IOR/L/PS/7/47 ff.101-112

Description

Scope and content : Despatch from the Government of India Foreign Department (Frontier) to the Secretary, Political and Secret Department, India Offic e, dated Simla 7 May 1886, forwarding for the information of the Secretary of State for India, copies of Peshawar Confidential Diaries nos. 4 and 5, dated 10 and 28 April 1886, written by Colonel W. G. Waterfield, Commissioner at Peshawar.The diary for 10 April reports on information received that Saadat Khan, brother of Faiz Muhammad Khan travelled to Persia four months previously, with large sums of money and of negotiations with the Russians regarding Afghanistan. Also reports the presence 'in the city [of] a son of Shah Nawaz Khan, son of Sultan Ahmad, who was formerly Governor of Herat in 1852, and who was turned out by Amir Dost Muhammad Khan.'The diary for 28 April contains news from Central Asia, Afghan Turkestan, Kandahar, Ghazni, Herat, Badakhshan, Kabul and Jalalabad. The diary also reports some matters relating to the Afghan Boundary Commission: 'Reports have come down from kabul that the Russians have advanced to Khwaja Kandao, which is perhaps the place north of Maimena and east of Panjdeh; that the Afghan Boundary Commission objected to this, but that the Russians said they intended to open up their trade with Maimena. The Russians then advanced further in that direction and also towards Herat...It is said that the Amir will concentrate troops in Herat.' Reports rumours 'that it is publicly said in Kabul that the delimitation work was being delayed, as the Commission could not decide certain points satisfactorily with the Russian Commissioners. The Amir was very suspicious about this delay, and thought that it was caused purposely by the English Government who had desired, for many years past, to post British officers in Khorassan, Herat, and the Tekke and Zaimusht Turkoman countries. His Highness supposed that, on the conclusion of the delimitation, the British Government would, under some pretence, ask him to allow English officials to remain permanently in the country. Under such circumstances he (the Amir) would not forbid Russians visiting Afghanistan as they were not interested in Afghanistan but in India.'From Kabul, the diary reports the death of the Amir's mother on 29 March 1886, and the Amir's own illness. Also notes the Amir's intention of 'building military cantonments with its bazar on the plain close to Kabul called Tappa Maranjan, and also talks of putting down a railway between his newly-built palace and Babar and garden...'