MEDIÆVAL GEOGRAPHY--SEISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN
It was about eight centuries before Buddhism, debased and corrupted,
tainted with Siva worship and loaded with all the ghastly
paraphernalia of a savage demonology, had been driven from India
across the Himalayas, that the Star of Bethlehem had guided men from
the East to the cradle of the Christian faith--a faith so like
Buddhism in its ethical teaching and so unlike in its spiritual
conceptions,--and during those eight centuries Christianity had
already been spread by Apostles and missionaries through the broad
extent of High Asia. Thereupon arose a new propaganda which, spreading
outwards from a centre in south-west Arabia, finally set all humanity
into movement, impelling men to call the wide world to a recognition
of Allah and his one Prophet by methods which eventually included the
use of fire and sword. The rise of the faith of Islam was nearly
coincident (so far as India was concerned) with the fall of Buddhism.
Thenceforward the gentle life-saving precepts of Gautama were to be
taught in the south, and east, and north; in Ceylon, Burma, China, and
Mongolia after being first firmly rooted in Tibet and Turkistan, but
never again in the sacred groves of the land of their birth. And this
raging religious hurricane of Islam swept all before it for century
after century until, checked at last in Western Europe, it left the
world ennobled by many a magnificent monument, and, by adding to the
enlightenment of the dark places of the earth, fulfilled a mission in
the development of mankind. With it there arose a new race of
explorers who travelled into India from the west and north-west,
searching out new ways for their commerce, and it is with them now and
their marvellous records of restless commercial activity that we have
to deal. Masters of the sea, even as of the land, no military and
naval supremacy which has ever directed the destinies of nations was
so widespread in its geographical field of enterprise as that of the
Arabs. The whole world was theirs to explore. Their ships furrowed new
paths across the seas, even as their khafilas trod out new highways
over the land; and at the root of all their movement was the
commercial instinct of the Semite. After all it was the eternal
question of what would pay. Their progenitors had been builders of
cities, of roads, of huge dams for water storage and irrigation, and
directors for public works in Europe, Asia, and Africa. The might of
the sword of Islam but carved the way for the slave-owner and the
merchant to follow. Thus it is that mediæval records of exploration in
Afghanistan and Baluchistan are mostly Arab records; and it is from
them that we learn the "open sesame" of India's landward gates, long
ere the seaports of her coasts were visited by European ships.
Nothing in the history of the world is more surprising than the rapid
spread of Arab conquests in Asia, Africa, and Western Europe at the
close of the seventh century of our era, excepting, perhaps, the
thoroughness of the subsequent disappearance of Arab influence, and
the absolute effacement of the Arabic language in those countries
which Arabs ruled and robbed. In Persia, Makran, Central Asia, or the
Indus valley, hardly a word of Arabic is now to be recognized.
Geographical terms may here and there be found near the coast,
surviving only because Arab ships still skirt those shores and the
sailor calls the landmarks by old-world names. Even in the English
language the sea terms of the Arab sailor still live. What is our
"Admiral" but the "Al mir ul bahr" of the Arabian Sea, or our "Barge"
but his "Barija," or warship! But in Sind, where Arab supremacy lasted
for at least three centuries, there is nothing left to indicate that
the Arab ever was there.
The effacement of the Arab in India is chiefly due to the Afghan, the
Turk, and the Mongol. Mahmud of Ghazni put the finishing blow to Arab
supremacy in the Indus valley, when he sacked Multan about the
beginning of the eleventh century; and subsequently the destroying
hordes of Chenghiz Khan and Tamerlane completed the final downfall of
the Empire of the Khalifs.
Between the beginning of the eighth century and that of the eleventh
the whole world of the Indian north-west frontier and its broad
hinterland, extending to the Tigris and the Oxus, was much traversed
and thoroughly well known to the Arab trader. In Makran we have seen
how they shaped out for themselves overland routes to India,
establishing big trade centres in flourishing towns, burying their
dead in layers on the hill-sides, cultivating their national fruit,
the date, in Makran valleys, and surrounding themselves with the
wealth and beauty of irrigated agriculture. The chief impulse to Arab
exploration emanated from the seat of the Khalifs in Mesopotamia, and
the schools of Western Persia and Bagdad appear to have educated the
best of those practical geographers who have left us their records of
travel in the East; but there are indications of an occasional influx
of Arabs from the coasts of Southern Arabia about whom we learn
nothing whatever from mediæval histories. It will be at any rate
interesting to discuss the general trend of exploration and travel,
associated either with pilgrimage or commerce, which distinguished the
days of Arab supremacy, and which throws considerable light on the
geography of the Indian borderland before its political features were
rearranged by the hand of Chenghiz Khan and his successors. This has
never yet been attempted by the light of recent investigations, and
even now it can only be done partially and indifferently from the want
of completed maps. The borderland which touches the Arabian
Sea--Southern Baluchistan--has been completely explored and mapped,
and the more obvious inferences to be derived from that mapping have
already been made. But Seistan, Karmania, the highways and cities of
Turkistan (Tocharistan) and Badakshan have not, so far as I know, been
outlined in any modern work based on Arab writings and collated with
the geographical surveys of the Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission and
their reports. It was after all but a cursory examination of a huge
area of most interesting country that was possible within the limited
time devoted to boundary demarcation labours in 1883-85; but the
physical features of this part of Asia being now fairly well defined,
there is a good deal to be inferred with reasonable probability from
the circumstance that highways and cities must ever be dependent for
their location on the distributions of topography.
The first impression produced by the general overlook of all the
historic area which lies between Eastern Persia and the sources on the
Oxus, is one of surprise. There is so little left of this great busy
world of Arab commerce. It seems to have dropped out of the world's
economy, and certain regions to have reverted to a phase of pristine
freedom from sordid competition, which argues much for a decreased
population and a desiccated area of once flourishing lands.
There are no forests and jungles in Western Afghanistan, or at least
only in restricted spaces on the mountain-slopes, so that there is no
wild undergrowth uprooting and covering the evidences of man's busy
habitation such as we find in Ceylon and the Nepal Tarai; where may be
seen strange staring stone witnesses of the faith of former centuries,
half hidden amidst the wild beauty and luxuriance of tropical forest
growth. There is nothing indeed quite so interesting. Nature has
spread out smooth grass slopes carpeted with sweet flowers in summer,
but frozen and windswept in winter; and beneath the surface we know
for a surety that the buried remains of centuries of busy traffic and
marketing lie hidden, but there is frequently no sign whatever above
ground. It is difficult to account for the utter want of visible
evidence. In the processes of clearing a field for military action,
when it becomes essential to remove some obstructive mud-built village
and trace a clear and free zone for artillery fire, it is often found
that the work of destruction is exceedingly difficult. Only with the
most careful management can the debris be so dispersed that it affords
no better cover to the enemy than the village which it once
represented. As for effacing it altogether, only time, with the
assistance of wind and weather, can accomplish that. But it is
remarkable with what completeness time succeeds. I have stood on the
site of a buried city in Sind--a city, too, of the mediæval era of
Arab ascendency--and have recognized no trace of it but what appeared
to be the turbaned effigies of a multitude of faithful mourners in
various expressive attitudes of grief and despair, who represented the
ancient cemetery of the city. The city had been wiped off the land as
clean as if it had been swept into the sea, but the burying places
remained, and the stone mourners continue mourning through the
centuries.
