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= 150 = a local government. In this Unit of administration four of these Barakzai nobles ruled: Sirdar Shair Dil Khan, Sirdar Pur Dil Khan, Sirdar Mihr Dil Khan and Sirdar Kuhandil Khan respectively. But after the death of Sirdar Kuhin Dil Khan (7th. Ziqad 1271. A. H.) this system was fortunately abrogated, so that Amir Dost Mohamed Khan with his political acumen and policy and his Son Amir Shair Ali Khan brought the whole under a wellknit system of administration and unified the whole under one centre. Amongst the 21 sons of Sirdar Payanda Khan, five sons from the same mother-a lady Ghilzai in origin-were famous. They were Sirdars Shair Dil. Pur Dil, Kuhin Dil, Mihr Dil and Rahm Dil. They were also styled as the "Kandahari Siradrs". Due to their ma- ternal influence in the regions of Arghandab, Tarnik, and Helmund the above mentioned appallation was applied to them, as contrasted with the Peshawari Sirdars, that is their brothers associated with the Peshawar area. There is little doubt that the rise of the Barakzai Brotherrs as a whole, and without differenciating one group from the other, gives it in the 19th. century period of Afghan history a unique posi- tion. It is a story in to which is knit dramas of various kinds-which show the transfer of power from one dynasty to another, and which had precipitated the country into internal and external entanglement, and when the territory was divided up into feudal a form of government, into east, south and south west areas. In this article, however, we would not concern ourselves with the matter of general rise to power of the Barakzai Brothers, but would interest ourselves only with the progress and development of the power and activities of the Kandahari Sirdars of the Barakzai clan. When Vazir Fateh Khan was blinded by the order of prince Kamran of Herat the brothers Shair Dil Khan, Pur Dil Khan and Kohindil Khan left that city and took the city of Kandahar from Gul- Mohamed Khan, who was then the governor of that town on behalf