A RECENT KIDE TO HERAT. 



[MAGA. AUG. 1885.] 



WE were tired of Tirpul. Tirpul is the position 

 to which, under stress of circumstances over 

 which we had no control, the Afghan Boundary 

 Commission had been driven from Badghis. A very 

 good position too. In front of us was the Ilari Rud, 

 swollen by the late rains into a mighty brick -red 

 torrent, whose surface, strewn with the wreckage of 

 many a far-off forest, told its own tale of ruin and 

 destruction. They said there had never been such a 

 flood ; and certainly there were no signs visible of any- 

 thing like it in recent years. Spanning the river in 

 front of us stood the one bridge which exists between 

 Herat and Pul-i-Khatun; and though the bridge looked 

 crazy enough to give way to a far less violent rush of 

 water than that which then beset it, yet it finally 

 stood up with its cracked arches and battered piers, 

 and it answered our purpose and lasted our time. 

 The seemingly endless winter had at last given way 

 to spring. The bright spring hues of the Euphrates 

 poplar and dwarf tamarisk fringed the river, red with 