The architectural order of these Khalmat tombs is quite Saracenic, and
the vestiges of geometrical design which relieve the plain surface of
the stone work and accentuate the lines of arch and moulding, are all
clean cut and clear. At the end of each tomb, set up on a pedestal,
the folded turban testifies in hard stone to the faith of the occupant
beneath. The sharp edges of the slabs and the clearness of the
ornamental carving are sufficient to prove that the age of these tombs
and monuments cannot be so very remote, although remote enough to have
led to the effacement of the township to which they belong. Sometimes
a mound, where no mound would naturally occur, indicates the base of
one of the larger buildings. Sometimes in the slanting rays of the
evening sun certain shadows, unobserved before, take shape and
pattern themselves into the form of a basement; and almost always
after heavy rain strange little ornaments, beads, and coins, glass
bangles, rings, etc., are washed out on the surface which tell their
own tale as surely as does the widespread and infinitely varied
remnants of household crockery. This last feature is sometimes quite
amazing in its variety and extent, and the quality of the local finds
is not a bad indication of the quality of the local household which
made use of it. "Celadon" ware is abundant from Karachi to Babylon,
and some of it is of extraordinary fineness and beauty of glaze. Pale
sage green is invariably the colour of it, and the tradition of luck
which attaches to it is common from China to Arabia.
In places where vanished towns were in existence as late as the
eighteenth century (for instance, in the Helmund valley below Rudbar),
debris of pottery may be found literally in tons. In other places,
still living, where generations of cities have gradually waxed and
waned in successive stages, each in turn forming the foundation of a
new growth, it is very difficult to derive any true historical
indication from the debris which is to be found near the surface.
Nothing but systematic and extensive excavation will suffice to prove
that the existing conglomeration of rubbishy bazaars and ruined
mosques is only the last and most unworthy phase of the existence of a
city the glory of whose history is to be found in the world-wide
tradition of past centuries. And so it happens that, moving in the
footsteps of these old mediæval commercial travellers, with the story
of their travels in one's hand, and the indications of hill and plain
and river to testify to the way they went, and a fair possibility of
estimating distances according to their slipshod reckoning of a "day's
journey," one may possess the moral certainty that one has reached a
position where once there stood a flourishing market-town without the
faintest outward indication of it. Without facilities for digging and
delving, and the time for careful examination, there must necessarily
be a certain amount of conjecture about the exact locality of some
even of the most famous towns which were centres of Arab trade through
High Asia. Some indeed are to be found still under their ancient
names, but others (and amongst them many of great importance) are no
longer recognizable in the place where once they palpitated with
vigorous Eastern life.
The area of Asia which for three or four centuries witnessed the
monopoly of Arab trade included very nearly the whole continent. Asia
Minor may be omitted from that area, and the remoter parts of China;
but all the Indian borderland was literally at their feet; and we can
now proceed to trace out some of their principal lines of route and
their chief halting-places in those districts of which the mediæval
geography has lately become known.
It is not at all necessary, even if it were possible, to follow the
records of all the eminent Arab travellers who at intervals trod these
weary roads. In the first place they often copied their records from
one another, so that there is much vain repetition in them. In the
second place they are not all equally trustworthy, and their writing
and spelling, especially in place-names, wants that attention to
diacritical marks which in Eastern orthography is essential to correct
transliteration. It is perhaps unfortunate that the most eminent
geographer amongst them should not have been a traveller, but simply a
compiler.
Abu Abdulla Mohamed was born at Ceuta in Morocco towards the end of
the eleventh century. Being descended from a family named Idris, he
came to be known as Al Idrisi. The branch of the family from which
Idrisi sprang ruled over the city of Magala. He travelled in Europe
and eventually settled at the Court of Roger II. in Sicily. Here he
wrote his book on geography. He quotes the various authors whom he
consulted in its compilation, and derived further information from
travellers whose accounts he compared and tested. The title of his
work is _The Delight of those who seek to wander through the Regions
of the World_, and it is from the French translation of this work by
Jaubert that the following notes on the countries lying beyond the
western borders of India are taken. This account may be accepted as
representing the condition of political and commercial geography
throughout those regions at the end of the eleventh century, some
eighty years or so after the borders of India had been periodically
harried by Mahmud of Ghazni, and not very long before the Mongol host
appeared on the horizon and made a clean sweep of Asiatic
civilization.
To the west of the Indian frontier in those early days lay the Persian
provinces of Makran and Sejistan (Seistan), which two provinces
between them appear to represent a great part of modern Baluchistan.
The "Belous" were not yet in Baluchistan; they lived north of the
mountains occupied by the "Kufs," with whom they are invariably
associated in Arab geography. "The Kufs," says Idrisi, "are the only
people who do not speak Persian in the province of Kerman. Their
mountains reach to the Persian Gulf, being bordered on the north by
the country of Najirman (?Nakirman), on the south and east by the sea
and the Makran deserts, on the west by the sea and the 'Belous'
country and the districts of Matiban and Hormuz." These are doubtless
the "Bashkird" mountains, and the "species of Kurd, brave and savage"
which inhabited them under the name of Kufs probably represent the
progenitors of the present inhabitants.
The "Bolous" or "Belous" lived in the plains to the north "right up
to the foot of the mountains," and these are the people (according to
Mr. Longworth Dames) who, hailing originally from the Caspian
provinces, are the typical Baluch tribespeople of to-day.
These mountains, which Idrisi calls the "cold mountains," extend to
the north-west of Jirift and are "fertile, productive, and wooded."
"It is a country where snow falls every year," and of which "the
inhabitants are virtuous and innocent." There have been changes since
Idrisi's time, both moral and physical, but here is a strong item of
evidence in favour of the theory of the gradual desiccation which has
enveloped Southern Baluchistan and dried up the water-springs of
Makran. What Idrisi called the "Great Desert" is comprehensive. All
the great central wastes of Persia, including the Kerman desert as
well as the basin of the Helmund south of the hills, the frontier
hills of the Sind border up to Multan, were a part of it, and they
were inhabited by nomadic tribes of "thieves and brigands."
Modern Seistan is a flat, unwholesome country, distributed
geographically on either side of the Helmund between Persia and
Afghanistan. It owes its place in history and its reputation for
enormous productiveness to the fact that it is the great central basin
of Afghanistan, where the Helmund and other Afghan rivers run to a
finish in vast swamps, or lagoons. Surrounded by deserts, Seistan is
never waterless, and there was, in days which can hardly be called
ancient, a really fine system of irrigation, which fertilized a fairly
large tract of now unproductive land on the Persian side of the river.
