I wish to record how from small beginnings, owing to carelessness, exclusiveness, and official desire for promotion, Northern India may be lost and British interests in Europe and Asia become subordinate, as they have often been, to Russian guidance; how statesmanship has laboriously invited dangers which physical barriers had almost rendered impossible; and how it may still be practicable to maintain as independent States the numerous mountain strongholds which Nature has interposed between encroachment and intrigue from either the Russian or the English sphere of action in Asia, much to the benefit of these two Powers and of the peace of mankind.
When, after an enormous expenditure of men and money and during campaigns which lasted over thirty-six years, Russia had conquered independent Circassia—a task in which she was largely aided by our preventing provisions and ammunitions from reaching by sea the so-called rebels, although we ourselves were fighting against her in 1856, quorum pars parva fui, it was easy to foresee that our conduct, which some called chivalry, others loyalty, and some duplicity or folly, would give her the present command of the Black Sea and lead to the subjugation of Circassia. The same conduct was repeated at Panjdeh, and may be repeated on the Pamir, much to the personal advantage of the discreet officers concerned. We have also recently discovered that the holding of Constantinople by a neutral Power is not essential to British interests, as we had long ago found out that neither Merv nor Herat were keys to India. Indeed, as we give up position after position, a crop of honours falls to those who bring about our losses and, like charity, covers a multitude of political sins of ignorance or treason.
It seemed, however, that there was one obscure corner which the official sidelight could not irradiate. Valley after valley, plateau after plateau, high mountains and difficult passes separate the populations of India from those of Central Asia. Innumerable languages and warlike races, each unconquerable in their own strongholds if their autonomy and traditions are respected, intervene between invaders from either side who would lead masses of disciplined slaves to slaughter and conquest. It is not necessary to draw an imaginary line on Lord Salisbury’s large or small Map of Asia across mountains and rivers, and dividing arbitrarily tribes and kingdoms whose ancestry is the same, call it “the neutral zone.” No sign-board need indicate “the way to India,” and amid much ado about nothing by ambitious subordinates and puzzled superiors settle to the momentary satisfaction of the British public that Russia can go so far and no farther. Where the cold, the endless marching over inhospitable ground, and starvation do not show the frontier, the sparse population, the unknown tongue, and the bullet of the raider will indicate it sufficiently, without adding to the number of generals or knights for demarcating impossible boundaries.
The reassurances given by Lords Lansdowne and Cross to the native Princes of India indicate the policy that should be adopted with regard to all the Mountain States beyond India proper. It is by everywhere respecting the existing indigenous Oriental Governments that we protect them and ourselves against invasion from without and treachery from within. The loyalty of our feudatories is most chivalrous and touching, but it should be based on enlightened self-interest in order to withstand the utmost strain. The restoration of some powers to the Maharaja of Kashmîr came not a minute too soon. Wherever elsewhere reasonable claims are withheld, they should be generously and speedily conceded. The Indian princes know full well that we are arming them, at their own expense, against a common foe who is not wanting in promises, and who is already posing as a saviour to the people of Raushan, Shignan, Wakhan, Hunza, and even Badakhshan, whose native dynasties or traditions we have either already put aside or are believed to threaten.
As for the small States offering a fruitful field for intrigue, their number and internal jealousies (except against a common foreign invader) are in themselves a greater safeguard than the resistance of a big but straggling ally, whose frontier, when broken through at one of its many weak points, finds an unresisting population from which all initiative has disappeared. The intrigue or treachery of a big ally is also a more serious matter than that of a little State. What does it matter if English and Russian agents intrigue or fraternize among the ovis poli, and the Kirghiz shepherds of the Pamir, or advocate their respective civilizations in Yasin, Chitrál, Wakhan, Nagyr, Hunza, etc. Ambitious employes of both empires will always trouble waters, in order to fish in them; but their trouble is comparatively innocuous, and resembles that of Sisyphus when it has to be repeated or wasted in a dozen States, before the real defences of either India or of Russia in Asia are reached. Indeed, so far as India is concerned, the physical difficulties on our side of the Himalayas or of the Hindukush, except at a few easily defensible passes, are insuperable to an invader, even after he has crowned the more approachable heights when coming from the North.
