as one kingdom
it might grow into a nationality. In religion the Afghans are almost
all fanatical Mohammedans, for Afghanistan is the great bulwark and
citadel on the eastern frontier of Islam, and beyond it, in Eastern
Asia, there are no independent Mohammedan principalities. The kingdom
has a strictly defined territory, and a dynasty which has risen from
the chiefship of a powerful tribe to the heritable possession of that
territory. This dynasty, moreover, is identical in race and religion
with a large majority of its subjects, which is another peculiar
source of strength; for almost all the other first-class kingdoms of
Asia are ruled by dynasties of alien race, who sometimes profess a
religion different from that of many of their subjects. We are
frequently reminded of the important fact that in India the English
rulers are aliens in race and religion from the people; but we may
also remember that after all this is only a difference of degree, a
wider separation between the governors and the governed than elsewhere
in Asia. The principal kingdoms of Asia are ruled by foreign families
or dynasties that have come in by conquest. The Moghul dynasty that
preceded our own government in India was foreign; and it was a
Mohammedan rulership over an enormous Hindu population. The Ottoman
Turk was a foreign invader from Central Asia, who still governs a
variety of races and religions. In Persia the Shah's family is of a
Turkish tribe. And the Emperor of China is a Mandchoo Tartar, of a
race quite apart from that of the immense majority of the Chinese. Of
course the Russians are as much aliens in Central Asia as the English
in India; they govern from St. Petersburg as we do from London. I
doubt, therefore, whether there is any other kingdom in Asia that has
more of the element of national unity than Afghanistan, though
unfortunately its political condition is precarious, because there is
still much tribal disunion inside it.

Eastward again beyond Afghanistan we enter the Indian empire, a vast
dominion stretching south-eastward from the slopes of the outer Afghan
hills and the Persian border to the western frontiers of the Chinese
empire and of Siam, and controlling the whole seaboard of Southern
Asia, from Aden to Singapore. It is the possession of this wide
territory that has given to the English a direct and most important
interest in the problems of race and religion. For, in the first
place, in this empire we have to d