The amount of land thus brought under cultivation was considerable,
but not considerable enough to justify the historic reputation which
Seistan has always enjoyed as the "Granary of Asia." This traditional
wealth was no doubt exaggerated from the fact that the fertility of
Seistan (like that of the Herat valley, which is after all but an
insignificant item in Afghan territory) was in direct contrast to the
vast expanse of profitless desert with which it was surrounded--a
green oasis in the midst of an Asiatic wilderness.
The Helmund has taken to itself many channels in the course of
measurable time. Its ancient beds have been traced and mapped, and
with them have been found evidences of closely-packed townships and
villages, where the shifting waters and consequent encroachment of
sand-waves leave no sign of life at present.
Century after century the same eternal process of obliteration and
renovation has proceeded. Millions of tons of silt have been deposited
in this great alluvial basin. Levels have changed and the waters have
wandered irresponsibly into a network of channels westward. Then the
howling, desiccating winds of the north-west have carried back
sand-waves and silt, burying villages and filling the atmosphere for
hundreds of miles southward with impalpable dust, crossing the Helmund
deserts even to the frontier of India. There is no measurable scale
for the force of the Seistan winds. They scoop up the sand and sweep
clean the surface of the earth, polishing the rounded edges of the
ragged walls of the Helmund valley ruins. It is a notable fact that no
part of these ruins face the wind. All that is left of palaces and
citadels stands "end on" to the north-west. For a few short months in
the year the wind is modified, and then there instantly arises the
plague of insects which render life a burden to every living thing.
And yet Seistan has played a most important part in the history of
Asia, and may play an important rôle again.
Arab records are very full of Seistan. The earliest of them that give
any serious geographical information are the records of Ibn Haukel,
but there are certainly indications in his account which engender a
suspicion that he never really visited the country. He mentions the
capital Zarinje (of which the ruins cover an enormous area to the east
of Nasratabad, the present capital) and writes of it as a very large
town with five gates, one of which "leads to Bist." There were
extensive fortifications, and a bazaar of which he reckons the annual
revenue to be 1000 direms.
There were canals innumerable, and always the wind and the windmills.
It is curious that he traces the Helmund as running to Seistan first
and then to the Darya-i-Zarah. This is in fact correct, only the
Darya-i-Zarah (or Gaod-i-Zireh, as we know it) receives no water from
the Helmund until the great Hamún (lagoons) to the north of Nasratabad
are filled to overflow. He also mentions two rivers as flowing into
the Zarah--one from Farah (an important place in his time), which is
impossible, as it would have to cross the Helmund; and one from Ghur.
This indicates almost certainly that the name Zarah was not confined,
as it is now, to the great salt swamp south of Rudbar on the Helmund,
but it included the Hamúns north of Nasratabad, into which the Farah
River and the Ghur River do actually empty themselves. At present
these two great lake systems are separated by about 120 miles of
Helmund River basin, and are only connected occasionally in flood time
by means of the overflow (called Shelag) already referred to. The
mention of Bist, and of the bridge of boats across the river at that
point, is important, for it is clear that about the year A.D. 950 one
high-road for trade eastward was across the desert, _i.e._ _via_ the
Khash Rud valley from Zarinje to about the meridian of 63 E.L. and
then straight over the desert to Bist (Kala Bist of modern mapping).
The further mention of robats (or resting-places) _en route_,
indicates that it was well kept up and a much traversed high-road.
Subsequently Girishk appears to have become the popular crossing-place
of the river, but it is well to remember that the earlier route still
exists, and could readily be made available for a flank march on
Kandahar.
From Idrisi's writings we learn that a century later, _i.e._ about the
end of the eleventh century, the Seistan province extended far beyond
its present limits. Bamian and Ghur (_i.e._ the central hills of
Afghanistan) were _vis-à-vis_ to that province; Farah was included;
and probably the whole line of the frontier hills from the Sulimanis,
opposite Multan, to Sibi and Kalat. It was an enormous province, and a
new light breaks on its traditional wealth in grain and agricultural
produce when we understand its vast extent.
The regions of Ghur and Dawar bordered it to the north, and there is a
word or two to be said about both hereafter. Ghur in the eleventh
century included the valley of Herat and all the wedge of mountainous
country south of it to Dawar, but how far Seistan extended into the
heart of the mountain system which culminates to the south-west of
Kabul it is difficult to say. It is difficult to understand the
statement that Bamian, for instance, bordered Seistan, with Ghur in
between, unless, indeed, in these early days of Ghur's history (for
Ghur was only conquered by the Arabs in A.D. 1020, and was still far
from intertwining its history with that of Ghazni when Idrisi wrote)
the greatness of Bamian overshadowed the light of the lesser valleys
of Ghur, and Bamian was the ruling province of Central Afghanistan.
This, indeed, seems possible. The district of Dawar to the south of
Ghur has always been something of a mystery to geographers. Described
by Idrisi as "vast, rich, and fertile," and "the line of defence on
the side of Ghur, Baghnein, and Khilkh," it would be impossible to
place it without a knowledge of the towns mentioned, were it not that
we are told that Derthel, one of the chief towns of Dawar, is on the
Helmund, and that one crosses the river there "in order to reach
Sarwan." This at once indicates the traditional ford at Girishk as the
crossing-place, and Zamindawar as the Dawar of Idrisi. Khilkh then
becomes intelligible also as a town of the Khilkhi (the people who
then occupied Dawar, described as Turkish by Idrisi, and probably
identified with the modern Ghilzai), and finds its modern
representative in the Kalat-i-Ghilzai which crowns the well-known rock
on the road from Kandahar to Kabul. "The country is inhabited by a
people called Khilkh," says Idrisi. "The Khilkhs are of a Turkish
race, who from a remote period have inhabited this country, and whose
habitations are spread to the north of India on the flank of Ghur and
in western Seistan." Thus the position of the Ghilzai in the
ethnography of Central Afghanistan appears to have been established
long before the days of Mongol irruption. Then as now they formed a
very important tribal community.
It is, however, sometimes difficult to reconcile Idrisi's account of
the routes followed by his countrymen in this part of Asia with
existing geographical features. Deserts and mountains must have been
much the same as they are now, and the best, if not the only, way to
unravel the geographical tangle is to take his itinerary and see where
it leads us. Of Baghnein on the southern borders of Seistan, he says
it is an "agreeable country, fertile and abundant in fruits." From
there (_i.e_. the country, not the town) to Derthel one reckons one
day's journey through the nomad tribes of Bechinks, Derthel being
"situated on the banks of the Helmund and one of the chief towns of
Dawar."
So we have to cross an open uncultivated region for 40 miles or so
from Baghnein to reach Derthel, on the Helmund. Again, "one crosses
the Helmund at Derthel to reach Sarwan--a town situated about one
day's journey off," on which depends a territory which produces
everything in abundance. "Sarwan is bigger than Fars, and more rich in
fruit and all sorts of productions. Grapes are transported to Bost (or
Bist), a town two days distant passing by Firozand, which possesses a
big market, and is on the traveller's right as he travels to Benjawai,
which is _vis-à-vis_ to Derthel." "Rudhan (?Rudbar) is a small town
south of the Helmund."