The only policy worthy of the name is to leave the Pamir alone. Whatever line is drawn, it is sure to be encroached upon by either side. Races will be found to overlap it, and in the attempt to gather the fold, as with the Sarik and Salor Turkomans, a second Panjdeh is sure to follow. Intrigues will be active on both sides of the line; and, as in Kashmîr, the worried people will hail the foreigner as a saviour, so long as he has not taken possession, when they find his little finger heavier than the whole body of the indigenous oppressor. I have suffered so much from my persistent exposure of the misrule and intrigues of Kashmîr by those who now hail the fait accompli of its practical annexation, that I may claim to be heard in favour of at least one feature of its former native administration. With bodies of troops averaging from 20 to 200, the late Maharaja, who foresaw what has happened after his death, kept the Hunza-Nagyr frontier in order. It certainly was by rule of thumb, and had no dockets, red tape, and reports. Indeed, his frontier guardians were, as I found them, asleep during a state of siege in 1866, or, when war was over, were engaged in storing grain outside the forts; but peace was kept as it will never be again, in spite of 2,000 Imperial troops, first-rate roads, and suspension bridges over the “Shaitan Naré,” instead of the rotten rope-way that spanned “Satan’s Gorge,” or of boats dragged up from Srinagar over the mountains to enable a dozen sepoys to cross the Indus at a time, or to convey couriers with a couple of bullets, some dried butter-cakes, and an open letter or two, who ran the siege at Gilgit and brought such effective reinforcements to its defenders!
Nor has our diplomacy been more effectual than our arms, as the encounter at Chalt with Hunza-Nagyr, hereditary foes, but whom our policy has united against us, has shown. To us Nagyr is decidedly friendly; but a worm will turn if trodden on by some of our too quickly advanced subalterns. That, however, the wise and amiable Chief of Nagyr, a patriarch with a large progeny, and preserving the keenness of youth in his old age, is really friendly to us in spite of provocation, may be inferred from the following letter to me, which does credit alike to his head and heart, and which is far from showing him to be our inveterate foe, as alleged by the Pioneer. His eldest son began to teach me the remarkable Khajuná language, which I first committed to writing in 1866, during the siege of Gilgit, and another son continued the lessons in 1886. The latter is a hostage in Kashmîr, to secure the good behaviour of his tribe, which is really infinitely superior in culture and piety to those around them. The father, who is over 90, writes in Persian to the following effect, after the usual compliments:—“The affairs of this place are by your fortune in a fair way, and I am in good health and constantly ask the same for you from the Throne which grants requests. Your kind favour with a drawing of the Mosque has reached me, and has given me much pleasure and satisfaction. The reason of the delay in its receipt and acknowledgment is due to the circumstance that, owing to disturbances (fesád) I have not sent agents to Kashmîr this year. After the restoration of peace, I will send The Times reported a “rising,” because the British Agent was at Chalt with 500 men.]
It seems to me that none but a farseeing man could, in the midst of a misunderstanding, if not a fight, with us, so write to one in the enemy’s camp, unless he were a true man alike in war and peace, and a ruler whose good-will was worth acquiring. As for his son, I know him to be indeed well-disposed to our Government. He was very popular among our officers when I saw him in Kashmîr, owing to his modesty, amiability, and unsurpassed excellence at Polo. In fact, my friendship with several of the chiefs since 1866 has aided our good relations with them; and it is a pity if they should be destroyed for want of a little “savoir,” as also “savoir faire,” on our part.
Between the States of Nagyr and Hunza there exists a perpetual feud. They are literally rivals, being separated by a swift-flowing river on which, at almost regulated distances, one Nagyr fort on one bank frowns at the Hunza fort on the other. The paths along the river sides are very steep, involving at times springing from one ledge of a rock to another, or dropping on to it from a height of six feet, when, if the footing is lost, the wild torrent sweeps one away. Colonel Biddulph does not credit the Nagyris with bravery. History, however, does not bear out his statement; and the defeat inflicted on the Kashmîr troops under Nathu Shah in 1848 is a lesson even for the arrogance of a civilized invader armed with the latest rifle. The Nagyris are certainly not without culture; in music they were proficient before the Muhammadan piety of the Shiah sect somewhat tabooed the art. At all events, they are different in character from the Hunzas with whom they share the same language, and their chiefs the same ancestry. The Hunzas, in whom a remnant of the Huns may be found, were great kidnappers; but under Kashmîr influence they stopped raiding since 1869, till the confusion incidental to our interference revived their gone occupation. Indeed, it is asserted on good authority, that even our ally of Chitrál, who had somewhat abandoned the practice of selling his Shiah or Kalásha Kafir subjects into slavery, and who had so disposed of the miners for not working his ruby mines to profit, has now returned to the trade in men, “with the aid of our present of rifles and our moral support.” Nor is Bokhara said to be behind Chitrál in the revival of the slave-trade from Darwáz, in spite of Russian influence; so that we have the remarkable instance of two great Powers both opposed to slavery and the slave-trade, having revived it in their approach to one another. Nor is a third Power, quite blameless in the matter; for when we worried Hunza, that robber-nest remembered its old allegiance to distant Kitái and arranged with the Chinese authorities at Yarkand to be informed of the departure of a caravan. Then, after intercepting it on the Kulanuldi road, the Hunzas would take those they kidnapped from it back for sale to Yarkand!