On the Committee Sir Charles and Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice were unequally yoked with the lethargic Secretary of State for War. Lord Fitzmaurice has vivid recollection of Lord Hartington's entry at one sitting half an hour late, after his fashion. The question turned on the probable action of some Afghan chiefs, whereupon Lord Hartington broke silence by observing reflectively: "I wonder what an Afghan chief is like." Sir Charles, with a glance at the high-nosed, bearded, deliberate face of his colleague, pushed a scribbled note to Lord Edmond: "I expect an Afghan chief is very like the Right Honourable the Marquis of Hartington."' Sir Charles's interest in this Central Asian question, where political and military interests lay so close together, led to a correspondence, and the correspondence to a friendship, with Lord Roberts. 'In March I received a letter from Sir Frederick Roberts, not yet personally known to me, in which he enclosed a memorandum by him called "Is an Invasion of India by Russia Possible?" In his letter he said that he had given up the idea of returning to Kandahar, and only desired that we should make ourselves secure upon our new frontier, improve our relations with the Afghans, and clearly show that we could not allow the Russians to establish themselves in Northern Afghanistan. In his printed paper he showed that Persia might be looked upon as virtually Russian, and that what we had to do was to prevent Afghanistan falling into the same position. He incidentally admitted the strength of the view of those of us who had advocated the evacuation of Kandahar by saying that the Afghans "must be assured that we have no designs upon their country, and that even should circumstances require a British occupation of Kandahar, the direction of all internal affairs would be left in their hands; we must guarantee them the integrity of their kingdom." He strongly supported my view that no time should be lost in defining the northern boundary of Afghanistan.