The Helmund valley has been surveyed from Zamindawar to its final exit
into the Seistan lagoons, and we know that at Girishk there is a very
ancient ford, which now marks, and has always marked, the great
highway from Kandahar to Herat. South of Girishk, at the junction of
the Arghandab with the Helmund, we find extensive and ancient ruins at
Kala Bist; and south of that again there are many ruins at intervals
in the Helmund valley; but these latter are comparatively recent,
dating from the time of the Kaiani Maliks of the eighteenth century.
Assuming that the Helmund fords have remained constant, and placing
Derthel on one side of the river at Girishk and Benjawai on the other,
we find on our modern maps that from the ford it is a possible day's
journey to Kala Sarwan, higher up the Helmund, where "fruit and grapes
are to be had in abundance," and from whence they might certainly have
been sent to Bist, where grapes do not grow. Baghnein, separated from
Derthel by a strip of nomad country, one day's journey wide, might
thus be on either side the Helmund; but its contiguity to Ghur seems
to favour a position to the west, rather than to the east, of the
river, somewhere east of the plains of Bukwa about Washir.
Now it is certain that no Arab traveller, crossing the Helmund desert
from the west by the direct route recently exploited in British Indian
interests below Kala Bist and south of the river, could by any
possibility have reached a grape-growing and highly-cultivated country
in one day's journey. The inference, then, is tolerably clear. Arab
traders and travellers never made use of this southern route. Nor
should we ourselves make use of such a route as that _via_ Nushki and
the Koh-i-Malik Siah, were we not forced into it by Afghan policy. The
natural high-road from the east of Persia and Herat to India is _via_
the plains of Kandahar and the ford of Girishk, and the Arabs, with
all Khorasan at their feet, were not likely to travel any other way.
Undoubtedly the system of approach to the Indus valley, open to Arab
traffic from Syria and Bagdad, most generally used and most widely
recognized was that through the Makran valleys to Karachi and Sind,
whilst the inland route, _via_ Persia and Seistan, made the well-known
ford of the Helmund at Girishk, or the boat bridge at Kala Bist, its
objective, and passed over the river to the plains about Kandahar. But
it is a very remarkable, and possibly a significant, fact that the
continuation of the route to Sind and the Indus valley from the plains
about Kandahar is not mentioned by any Arab writer. Did the Arabs
descend through any of the well-known passes of the frontier--the
Mulla, Bolan, Saki-Sarwar, or Gomul--into the plains of India?
Possibly they did so; but in that case it is difficult to account for
so important a geographical feature as the frontier passes of Sind
being ignored by the greatest geographer of his day.
Following Idrisi's description of the Helmund province we have a brief
itinerary from the Helmund ford (Derthel or Benjawai) to Ghazni, said
to be nine days' journey inland. None of the places mentioned are to
be identified in modern maps except Cariat, which is more than
probably Kariut, a rich and fertile district in the Arghandab valley
in the direct line to Kalat-i-Ghilzai. This route passes well to the
north-east of Kandahar, which was apparently of little account in
Idrisi's days. Although there are extensive ruins at Kushk-i-Nakhud,
indicated by a huge artificial mound half-way between Girishk and
Kandahar, there is nothing in Idrisi's writings by which they can be
identified.
Ghazni was then a large town "surrounded by mud walls and a ditch.
There are many houses and permanent markets in Ghazni; much business
is done there. It is one of the 'entrepots' of India. Kabul is nine
days' journey from it." This is not much to say of the city which had
been enriched by the spoils carried away from Muttra and Somnath, and
by the treasures amassed during seventeen fierce raids of that Mahmud
who, by repeated conquests, made all Northern and Western India
contribute to his treasury.
Later, in 1332, the Arab traveller, Ibn Batuta, writes of Ghazni as a
small town set in a waste of ruins--a description which fits it not
inaptly at the present day; but in Idrisi's time, before the wars with
Ghur led to its destruction, whilst still the wealth of a great part
of India supported its magnificence, and whilst it was still the
theme of glowing panegyric by contemporary historians, one would
expect a rather more enthusiastic notice. But even Kabul (nine days'
journey distant from Ghazni) is only recognized as "_L'une des grandes
villes de l'Inde, entourée de murs_," with a "_bonne citadelle et au
dehors divers faubourgs_."[5]
There is little to interest us, however, in tracing out the routes
that linked up Ghazni and Kabul with the Helmund. They have been the
same through all time, with just the difference of place-names. Towns
and villages, caravanserais and posts, have come and gone, but that
historic road has been marked out by Nature as one of the grandest
high-roads in Asia, from the days of Alexander to those of Roberts.
Two minars tapering to the sky on the plain before Ghazni are all that
are left of its ancient glories, and one cannot but contrast the
scattered debris of that once so famous city with the solid endurance
of the far greater and older architectural efforts in Egypt and
Assyria. Southern Afghanistan is indeed singularly poor and empty of
historic monuments. Even now were Kabul, Kandahar, and Herat, its
three great cities, to be flattened out by a widespread earthquake
there would be little that was not of Buddhist origin left for the
future archæologist to make a stir about.
Idrisi writes of the Kingdom of Ghur as apart from Herat, although a
great part of the long Herat valley was certainly included. He calls
it a country "mountainous and well inhabited, where one finds springs,
rivers, and gardens--easy to defend and very fertile. There are many
cultivated fields and flocks. The inhabitants speak a language which
is not that of the people of Khorasan, and they are not Mohammedans."
Who were they? The Khilkhis or Ghilzais we know at that time
overspread the southern hills of Dawar; but who were the people
speaking a strange language in the land of the Chahar Aimak where now
dwell the Taimanis, unless they were the Taimanis themselves whose
traditions date from the time of Moses?
More recently the Ghilzais have left Zamindawar, and the Taimanis have
been pressed backward and upward into the central hills by the Afghan
Durani clans, who circle round westward, forming a fringe on the
foothills between Herat and Kandahar, and who have now completely
monopolized Zamindawar. Here, indeed, the truculent Nurzai and
Achakzai, and other elements of the Durani section of Afghan
ethnography, flourish exceedingly, and it is in this corner of
Afghanistan, bordering on the Herat highway to India, that nearly all
the fanatics and ghazis of the country are bred. They presented so
turbulent and uncompromising a front to strangers in 1882 that there
was great difficulty in getting a fair survey of the land of the
Chahar Aimak or of Zamindawar.
The mediæval provinces of Ghur and Bamain figure so largely in the
records of Arab geography, and appear to have been so fully open to
commerce during the centuries succeeding the Arab conquests, that one
naturally wonders whether there can have been any remarkable change in
the physical configuration of those regions which, in these later
days, has rendered them more inaccessible and unapproachable. The Arab
accounts of trade routes flit easily from point to point, taking
little reckoning of long distances and gigantic ice-bound passes, or
the perils of a treacherous climate. An itinerary which deals with
stupendous mountains and extreme altitudes has little more of
descriptive illustration in these Arab records than such as would
apply to camel tracks across the sandy desert or over the flat plain.
