Kandahar

Immediately south and west of Kandahar is well-irrigated and highly cultivated country, but the valley of the Arghandab is the most fertile in the district, with luxuriant orchards and vineyards. The pomegranates of Kandahar, with its sirdar melons and grapes, are famous. Vines are grown on artificial banks, probably for want of the necessary wood to trellis them—the grapes being largely exported in a semi-dried state. The art of irrigation is so well understood that the water supply is at times exhausted, no river water being allowed to run to waste. The plains about Kandahar are chiefly watered by canals drawn from the Arghan dab near Baba-wali, and conducted through the same gap in the hills which admits the Herat road. The amount of irrigation and the number of water channels form a considerable impediment to the movements of troops. Irrigation by karez is also largely resorted to. The karez is a system of underground channelling which usually taps a sub-surface water supply at the foot of the rugged and apparently waterless hills. The water is carried over long distances by an underground channel or drain, constructed by sinking shafts at intervals along the required course and con necting the shafts by tunnelling. The general agricultural products of the country are wheat, barley, pulse, fruit, madder, asafoetida, lucerne, clover and tobacco.

History.

Kandahar has a stormy history. Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni took it in the r r th century from the Afghans who then held it. In the beginning of the 13th century it was taken by Jenghiz Khan, and in the 14th by Timur. In 1507 it was captured by the emperor Baber, but shortly afterwards it fell again into Afghan hands, to be retaken by Baber in 152r. Baber's son, Humayun, agreed to cede Kandahar to Persia, but failed to keep his word, and the Persians besieged the place unsuccessfully. Thus it remained in the possession of the Moguls till 1625, when it was taken by Shah Abbas. Aurangzeb tried to take it in 5649 with 5,00o men, but failed. Another attempt in 1652 was equally un successful. It remained in Persian possession till 1708, when it was taken by the Afghans, hut was besieged and retaken by Nadir Shah in 1737-8. Nadir Shah was assassinated in 1747, and

immediately on hearing the news of his death Ahmad Shah (Abdali) seized Nadir Shah's treasure at Kandahar, and pro claimed himself king, with the consent, not only of the Afghans, but, strange to say, of the Hazaras and Baluchis as well. He at once changed the site of the city to its present position, and thus founded the Afghan kingdom, with modem Kandahar as its capital. Ahmed Shah died in 1773, and was succeeded by his son Timur, who died in 1793, and left the throne to his son Zaman Shah. This prince was deposed by his half-brother Mahmud, who was in his turn deposed by Shah Shuia, the full brother of Zaman Shah. After a short reign Shah Shuja was compelled to abdicate from his inability to repress the rising power of Fateh Khan, a Barakzai chief, and he took refuge first with Ranjit Singh, who then ruled the Punjab, and finally secured the protection of British power. Afghanistan was now practically dismembered. Mahmud was reinstated by Fateh Khan, whom he appointed his vizier, and whose nephews, Dost Mahommed Khan and Kohn dil Khan, he placed respectively in the governments of Kabul and Kandahar. Fateh Khan was barbarously murdered by Kamran (Mahmud's son) near Ghazni in 1818; and in retaliation Mahmud himself was driven from power, and the Barakzai clan secured the sovereignty of Afghanistan. While Dost Mahommed held Kabul, Kandahar became temporarily a sort of independent chief ship under two or three of his brothers. In 1839 the cause of Shah Shuja was actively supported by the British. Kandahar was occupied, and Shah Shuja reinstated on the throne of his ancestors. Dost Mahommed was defeated near Kabul, and of ter surrender to the British force, was deported into Hindustan. The British army of occupation in southern Afghanistan continued to occupy Kanda har from 1839 till the autumn of 1842, when General Nott marched on Kabul to meet Pollock's advance from Jalalabad. The cantonments near the city, built by Nott's division, were repaired and again occupied by the British army in 1879, when Shere Ali was driven from power by the invasion of Afghanistan ; nor were they finally evacuated till the spring of 1881.