AFGHANISTAN.

Te Aroha News, Volume III, Issue 122, 3 October 1885, Page 6

AFGHANISTAN.

The " Times of India " has received from a correspondent in Persian Sarakhs a letter, from which the following passages are taken : — "An extraordinary change has come over the country. The most perfect security exists, forts which were formerly occupied by Persian troops ate now deserted, and yet the people here would prefer the liability to a visit from the Turkoman with all his feocity to Russian domination. A terrible fear of the Russians exists; they are not to be trifled with, and they do not care what they do so long as it leads to any advantage. The Ras&ians are doinej the Persian eide of the frontier an immensity of harm. They insist on the Persians using only a certain propor* tion of the water streams that flow toward the Russian side, and this proportion is not sufficient to maintain the former extent of cultivation. The English have an excellent name on the frontier, but, of course, no one will believe that England is as strong as Russia ; Bbc is far away, while Russia is on the spot. The Central Asian question hasbeen settled, and I do not well see how the Aimak tribe can be kept back from joining the Russians. In Northern Afghanistan the Russians will be supreme in a year or two. I strongly believe the Russians will advance in the cold weather tothe valley of Herat. Persian Sarakhs is a mud wall enclosure holding some 200 houses, mud hovels. The plain is very unhealthy. All the valleys on the Khorassan frontier are unwholesome. From the time of leaving the camp I have been followed from village to village by the sick. In some places crowds of sick worried me from morning till night. The Russians have taken good care to secure all the.passes into the Tejend plain ; iv fact, the game for us is almost lost. All the accounts of Afghair love for us must be taken with caution. lam not sure that Ayoub Khan's people are less patriotio in the Bense of being anti-Russian than the Amir's followers. The worst of this Amir is that he has left no one of any ability except himself in Afghanistan."