atter will
come up again in about five years, when the [Russian] railways are
finished[344]."

[Footnote 343: Parl. Papers, Central Asia, No. 4 (1885), pp. 41-72.]

[Footnote 344: _Bismarck: Some Secret Pages,_ etc., vol. iii. p. 135.]

* * * * *

Thus it was that Russia secured her hold on districts dangerously near
to Herat. Her methods at Panjdeh can only be described as a deliberate
outrage on international law. It is clear that Alexander III. and his
officials cared nothing for the public opinion of Europe, and that they
pushed on their claims by means which appealed with overpowering force
to the dominant motive of orientals--fear. But their action was based on
another consideration. Relying on Mr. Gladstone's well-known love of
peace, they sought to degrade the British Government in the eyes of the
Asiatic peoples. In some measure they succeeded. The prestige of Britain
thenceforth paled before that of the Czar; and the ease and decisiveness
of the Russian conquests, contrasting with the fitful advances and
speedy withdrawals of British troops, spread the feeling in Central Asia
that the future belonged to Russia.

Fortunately, this was not the light in which Abdur Rahman viewed the
incident. He was not the man to yield to intimidation. That "strange,
strong creature," as Lord Dufferin called him, "showed less emotion than
might have been expected," but his resentment against Russia was none
the less keen[345]. Her pressure only served to drive him to closer
union with Great Britain. Clearly the Russians misunderstood Abdur
Rahman. Their miscalculation was equally great as regards the character
of the Afghans and the conditions of life among those mountain clans.
Russian officers and administrators, after pushing their way easily
through the loose rubble of tribes that make up Turkestan, did not
realise that they had to deal with very different men in Afghanistan. To
ride roughshod over tribes who live in the desert and have no natural
rallying-point may be very effective; but that policy is risky when
applied to tribes who cling to their mountains.

[Footnote 345: In his _Life_ (vol. i, pp. 244-246) he also greatly
blames British policy.]

The analogy of Afghanistan to Switzerland may again serve to illustrate
the difference between mountaineers and plain-dwellers. It was only when
the Hapsburgs or the French threatened the Swiss that they formed any
effective union for the