defence of the Fatherland. Always at variance in
time of peace, the cantons never united save under the stress of a
common danger. The greater the pressure from without, the closer was the
union. That truth has been illustrated several times from the age of the
legendary Tell down to the glorious efforts of 1798. In a word, the
selfsame mountaineers who live disunited in time of peace, come together
and act closely together in war, or under threat of war.

Accordingly, the action of England in retiring from Candahar,
contrasting as it did with Russia's action at Panjdeh, marked out the
line of true policy for Abdur Rahman. Thenceforth he and his tribesmen
saw more clearly than ever that Russia was the foe; and it is noteworthy
that under the shadow of the northern peril there has grown up among
those turbulent clans a sense of unity never known before. Unconsciously
Russia has been playing the part of a Napoleon I.; she has ground
together some at least of the peoples of Central Asia with a
thoroughness which may lead to unexpected results if ever events favour
a general rising against the conqueror.

Amidst all his seeming vacillations of policy, Abdur Rahman was governed
by the thought of keeping England, and still more Russia, from his land.
He absolutely refused to allow railways and telegraphs to enter his
territories; for, as he said: "Where Europeans build railways, their
armies quickly follow. My neighbours have all been swallowed up in this
manner. I have no wish to suffer their fate."

His judgment was sound. Skobeleff conquered the Tekkes by his railway;
and the acquisition of Merv and Panjdeh was really the outcome of the
new trans-Caspian line, which, as Lord Curzon has pointed out,
completely changed the problem of the defence of India. Formerly the
natural line of advance for Russia was from Orenburg to Tashkend and the
upper Oxus; and even now that railway would enable her to make a
powerful diversion against Northern Afghanistan[346]. But the route from
Krasnovodsk on the Caspian to Merv and Kushk presents a shorter and far
easier route, leading, moreover, to the open side of Afghanistan, Herat,
and Candahar. Recent experiments have shown that a division of troops
can be sent in eight days from Moscow to Kushk within a short distance
of the Afghan frontier. In a word, Russia can operate against
Afghanistan by a line (or rather by two lines) far shorter and easier
than any which Great Britain can use