ENGLISH OFFICIAL EXPLORATION--BROADFOOT
In the year 1839 and in the month of October Lieut. J. S. Broadfoot of
the Indian Engineers made a memorable excursion across Central
Afghanistan, intervening between Ghazni and the Indus Valley, which
resulted in the acquisition of much information about one of the gates
of India which is too little known. No one has followed his tracks
since with any means of making a better reconnaissance, nor has any
one added much to the information obtained by him. It is true that
Vigne had been over the ground before him, but there is no comparison
between the use which Broadfoot made of his opportunities and the
geography which Vigne secured. Both took their lives in their hands,
but Vigne passed along with his Lohani khafila in days preceding the
British occupation of Afghanistan. There was no fanatical hostility
displayed towards him. On the contrary, his medical profession was a
recommendation which won him friends and good fellowship all along the
line. A few years had much changed the national (if one can use such
a word with regard to Afghanistan) feeling towards the European. From
day to day, and almost from hour to hour, Broadfoot felt that his life
hung on the chances of the moment. He was told by friends and enemies
alike that he would most certainly be killed. Yet he survived to do
good service in other fields, and to maintain the reputation of that
most distinguished branch of the military service, the Indian
Engineers. Broadfoot was but typical of his corps, even in the
scientific ability displayed in his researches, the clearness and the
soundness of the views he expresses, the determined pluck of his
enterprise, and his knowledge of native life and character. Durand,
North, Leach, and Broadfoot were Lieutenants of Engineers at the same
time, and their reports and their work are all historical records.
Previously to his start on the Gomul reconnaissance Broadfoot had the
opportunity of reconnoitring much of the country to the south of
Ghazni bordering the Kandahar-Ghazni route. He had, therefore, a very
fair acquaintance with the people with whom he had to deal, and a
fairly well fixed point of departure for his work. His methods were
the time-honoured methods of many past generations of explorers. He
took his bearings with the prismatic compass, and he reckoned his
distance by the mean values obtained from three men pacing.
Consequently, he could not pretend, in such circumstances as he was
placed (being hardly able to leave his tent in spite of his disguise),
to complete much in the way of topography; but his clear description
of the ground he passed over, and the people he passed amongst,
furnishes nearly all that is necessary to enable us to realise the
practical value and the political difficulty of that important line of
communication with Central Afghanistan.
From Ghazni southwards to Pannah there is nothing but open plain. From
near Pannah to the Sarwandi Pass, which crosses the main divide (the
Kohnak range) between the Helmund and the Indus basins, there is much
of the ridge and furrow formation which distinguishes the
north-western frontier, the alignment of the ridges being from N.E. to
S.W., but the Gazdarra Pass over the Kattawaz ridge is not formidable,
and the road along the plain of Kattawaz is open. In Kattawaz were
groups of villages, denoting a settled population, and as much
cultivation as might be possible amidst a lawless, crop-destroying,
and raiding generation of Ghilzais.
"Kattasang, as viewed from Dand" (on the northern side) "appears a
mass of undulating hills, and as bare as a desert; it is the resort in
summer of some pastoral families of Suliman Khels." Approaching the
main divide of Sarwandi by the Sargo Pass two forts are passed near
Sargo, which sufficiently well illustrate the characteristics of
perpetual feud common to clans or families of the Ghilzai fraternity.
The forts are close to each other; one of them is known as Ghlo kala
(thieves' fort), but they are probably both equally worthy of the
name. The inhabitants of these forts absolutely destroyed each other
in a family feud, so that nothing now remains. Their very waters have
dried up.
Near the Sargo, on the Ghazni side of the Sarwandi Pass, is Schintza,
at which place Vigne also halted, and from Schintza commences the real
ascent to the Sarwandi. The ascent, and indeed the crossing
altogether, are described by Broadfoot as easy. Vigne does not say
much about this. From the foot of the Sarwandi one branch of the Gomul
takes off, and from that point to the Indus the great trade route
practically follows the Gomul on a gradually descending grade. It is a
stony, rough, and broken hill route, now expanding into a broad track
of river-bed, now contracting into a cliff-bordered gully,
occasionally leaving the river and running parallel over adjoining
cliffs, but more often involving the worry of perpetual crossing and
re-crossing of the stream. Here and there is an expansion (such as the
"flower-bed," Gulkatz) into a reed-covered flat, and occasionally
there occurs a level open border space which the blackened stones of
previous khafilas denote as a camping-ground. Wild and dreary, carving
its way beneath the heat-cracked and rain-seared foot-hills of
Waziristan, strewn with stones and boulders, and disfigured by
leprous outbreaks of streaky white efflorescence, the Gomul in the hot
weather is not an attractive river. In flood-time it is dangerous, and
it is in the hottest of the hot weather months that the route is
fullest of the moving khafila crowds.
In Broadfoot's time the worst part of the route was between the
plateau and the Indus plains. This is no longer so, for a
trade-developing and road-making Government has made the rough places
plain, and engineered a first-class high-road thus far. And there is
this to be noted about that section of it which still lies beyond the
ken of the frontier officer and which as yet the surveyor has not
mapped. Not a single camel-load in Broadfoot's khafila had to be
shifted on account of the roughness of the route between Ghazni and
the Indus, and not a space of any great length occurred over which
guns might not easily pass. The drawback to the route as a high-road
for trade has ever been the blackmailing propensities of Waziris and
cognate tribes who flank the route on either side. Broadfoot's khafila
lost no less than 100 men in transit; but this was at a time when the
country was generally disturbed. In more peaceful days previously
Vigne refers to constant losses both of men and property, but to
nothing like so great an extent.
Broadfoot still stands for our authority in all that pertains to the
central Afghan tribes-people--chiefly the Suliman Khel clan of
Ghilzais--who occupy the Highlands between Waziristan and Ghazni.
Under the iron heel of the late Amir of Afghanistan no doubt much of
their turbulent and feud-loving propensities has been repressed, and
with its repression has followed a development of agriculture, and a
general improvement throughout the favoured districts of Kattawaz and
the Ghazni plain. Here the climate is exceptionally invigorating, and
much of the sweet landscape beauty of the adjoining districts of
Wardak and Logar (two of the loveliest valleys of Afghanistan) is
evidently repeated. Several fine rivers traverse these uplands, the
Jilgu and the Dwa Gomul (both rising from the central divide near to
the sources of the Tochi) having much local reputation, and claiming a
crude sort of reverence from the wild tribes of the plateau which is
only accorded to the gifts of Allah. The Suliman Khel are not
nomads--though like all Afghans they love tents--and their villages,
clinging to wall-sides or clustering round a central tower, are well
built and often exceedingly picturesque. The Ghilzai skill at the
construction of these underground irrigation channels called karez is
famous throughout Afghanistan. It is, however, the more westerly clans
who especially excel in the development of water-supply. The Suliman
Khel and the Nasirs take more kindly to the khafila and "povindah"
form of life, and this Gomul route is the very backbone of their
existence. It is a pity that we know so little about it.