AMONG THE AFFGHANS. 255 



small tents, or, painfully trudging backwards and 

 forwards from the posts right and left of them, on 

 convoy-duty, with the glare and the dust, the tree- 

 less waste and the foul smells, for their companions, 

 while not two days' journey from them stood up the 

 grand snow-capped, forest-clothed mountains cannot 

 be blamed if they longed for India, and came back 

 with heartfelt wishes never to return, after losing so 

 many of their number when cholera and fever had 

 sought them out sick at heart with hopes deferred or 

 disappointed, and oppressed with ennui. All had 

 heard that Cabul was a paradise of fruit. They saw 

 nothing but stony wastes, or fever-giving rice-fields. 

 And yet, not ten miles from the main road lay those 

 fruit-producing orchards, the produce of which every 

 year is carried away in thousands of camel-loads. 



Rising immediately under the snows are numerous 

 water-courses, which combine and form many large 

 streams, with few windings, dividing the larger spurs 

 and plateaux. They gradually widen, and where 

 they enter the valley are sometimes hundreds of 

 yards across. Where enclosed between the spurs, 

 the water during several months of the year is deep 

 and swift ; but as soon as it emerges it is carried 

 off by numerous cuttings for irrigation, till often not 

 a drop is left where the road crosses the channels. 

 As far as the water can be carried, the ground is 

 almost entirely under cultivation, and among the 

 fields lie numerous large forts with loopholed towers 



VOL. III. B 



