Skip to main content

ABC 058 — Tirpul

After the ABC had re-camped at Tirpul on April 11, General Lumsden was summoned to London. Colonel Joseph West Ridgeway took over the charge of British Commissioner of the ABC on May 7, 1885.
[List:] 58. Tirpúl from the left banks.
  • Collection Edward L. Durand, sketches ELD 032 and 038-39: same place.
  • Owen, Charles (1884-86): Transcript of diary and letters, p. 185: “11 Apr. [1885] […] Reached Tirpul about 4 pm. […]”; p. 191: letter to Mrs CW Owen (dated 3 May 1885), “[…] Tirpul is a bridge and the only bridge hereabouts over the Hari Rud. […] Flies and sandflies are becoming a nuisance here but we shall have them a thousand times worse a month hence. […]”
  • The Graphic, Vol. 31 (1885/1), p. 560: engraving based on a sketch by Sergeant R.E. Galindo “Tirpul, from the hills to the S.E.”; p. 657: engraving of General Lumsden leaving Tirpul; Vol. 32 (1885/2), December 26, p. 698: engraving of the ABC camp near Tirpul on the Hari Rud based on a sketch by Lt. R.E. Galindo.
  • Yate, A.C. (1887): Travels with the Afghan Boundary Commission, p. 149: description of Tirpul; p. 331: arrival at Tirpul.
  • Adamec, L.W. (1975): Herat and north-western Afghanistan, p. 424: Tirpul, “A bridge over the Hari Rud, 59 miles below Herat […] Steep gravel cliffs, 50 feet high, line the left bank, and close behind them clay hills rise some 700 feet high, one of them close to the bridge and crowned by a watchtower.”
  • Moran, N.K. (2005): Kipling and Afghanistan, pp. 79-83: description of the hard conditions and the bad mood of the troop at Tirpul.
  • McChesney, R.D. (Ed., 2013): The history of Afghanistan:Fayz Muhammad Katib Hazarah’s “Siraj al-tawarikh, Vol. 3-1, pp. 180-181: “During these events, a manshur from Her Highness Queen Victoria was received by Colonel Ridgeway who, as mentioned above, had gone to Mashhad to get the news that came by telegraph. It promoted him to head of the commission in place of General Lumsden who sometime before had gone to India. Similarly, the task of settling the demarcation of the border of Afghanistan and Russia was entrusted to him. A map of the borders and each side’s portion also came from London. Because of the fact that Afghan officials had been prohibited from bringing the border forces to full strength and training them, indeed a reduction of forces had been recommended, General Lumsden was deemed to have been foolish because he prevented the Afghans from strengthening the border. If he had not done that, the Russians would not have been victorious and would not have occupied the district of Panjdih and other dwelling places of the Sariq and Salur Turkman.”
Image No.
ABC 058
Collection
Afghan Boundary Commission 1884-86
Series
ABC 2, Photographs 058 to 116
Format
Sepia print
Place, date
Tirpul, April to May, 1885
Descriptors
  • 1.57 Pictures of Landscapes, Cities
  • 20. Herat Province
  • 4.365 Abdur Rahman Khan (1880-1901)
  • 4.416 GB Relations with Great Britain
  • Latitude / Longitude34.595200 / 61.258770
    Google Earth34°36ʹ N / 61°15ʹ E
    Survey of India MapSheet 29, Herat (1916): Tirpul, O 27

    You know more about this picture?

    Write to us!