Thomas Hungerford Holdich

“ At the present day, with the exception of the Chahar-súk, where there is always a certain amount of traffic, and where the great diversity of race and costume imparts much liveliness to the scene, Herat presents a very melancholy and desolate appearance. The mud houses in rear of the bazaars are for the most part uninhabited and in ruins, and even the burnt brick buildings are becoming everywhere dilapidated. The city is also one of the filthiest in the East, as there are no means of drainage or sewerage, and garbage of every description lies in heaps in the open streets. ”

“ The lower reaches of the Zhob and Kundar are hemmed in by rugged limestone walls, serrated and banded with deep clefts and gorges, a wilderness of stony desolation. Looking eastwards from the Kaisargarh, one can again count the backs of innumerable minor ridges, smaller wrinkles or folds formed during a process of upheaval of the Suliman Mountains, at the close of a great volcanic epoch which has hardly yet ceased to give evidence of its existence. On the outside edge, facing the Indus plains, is a more strictly regular, but higher and more rugged, ridge of hills which marks the Siwaliks. ”

“ Along the slopes of the northern hills there is a space of some 4 m. in length by 3 m. in breadth, the surface of the plain, strewn over its whole extent with pieces of pottery and crumbling bricks, and also broken here and there by earthen mounds and ruined walls, the débris of palatial structures which at one time were the glory and wonder of the East. Of these structures indeed some have survived to the present day in a sufficiently perfect state to bear witness to the grandeur and beauty of the old architecture of Herat. ”

“ As the Kandahari rupee is worth about 8 annas (half an English rupee) the government thus realizes a profit of 1%. Government accounts are kept in “Kham” rupees, the “Kham” being worth about five-sixths of a Kandahari rupee; in other words, it about equals the franc, or the Persian “kran.”
Immediately to the south and west of Kandahar is a stretch of well-irrigated and highly cultivated country, but the valley of the Arghandab is the most fertile in the district, and, from the luxuriant abundance of its orchards and vineyards, offers the most striking scenes of landscape beauty. ”

“ As the key of northern India, Kabul has been a city of vast importance for countless ages. It commands all the passes which here debouch from the north through the Hindu Kush, and from the west through Kandahar; and through it passed successive invasions of India by Alexander the Great, Mahmud of Ghazni, Jenghiz Khan, Baber, Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah. ”

“ At Allahabad, however, it receives the Jumna, a mighty sister stream, which takes its rise also in the Himalayas to the west of the sources of the Ganges. The combined river winds eastwards by south-east through the United Provinces, receiving the Gumti and the Gogra. The point of junction with both the Gumti and the Gogra has more or less pretension to sanctity. But the tongue of land at Allahabad, where the Jumna and the Ganges join, is the true Prayag, the place of pilgrimage, to which hundreds of thousands of devout Hindus repair to wash away their sins in the sacred river. ”

“ The Kabul River breaks through this northern spur of the Safed Koh; and in breaking through it is forced to the northward in a curved channel or trough, deeply sunk in the mountains between terrific cliffs and precipices, where its narrow waterway affords no foothold to man or beast for many miles. To reach the Kabul River within Afghan territory it is necessary to pass over this water-divide; and the Khyber stream, flowing down from the pass at Landi Kotal to a point in the plains opposite Jamrud, 9 m. W. of Peshawar, affords the opportunity. ”

“ North of Quetta is the open plain leading to Pishin and the Harnai, also traversed by the Sibi-Pishin railway, which passes through the fortifications. These defensive works, stretching from the base of Takatu to the foot of the Mashelak hills on the west, bar the way to advance from the Khojak Pass. During the last quarter of the 10th century Quetta grew from a dilapidated group of mud buildings, with an inferior bazaar and a few scattered remnants of neglected orchard cultivation, into a strong fortress, and one of the most popular ”

“ In practice he is merely the nominee of whichever of the two governors of East and West Bhutan happens for the time to be the more powerful. The people are industrious, and devote themselves to agriculture, but from the geological structure of the country, and from the insecurity of property, regular husbandry is limited to comparatively few spots. The people are oppressed and poor. “Nothing that a Bhutia possesses is his own,” wrote the British envoy in 1864; “he is at all times liable to lose it if it attracts the cupidity of any one more powerful than himself. ”

“ Popular belief ascribes the foundation of the old city to Alexander the Great.
Although Kandahar has long ceased to be the seat of government, it is nevertheless by far the most important trade centre in Afghanistan, and the revenues of the Kandahar province assist largely in supporting the chief power at Kabul. There are no manufactures or industries of any importance peculiar to Kandahar, but the long lines of bazaars display goods from England, Russia, Hindustan, Persia and Turkestan, embracing a trade area as large probably as that of any city in Asia. ”