Nor is the distance which figures as a "day's journey" sensibly
changed to suit the route. Forty miles or so across the backbone of
the Hindu Kush is written of in much the same terms as if it were
forty miles over the plains. Giving the Arab travellers all credit for
far greater powers of endurance and determination than we moderns
possess, we must still believe that there is a great deal of
exaggeration (or forgetfulness) in these heroic records of the past.
It is unlikely that the physical conditions of the country have
materially changed.
So little has been written of this central region of modern
Afghanistan (within which lie the ruins of more than one kingdom), so
little has it been traversed by modern explorers, that it may be
useful to give some slight general description of the country with
which these records deal, including Bamain and Kabul and the mountain
system occupied by the Taimani and Hazara tribes as well as the
prolific region of Zamindawar with the routes which traverse it.
No part of Afghanistan has been subject to more speculative theories,
or requires more practical elucidation, than this mountain region in
which so large a share of the drama of Afghan history has been played.
Before the days of the Anglo-Russian agreement on the subject of the
northern boundaries of Afghanistan nothing was known of its geography,
beyond what might be gathered from the doubtful records of Ferrier's
journey--and that was very little. The geography of a country shapes
its history just as surely in the East as in the West, and we have
consequently much new light thrown on the interesting story of the
rise and fall of the Ghur dynasties by the fairly comprehensive
surveys of the region of their turbulent activities which were carried
out in 1882-83.
From these sources we obtain a very fair idea of the general
conformation of Central Afghanistan, _i.e._ that part of Afghanistan
which is occupied by the tribes known as the Chahar Aimak, _i.e._ the
Jamshidis, the Hazaras, Firozkohis, and Taimanis. It consists in the
first place of a huge irregular tableland--or uplift--which has been
deeply scored and eroded by centuries of river action, the rivers
radiating from the central mass of the Koh-i-Babar to the west of
Kabul and flowing in deep valleys either directly northward towards
the Oxus, due west towards Herat (eventually to turn northward), or
south-west in irregular but more or less parallel lines to the Helmund
lagoons in Seistan.
The Kabul River basin also finds its head near the same group of river
sources. The central mountain mass, the Koh-i-Babar, is high, rocky,
generally snow-capped and impassable. To the north it sends down long,
barren, and comparatively gentle spurs to the main plateau level,
which is deeply cut into by the northern system of rivers, including
the Murghab and the Balkh Ab. But the strangest feature in this
network of hydrography is the long, deep, narrow valley (almost
ditch-like in its regularity) which has been eroded by the Hari Rud
River as it makes its way due west, cutting off the sources of the
northern group from those of the Helmund or south-western group. It is
a most remarkable valley, depressed to a depth of 1000 to 2000 feet
below the general plateau level, bounded on the north by a
comparatively level line of red-faced cliffs, and on the south by
another straight flat-backed range called the Band-i-Baian (or farther
west, the Sufed Koh), which has been carved into the semblance of a
range by the parallel valleys of the Hari Rud on the north and the
Tagao Ishlan on the south, which hug the range between them.
No affluents of any consequence join either stream. Either separate or
together they make their way with straight determination westward
towards Herat. South of this curious ditch rise the many streamlets
which work their way, sometimes through comparatively open valleys
where the floor level has been raised by the centuries of detritus,
sometimes through steep and narrow gorges where the harder rock of the
plateau formation presents more difficulties to erosion, into the
great Helmund basin. These are affluents of the Adraskand, the Farah
Rud, and the Helmund, all of which have the same bourne in the Seistan
depression. High up between the Farah Rud and the Helmund affluents
isolated rugged peaks and short ranges crease and crumple the surface
of the inhospitable land of the Hazaras, who occupy all the highest of
the uplands and all the sources of the streams, a hardy, handy race of
Mongols, living in wild seclusion, but proving themselves to be one of
the most useful communities amongst the many in Afghanistan. We have
some of them as sepoys in the Indian Army. Lower down in the same
river basins, where the gentle grass-covered valleys sweep up to the
crests of the hills, cultivation becomes possible. Here flocks of
sheep dot the hill-sides, and the land is open and free; but there are
still isolated and detached ribs of rocky eminence rising to 11,000
and 12,000 feet, maintaining the mountainous character of the scenery,
and rivers are still locked in the embrace of occasional gorges which
admit of no passing by. This is the land of that very ancient people,
the Taimanis.
The fierce and lawless Firozkohis live in the Murghab basin on the
plateau north of the Hari Rud, the Jamshidis to the west of them in
the milder climate of the lower hills, into which the plateau
subsides.
Whilst we are chiefly concerned in tracing out the mediæval commercial
routes of Afghanistan, we may briefly summarize the events which prove
that those traversed between Herat and the central kingdoms were
important routes, worn smooth by the feet of armies as well as by the
tread of pack-laden khafilas. They are still very rough and they
present solid difficulties here and there, but in the main they are
passable commercial roads, although little commerce wends its way
about them now.
In the Middle Ages the Kingdom of Ghur included the Herat valley as
far as Khwaja Chist above Obeh in the valley of the Hari Rud, as well
as all the hill country to the south-east. About the earliest mention
of Ghur by any traveller is that of Ibn Haukel, who speaks of Jebel al
Ghur, and talks of plains, ring-fenced with mountains, fruitful in
cattle and crops, and inhabited by infidels (_i.e._ non-Mussulmans).
The later history of Ghur is inextricably intertwined with that of
Ghazni.
Mahmud of Ghazni frequently invaded the hills of Ghur which lay to the
west of him, but never made any practical impression on the Ghuri
tribespeople. In 1020, however, Mahomedans conquered Ghur effectually
from Herat. About a century later (this is after the time of Idrisi,
whose records we are following) a member of the ruling Ghuri family
(Shansabi) was recognized as lord of Ghur, and it was one of his sons
(Alauddin) who inflicted such terrible reprisals on Ghazni when he
sacked and destroyed that city and its people. It was about this time
(according to some authorities) that the kingdom of Bamian was founded
by another member of the same family; but we find Bamian distinctly
recognized as a separate kingdom by Idrisi a century or so earlier.
From 1174 to 1214 Bamian was the seat of government of a branch of
this family ruling all Tokharistan (Turkistan), during which period
Seistan and Herat were certainly tributary to Ghur. Ghur then became
so powerful, that it was said that prayers in the name of the Ghuri
were read from uttermost India to Persia, and from the Oxus to Hormuz.
