This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
130
THE EARL OF MAYO

in 1872. In January, 1873, Count Schouvaloff arrived in London to personally express the Emperor's sanction to the disputed territories being recognised as part of Afghánistán. Subsequent delimitations have given precision to the frontier. But practically it may be said that Afghánistán, as territorially defined by Lord Mayo in 1869, remained substantially the Afghánistán of the following twenty years.

Having thus placed the affairs of Afghánistán on a satisfactory footing. Lord Mayo turned his attention to the great territories which stretch southward from it along our Sind Frontier and eastwards to Persia. He found that our relations with these territories, loosely named Balúchistán or Khelát, were perplexed by two distinct sets of complications — one external, the other internal. The first referred to the frontier between Balúchistán and Persia. This had never been settled, and had for generations formed the arena of mutual aggressions and sanguinary raids. The internal complication arose from the ill-defined position of the Khán or Ruler towards his nobility. According to one party in Khelát, the Khán is the Sovereign of the State; according to another, he is the head of a confederacy of Chiefs. The net result was, that what between wars of extermination on the Persian Frontier, and the internecine struggle between the royalist and oligarchic parties within the State, Balúchistán knew no rest, and might at any moment prove a troublesome neighbour. Her internal rebellions and