Travels in Central Asia: Being the Account of a Journey from Teheran Across the Turkoman Desert on the Eastern Shore of the Caspian to Khiva, Bokhara, and SamarcandVámbéry, Ármin
History
Travels in Central Asia: Being the Account of a Journey from Teheran Across the Turkoman Desert on the Eastern Shore of the Caspian to Khiva, Bokhara, and Samarcand
Vámbéry, Ármin
Asia, Central -- Description and travel; Vámbéry, Ármin, 1832-1913 -- Travel -- Asia, Central
A striking proof of the confusion that pervades everything is the
circumstance, that in spite of unheard-of duties, in spite of endless
imposts, the young Serdar cannot raise out of the revenues of the
province of Herat a sum sufficient to defray the expenses of the civil
functionaries and the garrison of fourteen hundred men. Mr. Eastwick
[Footnote 85] reports, according to a statement made by the Prince
Governor of the province of Khorasan, that the income of Herat amounts
yearly to 80,000 Toman (38,000_l_.), but from this sum are to be
maintained, besides the corps of civilians, five regiments of
infantry, and about 4,000 cavalry, for which purpose the amount given
is clearly insufficient. With a larger income, Herat of the present
day has far fewer expenses; the terrified city is easily governed; and
it can only be ascribed to maladministration that a subvention is
required from Kabul to defray the expenses of the troops. {283} Had
Dost Mohammed only lived a year longer to consolidate the government
of the newly-conquered province, the incorporation of Herat with
Afghanistan might have been possible. As it is, fear alone keeps
things together. It needs only some attack, no matter by whom, to be
made upon Herat, for the Herati to be the first to take up arms
against the Afghans. Nor does this observation apply to the Shiite
inhabitants alone, whose sympathies are, of course, in favour of
Persia, but even to those of the Sunnite persuasion, who would
certainly prefer the Kizilbash to their present oppressors; but I find
no exaggeration in the opinion that they long most for the
intervention of the English, whose feelings of humanity and justice
have led the inhabitants to forget the great differences in religion
and nationality. The Herati saw, during the government of Major Todd,
more earnestness and self-sacrifice with respect to the ransoming of
the slaves [Footnote 86] than they had ever even heard of before on
the part of a ruler. Their native governments had habituated them to
be plundered and murdered, not spared or rewarded.
[Footnote 85: 'Journal of a Diplomate's Three Years' Residence in
Persia,' vol. ii. p. 244.]
[Footnote 86: The report is general in Herat that Stoddart was sent
on a mission to Bokhara to ransom the Herati there pining in
captivity.]
[Mosalla, and Tomb of Sultan Husein Mirza; Tomb of Khodja Abdullah
Ansari, and of Dost Mohammed Khan.]
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