In 1214 Ghur was reduced first by Mahomedans from Khwarezm (Khiva),
and shortly afterwards by Chenghis Khan and his Mongol hosts. About
the middle of the thirteenth century, however, a recrudescence of
power appeared under the Kurt (or Tajik) dynasty subject to the
supreme government of the Mongols. Seistan, Kabul, and Tirah were
then ruled from Herat as the capital of Ghur. Timur finally broke up
Herat and Ghur in 1383, since which time its history has been as
obscure as the geography of the region which surrounded it. Such in
brief is the stormy tale of Ghur, and it leads to one or two
interesting deductions. There was evidently constant and ready
communication with Herat, Bamian, and Ghazni. The capital of Ghur must
have been an important town, situated in a fertile and fairly populous
district, which, although it was mountainous, yet enjoyed an excellent
climate. It must have been a military centre too, with fortresses and
places of defence. During its later history it is clear that Ghur was
often governed from Herat, but in earlier mediæval days Ghur possessed
a distinct capital and a separate entity amongst Afghan kingdoms, and
was able to hold its own against even so powerful an adversary as
Mahmud of Ghazni, whilst its communications were with Bamian on the
north-east rather than with Kabul, which was then regarded as an
"Indian" city. We can at any rate trace no record of a direct route
between Ghur and Kabul.
In the twelfth century we read that the capital of Ghur was known as
Firozkohi, which name (says Yule) was probably appropriated by the
nomad Aimak tribe now called Firozkohi; but within the limits of what
is now recognized as the habitat of the Firozkohi (_i.e._ the plateau
which forms the basin of the Upper Murghab), it is impossible to find
any place which would answer to what we know of the general condition
of the surroundings and climate of the capital of Ghur, and which
would justify a claim to be considered a position of commanding
eminence. The altitude of the Upper Murghab branches is not more than
6000 to 7000 feet above sea-level, at which height the climate
certainly admits of agriculture, but no place that has been visited,
nor indeed any position in the valleys of the Upper Murghab affluents,
corresponds in any way to what we are told of this capital.
If we look for the best modern lines of communication through Central
Afghanistan we shall certainly find that they correspond with mediæval
routes, fitting themselves to the conformation of the country. Central
Afghanistan is open to invasion from the north, west, and south, but
not directly from the east. The invasion of Ghur from Ghazni, for
instance, must have been directed by Kalat-i-Gilzai, Kariut, and Musa
Kila (in Zamindawar), to Yaman, which lies a little to the east of
Ghur (or Taiwara). So far as we know there are no passes leading due
west from Ghazni to the heart of the Taimani country.
From the south the Helmund and its affluents offer several openings
into the heart of the Hazara highlands to the east of Taimani land,
amidst the great rocky peaks of which the positions were fixed from
stations on the Band-i-Baian. But there is no certain information
about the inhabited centres of Hazara population; and from what we
know of that desolate region of winter snow and wind, there never
could have been anything to tempt an invader, nor would any sound
commercial traveller have dreamt of passing that way from Seistan to
Bamian and Kabul. The idea that Alexander ever took an army up the
Helmund valley, and over the Bamian passes, must be regarded as most
improbable in spite of the description of Quintus Curtius, who
undoubtedly describes a route which presented more difficulties than
are quite appropriate to the regular Kandahar to Kabul road. On the
other hand, from Seistan by the Farah Rud there is a route which is
open to wheeled traffic all the way to Daolatyar on the upper Hari
Rud. Daolatyar may be regarded as the focus of several routes trending
north-eastward from Seistan, with the ultimate objective of Bamian and
the populous valleys of Ghur.
One of the chief affluents of the Farah Rud is now known as the Ghur,
and we need look no farther than this valley for the central interest
of the Ghur kingdom, although the exact position of the capital may
still be open to discussion. Between the Tagao Ghur and the Farah Rud
are the Park Mountains, which are almost Himalayan in general
characteristics and beauty, with delightful valleys and open spaces,
terraced fields, well-built two-storied wooden houses, pretty
villages, orchards with an abundance of walnuts and vines trailing
over the trees; the Ghur valley itself being broad and open with a
clear river of sweet water in its midst. This is near its junction
with the Farah Rud. Above this, for a space, the valley narrows to a
gorge and there is no passing along it, whilst above the gorge again
it becomes wide, cultivated, and well populated, and this is where the
Taimani headquarters of Taiwara are found. Taiwara is locally known as
Ghur, and may be absolutely on the site of the ancient capital, for
there are ruins enough to support the theory. Beyond an intervening
band of hills to the south are two valleys full of cultivation and
trees, wherein are two important places, Nili and Zarni, which
likewise boast of extensive ruins, whilst at Jam Kala, hard by, there
is perched on a high spur above the road with only one approach, a
remarkable stone-built fort. Yaman, to the east of Taiwara, in the
Helmund drainage, is a permanent Taimani village. Here also are very
ancient ruins, and the people say that they date from the time of
Moses. At that time they say that cups were buried with the dead, one
at the head and one at the foot of the corpse. Our native surveyor
Imám Sharif saw one of these cups with an inscription on it, but was
unable to secure the relic.
Nili and Zarni are in direct connection with Farah, with no
inconvenient break in the comparatively easy line of communication;
and they all (including Taiwara) are in direct communication with
Herat, by a good khafila route (_i.e._ good for camels). But the
routes differ widely, that from Herat to Taiwara by Farsi being more
direct, whilst the route from Herat to Zarni by Parjuman (which is
well kept up between these two places) passes well to the south. All
these places, again, are connected with the Hari Rud valley at Khwaja
Chist (the Ghur frontier) by a good passable high-road, which first
crosses the hills between Zarni and Taiwara, then passes under the
shadow of a remarkable mountain called Chalapdalan, or Chahil Abdal
(12,700 feet high--about which many mysterious traditions still
hover), over the Burma Pass into the Farah Rud drainage, thence over
another pass into the valleys of the Tagao Ishlan, and finally over
the Band-i-Baian into the Hari Rud valley at Khwaja Chist.
This is the route described by Idrisi as connecting Ghur with Herat,
as we shall see. The Ghur district is linked up with Daolatyar and
Bamian by the Farah Rud line of approach, or by a route, described as
good, which runs east into the Hazara highlands, and then follows the
Helmund. The latter is very high. There is therefore absolutely no
difficulty in traversing these Taimani mountain regions in almost any
direction, and the facility for movement, combined with the beauty and
fertility of the country, all point unmistakably to Taiwara and its
neighbourhood as the seat of the Ghuri dynasty of the Afghan kings.
The picturesque characteristics of Ghur extend southward to Zamindawar
on its southern frontier, the valleys of the Helmund, the Arghandab,
the Tarnak, and Arghastan--this is a land of open, rolling watersheds,
treeless, but covered with grass and flowers in spring, and crowned
with rocky peaks and ridges of rugged grandeur alternating with the
rich beauty of pastoral fields. The summer of their existence is in
curious contrast to the stern winter of the storm-swept highlands
above them, or the dreary expanse of drab sand-dusted desert below.
The route upstream to the backbone of the mountains, and so over the
divide to the kingdom of Bamian, was once a well-trodden route.