“ Lying at the foot of the bare and rocky mountains forming the western boundary of the Kabul valley, just below the gorge made by the Kabul River, the city extends a mile and a half east to west and one mile north to south. ”

“ Where the summits of the loftier ranges are not buried beneath snow and ice they are bare, bleak and splintered, and the nakedness of the rock scenery extends down their rugged spurs to the very base of them. ”

“ Fruit, indeed, besides being largely exported, forms the chief staple of the food supply of the inhabitants throughout Afghanistan. The art of irrigation is so well understood that the water supply is at times exhausted, no river water being allowed to run to waste. The plains about Kandahar are chiefly watered by canals drawn from the Arghandab near Baba-wali, and conducted through the same gap in the hills which admits the Herat road. ”

“ Afghan tribes, who had originally dwelt far to the east, were first settled at Herat by Nadir Shah, and from that time they have monopolized the government and formed the dominant element in the population. It will be needless to trace the revolutions and counter-revolutions which have followed each other in quick succession at Herat since Ahmad Shah Durani founded the Afghan monarchy about the middle of the 18th century. Let it suffice to say that Herat has been throughout the seat of an Afghan government, sometimes in subordination to Kabul and sometimes independent. ”

“ Sun-baked in summer and frost-riven in winter, the mountain sides are but immense ramps of loose rock débris, only awaiting the yearly melting of the upper snow-fields, or the advent of a casual rainstorm, to be swept downwards in an avalanche of mud and stones into the gorges below. ”

“ Thus Kandahar becomes a sort of focus of all the direct routes converging from the wide-stretching western frontier of India towards Herat and Persia, and the fortress of Kandahar gives protection on the one hand to trade between Hindustan and Herat, and on the other it lends to Kabul security from invasion by way of Herat.
Kandahar is approximately a square-built city, surrounded by a wall of about 33/4 m. circuit, and from 25 to 30 ft. high, with an average breadth of 15 ft. Outside the wall is a ditch 10 ft. deep. The city and its defences are entirely mud-built. ”

“ Whether or no the strength of this bulwark of North-Western Afghanistan should ever be practically tested, the general result of the most recent investigations into the value of Herat as a strategic centre has been largely to modify the once widely-accepted view that the key to India lies within it. Abdur Rahman and his successor Habibullah steadfastly refused the offer of British engineers to strengthen its defences; and though the Afghans themselves have occasionally undertaken repairs, it is doubtful whether the old walls of Herat are maintained in a state of efficiency. ”

“ A great chain of snowy mountains branching off south-east and north-west divides the drainage of the Chenab and the Jhelum rivers from that of the higher branches of the Indus. It is within spurs from this chain that the valley of Kashmir is enclosed amid hills which rise from 14,000 to 15,000 ft., while the valley itself forms a cup-like basin at an elevation of 5000 to 6000 ft. All beyond that great range is a wide tract of mountainous country, bordering the north-western part of Tibet and embracing Ladakh, Baltistan and Gilgit. ”

“ BALUCHISTAN, a country within the borders of British India which, like Afghanistan, derives its name from its dominant race of inhabitants. It extends from the Gomal river to the Arabian Sea, and from the borders of Persia and Afghanistan to those of the Punjab and Sind. It is divided into two main divisions, British Baluchistan, which is a portion of British India under the chief commissioner, and the foreign territories under the administration or superintendence of the same officer as agent to the governor-general. ”

“ To trace in any detail the fortunes of Herat would be to write the modern history of the East, for there has hardly been a dynastic revolution, or a foreign invasion, or a great civil war in Central Asia since the time of the prophet, in which Herat has not played a conspicuous part and suffered accordingly. ”

“ The Bhutias are no sportsmen. They have a superstitious objection to firing a gun, thinking that it offends the deities of the woods and valleys, and brings down rain. A species of horse, which seems indigenous to Bhutan, and is used as a domestic animal, is called tángan, from Tangastan, the general appellation of that assemblage of mountains which constitutes the territory of Bhutan. It is peculiar to this tract, not being found in any of the neighbouring countries of Assam, Nepal, Tibet or Bengal, and unites in an eminent degree the two qualities of strength and beauty. ”

“ Near the central quadrangle of the city is a vast reservoir of water, the dome of which is of bold and excellent proportions. The only other public building of any consequence in Herat is the great mosque or Mesjid-i-Juma, which comprises an area of 800 yds. square, and must have been a most magnificent structure. It was erected towards the close of the 15th century, during the reign of Shah Sultan Hussein of the family of Timur, and is said when perfect to have been 465 ft. long by 275 ft. ”