The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1885-03-26
AN ANCIENT CITY.
The Central Point for Much Furious
Fighting.
From the CHICAGO Tribune.I


II may not be uninteresting to take q
glance at famous Herat, which has once
again doomed up befors the sight Of the
world as the bone over which the Lion and
the Bear are growing. HERR, as it was
anciently called. from its contiguity TO the
HERR Rood River, has a record beyond the
pen of accurate history, and. according to
Afghan traditions, ii had an existence close
to the time when the world was miraculous
" evolved from chaos. In the Zoroastran
annals of the -Vendidad SADIE, it appears
as "Hariwa, or the country of the Aryans,
and rs the founder of the Gebir or Fire
worshiper faith is supposed to have lived
contempomneously with Moses, il follows
that its ancient inhabitants may have been
contemporaneous with the patriarch
Abraham when he was grazing his
hocks among the deserts of Mesopo-
tamia. There seems to be no reason to
doubt that Alexander the Great en-
camped at Hemt in the famous cam
paign which Xenophon describes in his
Anabasis, and that it occupieda certain ORR
entail magnihcence contemporaneous with
that period Of Grmco romance when the
names of Bacchus, Semiramis, and Her
cules became 80 fulgent as to shine down
through the centuries to the present day.
In the East there exists tradition that the
tribe of Israel-a tradition to which color
is lent by the remarkably strong jewish
type of feature that characterizes the At
CHAN race-and that it WAS that Israelitish
tribe which gave outward splendor TO HERR
as a city. Whatever truth there may be in
all this, il is certain that Herat rose IFS bat
Elements III the msts of antiquity, and that
where the trading provindah now leads his
camels through its tortuous, narrow streets
to- day Aryans lived and died who have since
given their cognomen to a conspicuous di-
vision Of the human race.
While Herat possesses immense interest
historically, it occupies geographical i'm
portance OF such nature as has for many
centuries made 1t the central part for furi-
Gus fighting among tribesinen and nations.
Again and again it has been made the focus
for Persian fury and ambition. and il is
only by continual hard fighting that it now
remains in the hands of the Ameer of
Afghanistan. When England obtained, by
intrigue, chicane. and hard fighting, the
dominant control of Hindostan she fully
recognized Herat as one of the points
dappui from which an enemy may threaten
that dominance, and hence it became the
fashion to name the city The Gate of India.
Situated picturesquely upon a sour of the
Hindoo koosh range. and surrounded by n
DeWlluellnR nelWOrk Oh deeply irrigated
rice felds-so bewildering that cavalry
operations are made impossible with
any feedom of action-Herat is at the same
time powerfully fortified artifcially Recent
Russian travellers have averred that nowhere
in the East is the art of canaiization carried
out so thoroughly or on so vast n scale it
has been in the Nelley of Hemt where the
waters of the Henri Rood are utilized to the
utmost extent. This state of circumstances
naturally makes Hemt valuable basis of
supplies for any army that may be fortu-
nate enough to obtain possession of it, IL
Is, therefore, no wonder that Herat has
become singularly important point of
Central Asian commerce, roads forking
from it into Persia, TO Kabool, to Kanda-
har, to Beloochistan, and northward
through the Nerve oasis and Turkes-
tan, more especially that part of Turkes-
tan which is known as Bokhara. The
city is nearly quadrangular, with faces about
a mile long, and the high inner wall
of defense is pierced by four gates point
ing toward the different great cities with
which it has communication. Thus. for in
stance, the great gates in the celebrated walls
of Delhi were known as the Lahore Gate,
the Cashmere Gate, and so on. The stu
pendous earhwork upon which Herat is
built has been the wonder of modern times,
being, according TO Sir Henry RaWllnSOn,
the great English authority on Eastern mat
ters, go feet in width at the base, fifty feet
high, crowned by wall twenty five feet
high and fourteen wide at the base, and
supported by no fewer than $50 circular
towers, which again are protected by ditch
forty-five feet wide and fifteen in depth.
There have been disputes about the true
strength of the fortress. In 1876 Gen. Fer
rier of the British army gave ii as his opin-
ion that the place was only an immense re-
doubt which European army could reduce
in twenty days, but it is significant that
in 1897, with the assistance of two English
Engineer Lieutenants. the Heratese sue
cessfully held at bay for ten months Per-
sian army of $4,000 men supported by fifty
pieces of artillery which were in many
cases directed by expert Russian officers.
The mosques of Herat are made exceed
ingly picturesque by blush tesselated tiles,
the baZaars are rich, and swarm day and
night with motley groups of men drawn
from every part of Central Asia. Afghanis-
tan, and India aud bearing in mind all
these facts. together with the fortuitous geo.
graphical position of Herat. it is no wonder
that the famous city is coveted both by
Russia and England. 1t possesses the un-
enviable reputation Of being one of those
cities so happily situated by nature that it
must become perpetually the object Of
every powerful nation placed in its vicinity
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