Since so many routes converge on Daolatyar at the head of the Hari Rud
valley, one would naturally look for Daolatyar to figure in mediæval
geography as an important centre. It is not easy, however, to identify
any of the places mentioned by Idrisi as representing this particular
focus of highland routes. Between Ghur and Herat, or between Ghur and
Ghazni, the difficulty lies in the number and extent of populous
towns, any one of which may represent an ancient site, to say nothing
of ruins innumerable. Between Taiwara and Herat we get no information
from Idrisi till we reach Khwaja Chist on the frontier. He merely
mentions the existence of a khafila road, and then he counts seven
days' journey between Khwaja Chist and Herat, reckoning the first as
"short."
The names of the halting-places between Khwaja Chist and Herat are
Housab, Auca, Marabad, Astarabad, Bajitan (or Najitan), and Nachan.
Auca I have no hesitation in identifying with Obeh. There is a large
village at Marwa which might possibly represent Marabad, and Naisan
would correspond in distance with Nachan, but this is mere guesswork;
to identify the others is impossible, without further examination than
was undertaken when surveying the ground.
The story of the commerce of Central Asia, which centred itself in
Herat in the days of Arab supremacy, has a strong claim on the student
of Eastern geography, for it is only through the itineraries of these
wandering Semetic merchants and travellers that we can arrive at any
estimation of the peculiar phase of civilization which existed in Asia
in the mediæval centuries of our era; a period at which there is good
reason to suppose that civilization was as much advanced in the East
as in the West. It is not the professional explorers, nor yet the
missionaries (great as are their services to geography), who have
opened up to us a knowledge of the world's highways and byways
sufficient to lead to general map illustration of its ancient
continents, so much as the everlasting pushing out of trade
investigations in order to obtain the mastery of the road to wealth.
India and its glittering fame has much to answer for, but India (that
is to say, the India we know, the peninsula of India) was so much
more get-at-able by sea than by land even in the early days of
navigation, that we do not learn so much about the passes through the
mountains into India as the way of the ships at sea, and the coast
ports which they visited. According to certain Arab writers large
companies of Arabs settled in the borderland and coasts of India from
the very earliest days. Indeed, there are evidences of their existence
in Makran long before the days of Alexander; but there is very little
evidence of any overland approach to India across the Indus.
Hindustan, to the mediæval Arab, commenced at the Hindu Kush, and
Kabul and Ghazni were "Indian" frontier towns; and the invasions and
conquests of India dating back to Assyrian times include no more than
the Indus basin, and were not concerned with anything farther south.
The Indus, with its flanking line of waterless desert, was ever a most
effectual geographical barrier.
The Arabs entered India and occupied the Indus valley through Makran,
and throughout their writings we find, strangely, little reference to
any of the Indian frontier passes which we now know so well. But in
the north and north-west of Afghanistan, in the Seistan and the Oxus
regions, they were thoroughly at home both as traders and travellers;
and with the assistance of their records we can make out a very fair
idea of the general network of traffic which covered High Asia. The
destroying hordes of the subsequent Mongol invasions, and the
everlasting raids of Turkmans and Persians on the border, have clean
wiped out the greater number of the towns and cities mentioned by
them, and the map is now full of comparatively modern Turkish and
Persian names which give no indication whatever of ancient occupation.
There are, nevertheless, some points of unmistakable identity, and
from these we can work round to conclusions which justify us in
piecing together the old route-map of Northern Afghanistan to a
certain extent. This is not unimportant even to modern geographers.
The roads of the old khafila travellers may again be the roads of
modern progress. We know, at any rate, that the Arabs of 1000 years
ago were much the same as the Arabs of to-day in their manners and
methods. Their routes were camel routes, not horse routes, and their
day's journey was as far as a camel could go in a day, which was far
in the wider and more waterless spaces of desert or uninhabited
country, and very much shorter when convenient halting-places
occurred. These Arab itineraries are bare enumeration of place-names
and approximate distances. As for any description of the nature of the
road or the scenery, or any indication of altitude (which they
possibly had no means of judging), there is not a trace of it; and the
difficulties of transliteration in place-names are so great as to
leave identification generally a matter of mere guesswork.
One of the most interesting geographical centres from which to take
off is Herat, and it may be instructive to note what is said about
Herat itself and its connections with the Oxus and Seistan. Herat,
says Idrisi, is "great and flourishing, it is defended inside by a
citadel, and is surrounded outside by 'faubourgs.' It has many gates
of wood clamped with iron, with the exception of the Babsari gate,
which is entirely of iron. The Grand Mosque of the town is in the
midst of the bazaars.... Herat is the central point between Khorasan,
Seistan, and Fars." Ibn Haukel (tenth century) mentions a gate called
the Darwaza Kushk, which is evidence that Kushk was of importance in
those days, though no separate mention is made of that place; and he
adds that the iron gate was the Balkh gate, and was in the midst of
the city. The strategical value of the position was clearly
recognized.
That grand edifice, the Mosalla, with its mosques and minars, which
stood outside the walls of Herat and was the glory of the town in 1883
(when it was destroyed in the interests of military defence), had no
previous existence in any other form than that which was given it when
it was built in the twelfth century.
Both Ibn Haukel and Idrisi mention a mountain about six miles from
Herat, from which stone was taken for paving (or mill-stones), where
there was neither grass nor wood, but where was a place (in Ibn
Haukel's time, but not mentioned by Idrisi) "inhabited, called Sakah,
with a temple or Church of Christians." Idrisi says this mountain was
"on the road to Balkh, in the direction of Asfaran." This would seem
to indicate that Asfaran, "on the road to Balkh," must be Parana (or
Parwana), an important position about a day's march north of Herat.
Ibn Haukel says nothing about the road to Balkh, which can only be
northward from Herat, but merely mentions that the mountain was on the
desert or uncultivated side of Herat, where was a river which had to
be crossed by a bridge. This could only be _south_ of Herat. Asfaran
is also stated to be on the road to _Seistan_ and to have had four
places dependent on it, one of which was Adraskand; and the route to
Asfaran from Herat is further described as three days' journey
(Idrisi). Ibn Haukel also describes Asfaran as possessing four
dependent towns, and places it between Farah and Herat, or _south_ of
Herat. As Adraskand[6] is a well-known place between Herat and Farah,
we must assume that this is either another Asfaran, or that Idrisi has
made a mistake in copying Ibn Haukel. It might possibly be represented
by Parah, twenty-five miles south-west of Herat, although the limited
area of cultivable ground around renders this unlikely. Subzawar would
indicate a far more promising position for an important trade centre
such as Asfaran must have been, and would accord better with the three
days' journey from Herat of Idrisi, or the itinerary from Farah given
by Ibn Haukel, while the extensive ruins around testify to its
antiquity. Asfaran was almost certainly Subzawar.
Considering the interest which may once again surround the question of
communications from Herat to India, it may be useful to point out that
the route connecting Farah with Herat 1000 years ago remains
apparently unchanged. The bridge called the Pul-i-Malun, over the Hari
Rud, must have been in existence then, and there was another bridge
over the Farah River one day's march below Farah, on the highway
between Herat and Seistan. To the west of Herat, on the ruin-strewn
road to Sarakhs, we have one or two interesting geographical
propositions.
