribe of Tokhari or Hiyátheleh in their original immigration. The boundaries of Badgheis seem to have fluctuated according to the power of the neighboring states, and it is not always easy to verify the notices of the geographers, owing to the disappearance of the old names. Still, it is important to note that Hafiz Abrú, who was a minister of Herat under Shah Rúkh, states categorically that Badgheis was bounded on the west by the Persian districts of Jam and Serakhs, thus proving that, at any rate at that period, the district extended northward up to the confines of the desert. To the east Badgheis was frequently made to include Merv-er-Rúd (Ak Tepeh), Penj-deh, Baghshúr (Kileh Maúr), Baún or Bavan (Kara Tepeh), and the entire valley of the Kushk river, while to the south it was separated from the plain of Herat, as at present, by a range of hills (now called Barkhút), the prolongation of the great Paropamisus. Such being the concurrent testimony of all writers as to the configuration of the country in antiquity, and Badgheis being so intimately connected with Herat as is the Campagna with Rome, it is difficult to understand on what grounds it can now be excluded from Afghan territory as indicated in the memorandum of 1872. The argument that neither Dost Mohammed Khan, nor Shir Ali Khan, nor even Abdur Rahman Khan until quite lately, exercised any effective jurisdiction in the district, or held it in military subjection, is certainly of no value; for this condition of recent possession, which at one time did really govern the distribution, was specially excluded from consideration in determining claims to Afghan nationality by Prince Gortchakoff’s letter of the 19th of December, 1872; and it would be a monstrous aggravation of the original outrage if the Turcomans, who had rendered Badgheis uninhabitable for fifty years, were, in virtue of their forcible interruption of Afghan government, to become themselves the legal owners of the country.