Letts’s Bird’s Eye View of the Approaches to India

Is this a map, a landscape painting or a beautiful piece of propaganda?

This panoramic map was produced at the beginning of the 1900’s in London by W. H. Payne for Letts, Son & Co., a British stationary and map seller. The perspective is from a hilltop in British India, now Pakistan, overlooking Afghanistan. Two British soldiers in the foreground are looking out over Kandahar and other lands yet to conquer. In the far distance, along the Amu Darya (once known as Oxus River) lies the boundary of Russian territory.

The Great Game was an 18th Century rivalry between the British and Russian Empires. This map was produced in that milieu with both sides vying for control over central Asia. The British aimed to create a protectorate in Afghanistan to prevent Russia from having access to the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Sea. Eventually borders were agreed upon but not entirely as seen below. The line along the western frontier is boundary of Persia, now Iran.

The dominant mountain in the far distance looks a bit fanciful but may be inspired some of the peaks around Azhdar National Park.

After failing to conquer these lands the British eventually settled for Afghanistan as an independent buffer state between the empires.