ple. Tibet is not. Afghanistan is a bridge spanning directly from British to Russian territory. Tibet is not. Afghanistan is of like religion with millions of the least pliable among the Indian populations. Tibet is not. Afghanistan is blown with fanaticism and the pride of past conquests in Hindoo lands. Tibet is not. Such are their dissimilarities. But both are small nations, clinging devotedly to their present political and social conditions; both felt themselves as sitting insecurely just beyond the last reach of the lion's claws. Afghanistan had twice been torn to the entrails by his outstretched wrath, but had flung death aside ; and now, through the skill of an English surgeon who healed the Ameer's hand (wounded in a shooting accident) ; through the elation caused by news of disaster in Manchuria to one of the threatening neighbours; through several transient favouring causes, the royal mind has unbent and leaned, or now seems to lean, toward British friendship.
The observer who knows only these facts might well inquire as to the wisdom of a course which, by a needless attack upon a hermit people, may frighten the young confidence of the Ameer and confirm him in the faith, held by so many of his people, that the lion never sleeps and is always hungry. The possibility of losing ground in Afghanistan by virtue of a raid into Tibet, with doubtful gain as maximum reward, must certainly have been contemplated by a watchful Government in Calcutta. In respect to such an indirect and somewhat complicated relation, the amateur and foreign critic is silent, or merely wonders. He bows to the
IIIF Color HighRes
