In 1839, at the outset of the First Anglo-Afghan War, East India Company surgeon and naturalist William Griffith (1810–1845) set out for Afghanistan with the so-called ‘Army of the Indus’. That science, empire, and war were inextricably linked in the nineteenth century is widely acknowledged by scholars, as is the way that natural history collecting was dependent on military (and especially naval) infrastructure. However, the everyday practices and negotiations that underpinned collecting in the context of colonial warfare remain less well understood. Here, Griffith's scientific activities—especially the collection of plant and fish specimens—provide an instructive case, constantly circumscribed by his operating within an invading and then occupying army. Tensions frequently emerged between military and scientific objectives, as well as between Griffith and the numerous collectors and assistants he relied on within the army column and occupied territory (including a broker named Abdul Rozak, a series of fishermen, and a mullah at Kandahar). By making a close study of the relationship between military and scientific practice during the First Anglo-Afghan War (later remembered as one of the most notorious ‘disasters’ in the history of the British Empire), this article demonstrates the intimate linkages between imperial violence and knowledge production in this period. More broadly, an examination of Griffith's collecting practices reveals the way in which imperial geographical and environmental perceptions of Afghanistan were shaped and reified at a crucial moment in its history.

1839 年，在第一次英阿战争开始时，东印度公司的外科医生和博物学家威廉·格里菲斯（1810-1845 年）带着所谓的“印度河军队”出发前往阿富汗。科学、帝国和战争在 19 世纪有着千丝万缕的联系，这一点得到了学者们的广泛认可，自然历史收藏依赖于军事（尤其是海军）基础设施的方式也是如此。然而，在殖民战争背景下支撑收藏的日常实践和谈判仍然不太为人所知。在这里，格里菲斯的科学活动——尤其是植物和鱼类标本的收集——提供了一个有指导意义的案例，他在入侵和占领军队中的运作不断受到限制。军事和科学目标之间经常出现紧张关系，以及格里菲斯与他在军队纵队和被占领土内所依赖的众多收藏家和助手之间（包括一位名叫阿卜杜勒·罗扎克的经纪人、一系列渔民和坎大哈的一位毛拉）。通过仔细研究第一次英阿战争（后来被认为是大英帝国历史上最臭名昭著的“灾难”之一）期间军事与科学实践之间的关系，本文展示了帝国暴力之间的密切联系这一时期的知识生产。更广泛地说，对格里菲斯的收藏实践的考察揭示了在阿富汗历史的关键时刻，帝国对阿富汗的地理和环境观念是如何形成和具体化的。