Idrisi mentions a place possessing considerable local importance
"before Herat had become what it is now," about 9 miles west of Herat,
called Kharachanabad. This can easily be recognized in the modern
Khardozan, a walled but very ancient town, which is about 8½ miles
distant. Between it and the walls of the city there is now no place of
importance, nor does it appear likely, for local reasons, that there
ever could have been any. Another place, called Bousik, or Boushinj
(Pousheng, according to Ibn Haukel), is said to be half the size of
Sarakhs, built on the flat plain 6 miles distant from the mountains,
surrounded with walls and a ditch, with brick houses, and inhabitants
who were commercial, rich, and prosperous, and "who drink the water of
the river that runs to Sarakhs." This indicates a site on the banks of
the Hari Rud. The only modern place of importance which answers this
description is the ancient town of Zindajan, which is about 6 miles
from the mountains, and which (according to Ferrier) still bears the
name of Foosheng. This name, however, was not recognized by the Afghan
Boundary Commission. "To the west of Bousik are Kharkerde and Jerkere.
One reckons two days' journey to this last town, which is well
populated, smaller than Kuseri, but where there is plenty of water and
cultivation. From Jerkere to Kharkerde is two days' journey." These
two places are obviously on the road to Nishapur. There is an ancient
"haoz," or tank, below the isolated hill of Sangiduktar, near the
Persian frontier, which might well represent what is left of Jerkere,
and Kharkerde lies beyond it, on the road to Rue Khaf (itself a very
ancient site, probably representing Rudan), near Karat. Another place
which has a very ancient and troubled history is Ghurian, about
thirteen miles west of Zindajan. This is readily identified as the
Koure of Idrisi, which is described as twelve miles from Bousik, on
the left of the high-road westward, and about three miles from it.
This corresponds exactly with Ghurian, and proves that the high-road
has retained its position through ages. Koure is described as an
important town, but there is no mention of walls or defences. Another
place, second only in importance to Bousik, is Kouseri. It is in fact
said to be equal to Bousik, and to possess "running water and
gardens." There can be little doubt that this is Kuhsan (or Kusan),
one of the most important towns of the Herat valley.
This great high-road, intersecting the plain from the north-west gate
of the city, is a pleasant enough road in the spring and summer
months. For a space it runs singularly free from crowded villages and
close cultivation, and the tread of a horse's hoof is amongst
low-growing flowers of the plain, a dwarf yellow rose with maroon
centre being the most prominent. Then, as one skirts the Kaibar River
as it runs to a junction with the Hari Rud from the northern hills,
cultivation thickens and villages increase.
The road next hugs the Hari Rud, and, passing the high-walled town of
Zindajan to the south, runs, white and even and hard, with the scarlet
and purple of poppies and thistles fringing it, between long gravel
slopes of open dasht and the twin-peaked ridge of Doshak, to Rozanak
and Kuhsan. Kuhsan is a little to the south of the Kaman-i-Bihist. It
was here that the British Commission of the Russo-Afghan Boundary
gathered in the late autumn of 1884, one half from England and the
other half from India. The drab squares of the cultivated plain were
bare then, in November, and the poplars on the banks of the river were
scattering yellow leaves to the blasts of the bitter north-west winds
of autumn which sweep through Khorasan and Seistan, making of life a
daily burden. But there came a marvellous change in the spring-time,
when the world was scarlet and green below and blue above; when the
sand-grouse began to chatter through the clear sky; then
Kaman-i-Bihist (the bow of Paradise) justified its name. The old Arab
of the trading days who wandered northward to Sarakhs must have loved
this place.
Stretching Sarakhs-ward are the hills, rocky and broken along the
river edge, but gradually giving place eastward to easy rounded
slopes, softened by rain and snow, and washed into smooth spurs with
treacherous waterways between which become quagmires under the
influence of a north-western "shamshir." The extraordinary effect of
denudation which yearly results from the heavy rain-storms which are
so frequent in spring and early summer in these hills must have
absolutely changed their outlines during the centuries which have
elapsed since the Semitic trader trod them. A summer storm-cloud
charged with electricity may burst on their summits, and the whole
surface of the slopes at once becomes soft and pulpy. Mud avalanches
start on the steeper grades and carry down thousands of tons of slimy
detritus in a crawling mass, and spread it out in fans at their feet.
It is not safe to say that the modern passes of the Paropamisus north
of Herat--the Ardewan and the Babar--were the passes of mediæval
commerce, although the Ardewan is marked by certain wells and ruined
caravanserais which show that it has long been used. It seems possible
that these passes may have shifted their positions more than once.
There was undoubtedly a well-trodden route from Bousik, which carried
the traveller more directly to Sarakhs than would the Ardewan or even
the Chashma Sabz Pass. This road followed the river more closely than
any railway ever will. It turned the river gorge to the east, and
probably passed through the hills by the Karez Ilias route, which runs
almost due north to Sarakhs. The only certain indication which we can
find in Idrisi is the statement that the "silver hill" (_i.e._ the
hill of the silver mine) is on the road from Herat to Sarakhs. The
Simkoh (silver hill) is still a well-known feature in the broken range
of the Paropamisus, near that route. But it is difficult after
centuries of disturbing forces, natural and artificial, to identify
the sites of many of the towns and markets mentioned by Idrisi, who
places Badghis to the west of Bousik, and gives the "silver hill" as
one of its "dependencies." There were two considerable towns, Kua (or
Kau) and Kawakir, said to have been near the silver hill, and there is
mention of a place called Kilrin in this neighbourhood. Probably the
ruins at Gulran represent the latter, but Kua and Kawakir are not
identified. Gulran was one of the most fascinating camps of the Afghan
Boundary Commission. On the open grass slopes stretching in gentle
grades northward, bordered by the line of red Paropamisan cliffs to
the south and west and by the open desert stretching to Merv on the
north, it was, during one or two early months of the year, quite an
ideal camping-ground.
It was here that the wild asses of the mountains made a raid on the
humble four-footed followers of the Commission, and signified their
extreme disgust at the free use which was made of their
feeding-grounds; thus witnessing to the condition of primeval
simplicity into which that once populous district had subsided after
centuries of border raid and insecurity. The remains of an old karez,
or underground irrigation channel, not far north of Gulran, testified
to a former condition of cultivation and prosperity.
From Gulran (which is connected with the Herat plains directly by the
pass called Chashma Sabz) roads stretch northwards and north-eastwards,
without obstacle, to the open Turkistan plains, where ancient sites
abound. Idrisi's indications, however, are but a very uncertain
foundation for identifying most of them. The "dependencies" of Badghis
are said to be Kua, Kughanabad, Bast, Jadwa, Kalawun, and Dehertan,
the last place being built on a hill having neither vegetation nor
gardens; but "lead is found there, and a small stream."