The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-04-17
THE BONE OF CONTENTION.
THE ANCIENT AHD FAMOUS AFGHAN
CITY OF HERAT.
A Place over which the British Lion
and Russian Fear have been
GrOwIing FierceIy.


1t may not be uninteresting to take a
glance at famous Herat, which has once
again doomed up before the sight of the
world as the bone over which the Lion
and the Bear have been growing. Henri,
as it was anciently called, from its con-
tiguity to the Henri Rood river, has a
record beyond the pen of accurate his
tory, and according to Afghan traditions,
1t had an existence close to the time
when the world was miraculously evolved
from chaos. In the Zoroastrian annals
of the "Vendidad SADIE, it appears as
"Hariwa," or the country of the Aryans,
and as the founder of the Gebia or Fire
worshiper faith is supposed to have
lived contemporaneously with Moses, it
follows that its ancient inhabitants may
have been contemporaneou with the pa
triarch Abraham when he was grazing
his flocks among the deserts of Mesopo-
tamia. There seems to be no reason to
doubt that Alexander the Great en-
camped at Herat in the famous campaign
which Nenophon describes in his Ana
basis, and that it occupied certain ORR
entail magnitlcence contemporaneous
with that period of Graeco romance
when the names of Baccos. Semiramis,
and Hercules became so fulgent as to
shine down to the centuries of the pres
ent day. In the East there exists q ira
dition that the Afghans are really the
offspring of the lost tribe of Israel-a
tradition to which color is lent by the
remarkably strong Jewish type of feature
that characterizes the Afghan 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,
it is certain that Herat rose its battle
ments in the mists of antiquity, and that
where the trading provindah now leads
his camels through its tortuous, narrow
streets to-day Ayrans lived and died who
have since given their cognomen to a
conspicuous division of the human race.
While Herat possesses immense interest
historically, it occupies a geographical
Importance of such nature as has for
many centuries made it the central part
for furious fighting among tribesmen
and nations. Again and again it has
been made the focus for Persian fury and
ambition, and it is only by continual
hard fighting that it now remains in the
hands of the Ameer of Afghanistan.
When England obtained the dominant
control of Hindostan she fully recog-
nized Herat as one of the points d'appui
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
spur of the Hindoo Koosh range, and
surrounded by bcwildering network of
deeply irrigated rice-felds-so bewilder-
ing that cavalry operations are made i'm
possible with any freedom of action
lIerat is at the same time powerfully for
titled artificially. Recent Russian tray
elers have averred that nowhere in the
East is the art of canalization carried out
so thoroughly or on 50 vast scale as it
has been in the valley of Herat, where
the waters of the HERR Rood
are utilized to the utmost extent.
This state of circumstances nat
urally makes Herat a valuable basis of
supplies for any army that may be fortu-
nate enough to obtain possession of it.
1t is, therefore, no wonder that Herat
has become a singularly important point
of Central Asian commerce, roads fork
ing from it into Persia, to Kabool, to
Kandahar, to Beloochistan, and north
ward through the Nerve oasis and Tur-
kestan, more especially that part of Tur-
kestan which is known as Bokhara The
city is nearly quadrangular, with faces
about mile long, and the high inner
wall of defense is pierced by four gates
pointing toward the different great cities
with which it has communication. Thus,
for instance, the great gates in the cele-
brated walls of Delhi were known as the
Lahore gate, the Cashmere gate and so
on. The stupendous earthwork upon
which Herat is built has been the wonder
of modern times, being, according to Sir
Henry Rawlinson, the great English au-
thority on Eastern matters, $50 feet in
width at the base, fifty feet high,
crowned by a wall twenty-five feet high
and fourteen wide at the base, ana sup
ported by no fewer than $50 circular tow
ers, which again are protected by ditch
forty-tive feet wide and fifteen in depth
There have been disputes about the true
strength of the fortress. In 1916 Gen
eral Terrier, of the British army, gave it
as his opinion that the place was only an
immense redoubt which European army
could reduce in twenty days, but it is
significant that in 1887, with the assist
ance of two English engineer lieuten-
ants, the Heratese successfully held at
bay for ten months Persian army of 30,
600 men supported by fifty pieces of ar
tillery, which were in many cases d.
rected by expert Russian officers.
The mosques of Herat are made ex-
ceedingly picturesque by blush tessel-
lated tiles, the baZaars are rich, and
4 -, IL,
of men drawn from every part of Central
Asia, Afghanistan and India; and bear
ing in mind all these facts, together with
the fortuitous geographical position of
Herat, it is no wonder that the famous
city is coveted both by Russia and Eng
land. 1t possesses the unenviable repu-
tation 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