Editorial note — FOOTNOTES, CHAPTER L

[Footnote 1: In Pushtu the word tarbur signifies a cousin to any degree, and is not unfrequently used as 'enemy,' the inference being that in Afghanistan a cousin is necessarily an enemy.]

[Footnote 2: As I reported at the time, the magnitude of Sher Ali's military preparations was, in my opinion, a fact of peculiar significance. He had raised and equipped with arms of precision sixteen regiments of Cavalry and sixty-eight of Infantry, while his Artillery amounted to nearly 300 guns. Numbers of skilled artisans were constantly employed in the manufacture of rifled cannon and breech-loading small arms. Swords, helmets, uniforms, and other articles of military equipment, were stored in proportionate quantities. Upon the construction of the Sherpur cantonment Sher Ali had expended an astonishing amount of labour and money. The size and cost of this work may be judged from the fact that the main line of rampart, with barrack accommodation, extended to a length of nearly two miles under the western and southern slopes of the Bimaru hills, while the original design was to carry the wall entirely round the hills, a distance of four and a half miles, and the foundations were laid for a considerable portion of this length. All these military preparations must have been going on for some years, and were quite unnecessary, except as a provision for contemplated hostilities with ourselves. Sher Ali had refused during this time to accept the subsidy we had agreed to pay him, and it is difficult to understand how their entire cost could have been met from the Afghan treasury, the annual gross revenue of the country at that time amounting only to about 80 lakhs of rupees.]

[Footnote 3: These letters, as well as my report to the Secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign Department, with an account of my conversation with Yakub Khan, are given in the Appendix.

(See Appendices VI, VII,]

[Footnote 4: Sirdar Ayub Khan was Governor of Herat in 1879.]

[Footnote 5: There were present at the interview, besides myself, Colonel Macgregor, Major Hastings, Surgeon-Major Bellew, Nawab Sir Ghulam Hussein Khan, and Mr. H.M. Durand.]

[Footnote 6: A kind of mantle worn by Afghans.]

[Footnote 7: As Yakub Khan refused under one pretext or another to deliver up any money, Major Moriarty, the officer in charge of the Kabul Field Force treasure-chest, and Lieutenant Neville Chamberlain, accompanied by an escort, searched a house in the city in which a portion of Yakub Khan's money was said to be concealed. Upwards of eight and a half lakhs of rupees, and a certain amount of jewellery and gold coins, tillas and Russian five-rouble pieces, in all amounting to nine and a half lakhs, were found. This sum was subsequently refunded to the Afghan Government.]

[Footnote 8: The Nawab had been made a K.C.S.I.]