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Authors: Peter Hopkirk
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Surrounding this was a second moat, spanned by a drawbridge, and beyond this another high wall and a third moat, albeit dry. Spectacular as all this appeared to anyone approaching the city, it failed to impress Christie. ‘On the whole,’ he wrote, ‘it is very contemptible as a fortification.’
But if he was not struck by Herat’s capacity to defend itself against attack by an army supplied with modern artillery, like that of Napoleon or Tsar Alexander, Christie was much impressed by its obvious prosperity and fecundity, and capacity therefore to support and supply any invading army into whose hands it might fall. In the surrounding countryside there was excellent grazing, an ample supply of horses and camels, and an abundance of wheat, barley and fresh fruit of all kinds. The population of Herat and its suburbs Christie put at 100,000, including 600 Hindus, mainly wealthy merchants.
On May 18, satisfied that he had nothing more of value to discover, Christie announced that before returning to India with the horses he proposed to buy for his employer he would make a brief pilgrimage to the holy city of Meshed, 200 miles to the north-west, in Persia. He was thus able to leave Herat without having to buy the horses which his cover story demanded. The following day, with considerable relief, he crossed into eastern Persia. After months of lying and subterfuge, he at last felt reasonably safe. Even if it was discovered that he was an East India Company officer in disguise, Britain’s now good relations with Persia would ensure that no serious harm befell him. Nine days later he turned off the old pilgrim road to Meshed, striking south-westwards across the desert to Isfahan, which he calculated Lieutenant Pottinger should by now have reached.
During the two months since they had parted company at Nushki, much had happened to his brother officer. Without a map to guide him (none then existed), the 20-year-old subaltern had set off on a 900-mile journey across Baluchistan and Persia. He chose a route which for a further century no other European was to attempt, though earlier invaders had passed that way. The journey was to last three months and take him across two hazardous deserts, with only local guides to steer him between wells and the bands of murderous brigands.
Despite sickness and other hardships, he maintained a surreptitious but detailed day-to-day record of all he saw and heard which could be of value to an invading army. He noted down wells and rivers, crops and other vegetation, rainfall and climate. He pinpointed the best defensive positions, described the fortifications of villages along the route, and detailed the idiosyncrasies and alliances of the local khans. He even recorded the ruins and monuments he passed, although not being an antiquarian he had to rely on the dubious stories of the locals as to their age and history. In addition, he secretly charted his route on a sketch map, which later was turned into the first military map of the approaches to India from the west. Just how he managed to do this without detection he did not disclose in his otherwise detailed account of the journey, perhaps wishing to retain his secret for subsequent use.
On March 31, after skirting the south-eastern corner of the mighty Helmund desert, whose existence and approximate location were thus confirmed, Pottinger and his five-man party struck into the first of the two deserts they were now forced to cross. The presence of such vast natural obstacles astride an invader’s path, Pottinger knew, would be extremely welcome news to those responsible for the defence of India. He was soon to discover for himself why these deserts enjoyed so ill a reputation among the Baluchis, for within a few miles they ran into a succession of near-vertical dunes of fine red sand, some of them twenty feet high. ‘Most of these’, he recounts, ‘rise perpendicularly on the opposite side to that from which the prevailing wind blows
But if he was not struck by Herat’s capacity to defend itself against attack by an army supplied with modern artillery, like that of Napoleon or Tsar Alexander, Christie was much impressed by its obvious prosperity and fecundity, and capacity therefore to support and supply any invading army into whose hands it might fall. In the surrounding countryside there was excellent grazing, an ample supply of horses and camels, and an abundance of wheat, barley and fresh fruit of all kinds. The population of Herat and its suburbs Christie put at 100,000, including 600 Hindus, mainly wealthy merchants.
On May 18, satisfied that he had nothing more of value to discover, Christie announced that before returning to India with the horses he proposed to buy for his employer he would make a brief pilgrimage to the holy city of Meshed, 200 miles to the north-west, in Persia. He was thus able to leave Herat without having to buy the horses which his cover story demanded. The following day, with considerable relief, he crossed into eastern Persia. After months of lying and subterfuge, he at last felt reasonably safe. Even if it was discovered that he was an East India Company officer in disguise, Britain’s now good relations with Persia would ensure that no serious harm befell him. Nine days later he turned off the old pilgrim road to Meshed, striking south-westwards across the desert to Isfahan, which he calculated Lieutenant Pottinger should by now have reached.
During the two months since they had parted company at Nushki, much had happened to his brother officer. Without a map to guide him (none then existed), the 20-year-old subaltern had set off on a 900-mile journey across Baluchistan and Persia. He chose a route which for a further century no other European was to attempt, though earlier invaders had passed that way. The journey was to last three months and take him across two hazardous deserts, with only local guides to steer him between wells and the bands of murderous brigands.
Despite sickness and other hardships, he maintained a surreptitious but detailed day-to-day record of all he saw and heard which could be of value to an invading army. He noted down wells and rivers, crops and other vegetation, rainfall and climate. He pinpointed the best defensive positions, described the fortifications of villages along the route, and detailed the idiosyncrasies and alliances of the local khans. He even recorded the ruins and monuments he passed, although not being an antiquarian he had to rely on the dubious stories of the locals as to their age and history. In addition, he secretly charted his route on a sketch map, which later was turned into the first military map of the approaches to India from the west. Just how he managed to do this without detection he did not disclose in his otherwise detailed account of the journey, perhaps wishing to retain his secret for subsequent use.
On March 31, after skirting the south-eastern corner of the mighty Helmund desert, whose existence and approximate location were thus confirmed, Pottinger and his five-man party struck into the first of the two deserts they were now forced to cross. The presence of such vast natural obstacles astride an invader’s path, Pottinger knew, would be extremely welcome news to those responsible for the defence of India. He was soon to discover for himself why these deserts enjoyed so ill a reputation among the Baluchis, for within a few miles they ran into a succession of near-vertical dunes of fine red sand, some of them twenty feet high. ‘Most of these’, he recounts, ‘rise perpendicularly on the opposite side to that from which the prevailing wind blows
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