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The Eastern Boundary: In 1849, after the collapse of the Sikh power, the British crossed the Indus and occupied the trans- Indus Afghan districts under the name of Sikh heritage. At this time there were some prominent English statesmen who did not like to support this imperialistic policy. One of them, Sir G. Campbell, M. P., proposed to give these districts back to their "original owners." In the words of Mr. Campbell : "My pro- posal in 1849 was to give these extra-Indian districts back to the Afghans, establishing our scientific military frontier upon the Upper Indus. But that great man (Lord Dalhousie) had a weakness; it was perhaps in a disposition to carry annexation too far, and I venture to think him wrong when he overstepped the natural and ethnographical boundaries of India in going beyond the Indus on one side and into Burma on the other." Later on (November 12, 1893) a new line of demarcation, the so-called Durand Line, was forced upon Amir Abdur Rahman Khan. The British according to this new pact excluded from the Kabul political jurisdiction "a million Pathans* of military age-the cream of the fighting strength of the country." This line, which excludes over a third of the Afghan people from their national government, has been the basic cause of all frontier troubles since the beginning of the 19th century until this day. PHYSICAL FEATURES Afghanistan is a highland, its average height being three to four thousand feet above sea-level. The general character of the country is mountainous. It is largely covered by a series of ranges running in all directions, but generally from north-east to south- west. The north-eastern and central portions of the country form *There is no real distinction between the Afghan, Pathan or Pashtun. The Afghans, while speaking Pashto, call themselves Pashtuns. The word Pathan is the corrupted form of Pashtun and is used mostly in India.