Birds of Southern Afghanistan. 97 



only to a far larger extent, and a greater extent of gardens ; 

 but the whole tract of land between is little more or less 

 than a barren desert. In the Pisheen on the Kushdil Khan 

 side there is a little cultivation ; but the so-called fertility of 

 the rest of the valley of the Pisheen only exists in the imagi- 

 nation of its describers. During the ten months of my com- 

 missariat administration it produced next to nothing ; and to 

 feed the army retiring to India from Kandahar last April and 

 May I had to bring every thing required as far as the Kojak 

 all the way up from ludia, even down to the grain and forage 

 for tlie animals. The soil is chiefly clay full of gypsum, and 

 might be made fertile enough ; but the country has hardly any 

 population; and as it is in a rainless zone, away from the 

 orchards which fringe the river-banks at Kandahar and Quetta 

 there are no trees. If you go up any of the hills and look 

 around you, the same feature presents itself everywhere — a 

 riband of orchards and cultivation along the river-banks, a 

 barren treeless waste everywhere else. 



That the whole country could be well cultivated if there 

 were sufficient population, there can be no doubt. Though it 

 seldom rains, water can be obtained by boring at the foot of 

 nearly every hill ; perennial springs they appear to be ; and 

 all the cultivation round and about Kandahar and Quetta is 

 by irrigation by artificial streams carried dow'u from the foot 

 of the different hills. There are a few stunted trees, Pistacia 

 khhijuk, on the Kojak, the top of which is 7000 feet above 

 sea-level ; and the only other trees I saw in the country were 

 the fruit-trees in the orchards, such as apples, pears, plums, 

 &c., and many poplars [Populus alba), mulberries, pome- 

 granates, figs, and vines of many different kinds, and tamarisk 

 clumps in most of the river-beds. 



The Avhole line of country between Quetta and Kandahar 

 may be roughly described as consisting of barren hills and 

 sandy plains, with fringes of cultivation on the watercourses 

 found here and there ; and though you drop down some two 

 thousand feet after crossing the Kojak, the nature of the 

 country is the same, except that the dust-storms are made 

 considerably worse by the great desert along which the road 



SEB. IV. VOL. VI. H 



