254 FLORA INDICA. 



lies probably to the westward of Kelat, but our maps are not 

 sufficiently accurate to make its course in that direction ob- 

 vious. At its point of origin this chain is more than 13,000 

 feet in height ; where it is called the Safecl-Koh, or White 

 mountains, it is 14,000. Near Ghazni it is from 9000 to 

 10,000 feet high ; and near Quetta its elevation is nearly as 

 great, for the peak of Chahil Tan rises to 10,500 feet. Its 

 eastern ramifications are high ridges which dip abruptly into 

 the valley of the Indus ; one peak, near Dera Ismael Khan 

 (called Takht-i-Suliman), attains a height of 11,000 feet, and 

 the range south of the Kabul river rises still higher. The de- 

 ceptive appearance of a chain of mountains running parallel 

 to and near the west bank of the Indus is given by the ex- 

 tremities of the eastern spurs of these ridges, and has no ex- 

 istence except upon our maps. To the westward, long ranges 

 of rugged mountains branch from it ; and stretch far in a 

 south-west direction before they sink into the elevated table- 

 land of Persia. The elevation of Candahar is 3480 feet, and 



that of Bamian 8500. 



Excepting in the most eastern part of Hindu Kush, be- 

 tween the Kuner and the Gilgit rivers, these mountains no- 

 where rise to the height of perpetual snow, except on the peak 

 of Koh-i-Baba. Their outline is often rounded j they are in 

 general bare and stony, separated by wide elevated valleys, 

 1000 or 2000 feet below the ridges. Water being scarce, 

 the valleys are sterile and very rocky. 



Throughout Afghanistan the climate is excessive. The 

 cold of the winter is intense, the spring is damp and raw, and 

 the summer, during which hot west winds prevail, is intensely 

 hot at all elevations. Winter and spring are the rainy (or 

 snowy) seasons, while the summer and autumn are dry. The 

 return upper current of moist air, which passes northward 

 during the prevalence of the north-east monsoon, is condensed 

 by the mountains, and heavy falls of snow are of frequent oc- 

 currence during winter at all elevations above 5000 feet, or a 

 little lower in the immediate vicinity of the Hindu Kiish. In 



