Sirdar Habeeboolah Gilzai and other Khans [Kabul].'

Photograph of a group of Afghan chieftains taken at Kabul in Afghanistan by John Burke in 1879-80. Burke names one of them as Sardar Habibullah Khan who was a chieftain of the Ghilzais, a widespread and powerful Pashtun tribe who extended from Kilat-i-Ghilzai in the south to the Kabul river in the north, and from the Gul Koh range on the west to the Indian border on the east. Burke accompanied the British army into Afghanistan in 1878 and worked steadily in the hostile environment of Afghanistan and the North West Frontier Province, recording military and topographical scenes as well as the peoples of the country during the Second Afghan War (1878-80). Burke also photographed many darbars or meetings that took place between British combat leaders and Afghan chiefs which led to the uneasy peace treaties characteristic of the campaign. His two-year Afghan expedition produced a visual document which resulted in his achieving significance as the photographer of the region of the Great Game (concerning Anglo-Russian territorial rivalry).