238 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



clansmen ; "but, as was proved afterwards, although 

 the great bulk of the tribe might desire the presence 

 of their guests, they are at times powerless to prevent 

 sudden attacks by parties of fanatics or outlaws. The 

 country through which we passed is drained by the 

 Cabul river.. This river, taking its rise beyond the 

 city of Cabul, drains the valley in which that city 

 lies, and passing along the base of the group of hills 

 which lie between Jellalabad and Cabul through 

 which runs the Jugdulluk Pass enters the Jellalabad 

 valley after receiving the waters of the Surkhab, which 

 drains a portion of the Safed-Koh ; and the Alingar, 

 Alishang, and Komar rivers, which drain a portion of 

 the southern slopes of the Hindoo Koosh. Between 

 Jellalabad and Dakka its bed is often over a mile in 

 breadth, passing sometimes between low lands covered 

 with rice-fields and dotted with villages, at others 

 through rocky gorges at the bases of low isolated hills. 

 After passing Dakka and Lalpoorah about four miles, 

 it enters the group of hills lying round the Khyber, 

 and taking a wide semicircular sweep, broken at in- 

 tervals by short rectangular windings, it enters the 

 Peshawar valley at Michni. Its channel is here, at 

 times, hemmed in between precipitous rocks, and 

 narrowed to a breadth of 60 or 70 yards. In places 

 huge blocks of granite jut forward into the stream, 

 against which the water is hurled with great violence 

 during the months that it is swollen by the melting 

 of the snows in the higher hills. At the sudden 



