undertakes to carry goods in his ship for hire or freight. Unless otherwise stipulated, the merchant or freighter is only bound to pay the freight upon delivery of the goods at the agreed destination. If the voyage is abandoned, the merchant may claim his goods without any payment. The merchant must load and discharge his cargo within the lay-days or stipulated time, if any; otherwise within a reasonable time. Failure entails liability in damages—known as demurrage—for undue detention of the ship. The merchant will also be liable in damages—known as dead-freight—if he fails to furnish the full cargo promised. The shipowner has a lien on the goods for their own freight and charges, but not for a general balance. Nor has he any lien for dead-freight or demurrage. All such liens may be validly stipulated for in the contract. They are purely possessory as contrasted with the so-called maritime liens for seamen's and shipmasters' wages, which are valid without possession. There is no lien for advance freight, which in Scotland is repayable if the cargo is lost at sea or delivery otherwise prevented, but not so in England. In Scotland, accordingly, the burden of insuring advance freight falls upon the shipowner, in England upon the merchant.
The main obligations upon the shipowner are to provide a seaworthy vessel, carry without undue delay, and deliver the goods in the same condition as they were shipped. Unless otherwise agreed, he is liable for damage or loss through negligence, and if he be a common carrier, as he frequently is, even the absence of negligence may not save him. There is nothing in British law, however, to prevent him from contracting out of all responsibility for the safety of goods committed to his care, and he generally does so, either by inserting what is known as an 'exception clause' in the document evidencing the contract, viz. the Bill of Lading, or by giving public notice that he only accepts goods upon that footing. In this respect the position of shipowners is more favourable than that of railway companies and other land carriers, whose freedom of contract is curtailed by statute.—Bibliography: T. G. Carver, Carriage by Sea; Sir T. E. Scrutton, Contract of Affreightment.
Affrique (a˙f-rēk), St., a town of southern France, department of Aveyron.
Afghanistan (a˙f-gän′i-stän), that is, the land of the Afghans, a country in Asia, bounded on the east by the N. W. Frontier Province, &c., on the south by Baluchistan, on the west by the Persian province of Khorasan, and on the north by Bukhara and Russian Turkestan. The eastern and southern boundaries were settled in 1893, whilst the boundary towards Persia was demarcated between March, 1903, and May, 1905. The area may be set down at about 250,000 sq. miles. The population is estimated at 6,000,000. Afghanistan consists chiefly of lofty, bare, uninhabited tablelands, sandy barren plains, ranges of snow-covered mountains, offsets of the Hindu Kush or the Himálaya, and deep ravines and valleys. Many of the last are well watered and very fertile, but about four-fifths of the whole surface is rocky, mountainous, and unproductive. The surface on the north-east is covered with lofty ranges belonging to the Hindu Kush, whose heights are often 18,000 and sometimes reach perhaps 25,000 feet. The whole north-eastern portion of the country has a general elevation of over 6000 feet; but towards the south-west, in which direction the principal mountain chains of the interior run, the general elevation declines to not more than 1600 feet. In the interior the mountains sometimes reach the height of 15,000 feet. Great part of the frontier towards India consists of the Suleiman range, 12,000 feet high. There are numerous practicable avenues of communication between Afghanistan and India, among the most extensively used being the famous Khyber Pass, by which the River Kabul enters the Punjab; the Gomul Pass, also leading to the Punjab; and the Bolan Pass on the south, through which the route passes to Sind. Of the rivers the largest is the Helmund, which flows in a south-westerly direction more than 400 miles, till it enters the Hamoon or Seistan swamp. It receives the Arghandab, a considerable stream. Next in importance are the Kabul in the north-east, which drains to the Indus, and the Hari Rud in the north-west, which, like other Afghan streams, loses itself in the sand. The climate is extremely cold in the higher, and intensely hot in the lower regions, yet on the whole it is salubrious. The most common trees are the pine, oak, birch, and walnut. In the valleys fruits, in the greatest variety and abundance, grow wild. The principal crops are wheat (forming the staple food of the people), barley, rice, and maize. Other crops are tobacco, sugar-cane, and cotton. The chief domestic animals are the dromedary, the horse, ass, and mule, the ox, sheep with large fine fleeces and enormous fat tails, and goats; of wild animals there are the tiger, bears, leopards, wolves, jackal, hyena, foxes, &c. The chief towns are Kabul (the capital), Kandahar, Ghuzni, and Herat. The inhabitants belong to different races, but the Afghans proper form the great mass of the people. They are allied in blood to the Persians, and are divided into a number of tribes, among which the Duranis and Ghiljis are the most important. The Afghans, claiming descent from King Saul, are called by their own ancient chroniclers Beni-Israel. They are bold, hardy, and warlike, fond of freedom and resolute in maintaining it, but of a restless, turbulent temper, and much given
to plunder. Tribal dissensions are constantly in existence, and seldom or never do all the Afghans pay allegiance to the nominal ruler of their country. Their language (Pushtu) is distinct from the Persian, though it contains a great number of Persian words, and is written, like the Persian, with the Arabic characters. In religion they are Mahommedans of the Sunnite sect.
