2-711-169 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'Inside the City of Kabul (The Bala Hissar)', c1840, (1901). 'Quadrangle occupied by the Durbar-Khaneh and the Harem Serai'. View of the Bala Hissar ('High Fort'), an ancient fortress residence of the emirs in Kabul, Afghanistan. Shah Shoja is seated on the balcony looking down at the lines of Khans and Officers of State assembled for a durbar. The Durbar-Khana was the official meeting-hall. A former ally of the British from the Napoleonic Wars, Shah Shoja was restored as ruler of Afghanistan by the British in 1839 as they sought to block Russian influence in the country. He was assassinated in 1842. From "The Life and Deeds of Earl Roberts, Vol. II. - To The Abdication of Yakub Khan", by J. Maclaren Cobban. [T. C. & E. C. Jack, Edinburgh, 1901]