‘A collection of treaties, engagements and sanads relating to India and neighbouring countries’ [‎216] (233/578)

216
AFGHANISTAN.
Sarakhs as the place of meeting, suggesting Pul-i-Khatun or some other
spot south of Sarakhs. Next, a proposal was put forward that a zone
should be agreed upon between the two Governments, within which the
commissioners should be instructed to limit their explorations.
Meantime winter was coming on apace, and the Russians had
already advanced on and occupied Pul-i-Khatun on the Hari Rud and
Pul-i-Khishti on the Murghab. Shortly before this, Afghan troops had
occupied Panjdeh, and the Russian Ambassador had called the very
serious attention of the British Government to the fact.
The British commission had (December 1884) settled down in winter
quarters at Bala Murghab, and the Russians intimated that there would
be still further delay in the arrival of their commissioner. The question
of the zone of enquiry was still being discussed in England, when, in
March 1885, a Russian force attacked and defeated a considerable
Afghan force at Pul-i-Khishti near Panjdeh. The British commission,
which was camped a few miles from the scene of conflict, immediately
retired to Tirpul on the Hari Rud. At this critical moment, the Amir
was in India on his visit to the Viceroy at Rawalpindi. War was
averted, and negotiations w’ere resumed in London. Sir Peter Lumsden
was summoned to England to help in the negotiations there, and the
charge of the mission devolved upon Colonel Sir Wbst Ridgeway. It
was not, however, until the following September that final arrangements
(No. VII) for the demarcation were agreed to between the two Govern
ments.
Two months later the joint commission met as arranged at Zulfikar.
I he work of demarcation was started immediately, and good progress
had been made when a severe winter drove both parties into winter
quarters shortly after Christmas.
Work was resumed in March 1886: and in June the frontier was
definitely fixed and pillars were constructed from Zulfikar on the Bari
Rud to the meridian of Dukchi, a group of wells north of Andkhui and
within 40 miles of the Oxus.
Unfortunately the joint commission found it impossibe to come to
an agreement as to the spot at which the frontier line should enter the
cultivated tracts in the vicinity of the river, or actually meet the river.
It is true that all the old papers bearing on the subject had spoken of
Khoja Saleh being the frontier; but no place on the river could now be
found wdiich both sides would admit to be the Khoja Saleh of the agree
ment of 18 <2-73. Accordingly, the commission dissolved itself at
Khamiab at the beginning of September 1886, and the British party
returned to India i}ia Kabul, where they were honourably entertained
by the Amir for about a week.