lderness, and many others.
These store cities were on the great highway which he made through the
desert, so as to bring the trade of Dedan and Sheba to Jerusalem. That
Hebrew names are given to the mountains, places, rivers, and persons, no
one can deny; but such does not prove them to be the Lost Tribes--it
shows away back Jewish influence and intercourse. They do not speak the
Hebrew, but two languages called the Pukhtu and Pushtu. In either
language there are few, if any, traces of the Hebrew. No doubt the Lost
Tribes, after being scattered into Central Asia, when taken captive about
725 B.C., wandered, some of them into Afghan, and probably for a time
settled there, and gave names to the country. The Afghans themselves
went into the country from India, and as the Tribes moved Westward they
left the Afghans in possession.

The Afghan country comes now into great importance because it is on the
highway of the march of Israelitish civilisation and progress. England
wants it; and I predict she shall get it. Russia wants it, and at
present seems to have the upper hand; but Russia or England, or the
world, can avail nothing against the purposes of Jehovah. The gates are
promised to Israel, therefore she will get them. The English have
already an army of 35,000 men in the Peshawur Valley. Russia is
gathering a force, and ere long the two countries will be brought face to
face. The end of the whole muddle will be that England will take charge
of Afghan. Thirty-three years ago Disraeli wrote his novel called
"Tancred." In this novel he makes the Queen of England the Empress of
India, and one of her favourite officers is made Earl Beaconsfield; so
far fancy has become fact. But in that same novel the future of the
present strife has been set forth. It has been very finely put by the
London _Spectator_:--

"There is a story going about, founded, we believe, on good authority,
that when some one quoted 'Tancred,' two or three months ago, in Lord
Beaconsfield's presence, the Prime Minister remarked: 'Ah! I perceive
you have been reading "Tancred." That is a work to which I refer more
and more every year--not for amusement, but for instruction.' And if
anyone will take the trouble just now to refresh his memory of 'Tancred,'
he will see how much Lord Beaconsfield has borrowed from it in relation
to his policy. Turn, for instance, to this passage: 'If I were an Arab
in race as well as in religion,' said Tancre