After having been subjugated by Alexander the Great, the country of the Afghans fell successively under the sway, actual or nominal, of Parthians, Seleucidæ, Persians, and Arabs. Djinghiz Khan conquered Afghanistan in the twelfth century and Timur in the fourteenth. In 1504 Sultan Baber took Cabul and founded the Mogul dynasty in India; Afghanistan thus formed part of the great empire of Delhi. In 1738 the country was conquered by the Persians under Nadir Shah. On his death in 1747 Ahmed Shah, one of his generals, obtained the sovereignty of Afghanistan, and became the founder of a dynasty which lasted about eighty years. At the end of that time Dost Mohammed, the ruler of Cabul, had acquired a preponderating influence in the country. On account of his dealings with the Russians the British resolved to dethrone him and restore Shah Shuja, a former ruler. In April, 1839, a British army under Sir John Keane entered Afghanistan, occupied Cabul, and placed Shah Shuja on the throne, a force of 8000 being left to support the new sovereign. Sir W. Macnaghten remained as envoy at Cabul, with Sir Alexander Burnes as assistant envoy. The Afghans soon organized a widespread insurrection, which came to a head on 2nd Nov., 1841, when Burnes and a number of British officers, besides women and children, were murdered, Macnaghten being murdered not long after. The other British leaders now made a treaty with the Afghans, at whose head was Akbar, son of Dost Mohammed, agreeing to withdraw the forces from the country, while the Afghans were to furnish them with provisions and escort them on their way. On 6th Jan., 1842, the British left Cabul and began their most disastrous retreat. The cold was intense, they had almost no food—for the treacherous Afghans did not fulfil their promises—and day after day they were assailed by bodies of the enemy. By the 13th 26,000 persons, including camp-followers, women and children, were destroyed. Some were kept as prisoners, but only one man, Dr. Brydon, reached Jelalabad, which, as well as Kandahar, was still held by British troops. In a few months General Pollock, with a fresh army from India, retook Cabul and soon finished the war. Shah Shuja having been assassinated, Dost Mohammed again obtained the throne of Cabul, and acquired extensive power in Afghanistan. He joined with the Sikhs against the British, but afterwards made an offensive and defensive alliance with the latter. He died in 1863, having nominated his son Shere Ali his successor. Shere Ali entered into friendly relations with the British, but in 1878, having repulsed a British envoy and refused to receive a British mission (a Russian mission being meantime at his Court), war was declared against him, and the British troops entered Afghanistan. They met with comparatively little resistance; the Ameer fled to Turkestan, where he soon after died; and his son Yakoob Khan having succeeded him concluded a treaty with the British (at Gandamak, May, 1879), in which a certain extension of the British frontier, the control by Britain of the foreign policy of Afghanistan, and the residence of a British envoy in Cabul, were the chief stipulations. Not long after this settlement, the British resident at Cabul, Sir Louis P. Cavagnari, and the other members of the mission were treacherously attacked and slain by the Afghans, and troops had again to be sent into the country. Cabul was again occupied, and Kandahar and Ghazni were also relieved; while Yakoob Khan was sent to imprisonment in India. In 1880 Abdur-Rahman, a grandson of Dost Mohammed, was recognized by Britain as ameer of the country. He was on friendly terms with the British during his reign, which ended with his death in 1901, his son Habibullah being his successor. He had adopted the title of Sirajul-Millat wa ud-din, 'Lamp of the Nation and Religion'. In a treaty signed on 21st March, 1905, the Ameer recognized the engagements which his father had entered into with the British Government. Encroachments by the Russians on territory claimed by Afghanistan almost brought about a rupture between Britain and Russia in 1885, and led to the delimitation of the frontier of Afghanistan on the side next Russia. On 31st Aug., 1907, an Anglo-Russian Convention relating to Afghanistan was signed. The Russian Government recognized Afghanistan as outside the Russian sphere of influence, whilst Great Britain undertook neither to annex nor occupy any portion of Afghanistan. In spite of German intrigues, the Ameer refused, in 1915, the inducements held out to him to abandon his British ally. He was assassinated on 20th Feb., 1919, and was succeeded by his third son Amanullah. The new Ameer sought to gain popularity with his subjects by embarking on an unprovoked war of aggression upon India. Hostilities broke out in May, 1919, and ended with a peace treaty signed at Rawalpindi on 8th Aug., 1919. In 1922 the first Afghan minister was appointed to London (instead of to Delhi).—Bibliography: MacGregor, Gazetteer of Afghanistan; Malleson, History of Afghanistan; Forbes, The Afghan Wars; Field-Marshal Earl Roberts,
Forty-one Years in India; J. G. Lyons, Afghanistan: the Buffer State.
Afium-Kara-Hissar ('opium-black-castle'), a city of Asia Minor, 170 miles E.S.E. of Constantinople, with manufactures of woollen goods, and a trade in opium (afium), &c. Pop. about 20,000.
Afrag′ola, a town of Italy, about 6 miles N.N.E. of Naples. Pop. 23,155.
Afra′nius, Lucius, a Roman comic dramatist who flourished about the beginning of the first century B.C., and of whose writings only fragments remain.