444 report — 1879. 



must have been, judging by the remains, two or three times greater than the 

 present population. Kamah is well cultivated, but on the Jellalabad side there is 

 only a narrow strip along the bank of the Kabool and Surkhab rivers under culti- 

 vation ; the remainder of the valley is covered with sand and boulders. At Girdi 

 Kas, where the river flows out of the valley at the eastern end, are the remains of 

 an aqueduct and an old road. The last is known as the Badshah-i-Rah, or the 

 ' Imperial Road,' and it was supposed from its name to have been made by one of 

 the Emperors of India. Our engineers made repairs on this road, and from the 

 officers engaged on this work Mr. Simpson received the information that portions 

 of ' Buddhist masonry ' are still to be seen on it, showing it is older than the Bad- 

 shahs who ruled in Delhi, and that regularly constructed ways were made in the 

 more civilised period of Buddhism, a kind of public work which the Afghan has 

 long ceased to trouble himself about. While the engineers were at work at this 

 spot, they also discovered an old aqueduct constructed along with the road, with a 

 considerable tunnel through one of the hills by which the water was led to the 

 Chardeh Plain, on the east of the Jellalabad Valley, and which is now a desert of 

 stones, and so dangerous from heat that no native of the country, they were told, 

 would venture to pass over it in June or July in the daytime. The aqueduct dis- 

 covered by the officers is a pretty clear evidence that this wilderness- of boulders 

 was at some former period under cultivation. In this case archaeology is of some 

 value as throwing light on the past, and the contrast is not favourable to the con- 

 dition of the country in its present condition. Further valuable light drawn from 

 the same source was afforded by Major Cavagnari (now Sir Pierre Louis Napoleon 

 Cavagnari), supplying the author with a working party to make excavations at the 

 Ahin Posh Tope, about a mile south from Jellalabad. The principal object was 

 to explore the architectural details of the remains, but while thus engaged, the 

 author penetrated, by means of a tunnel, cut for about 45 feet through solid 

 masonry, to the central cell of the shrine, and found along with what were most 

 probably the ashes of some Buddhist saint of high repute, twenty gold coins, each 

 about the size of a sovereign. Seventeen of these were Bactrian, or Indo-Scy thian ; 

 and three were Roman. One belonged to Domitian, another to Trajan, and the 

 third to ' Sabina Augusta,' the wife of Hadrian. Evidence of a road has already 

 been given, and these coins prove that at a past date a commerce went along that 

 road ; and it must have been a commerce of considerable importance which brought 

 coins all the way from ancient Rome in its track. 



We know that in the Buddhist period the capital city of the Jellalabad region 

 was called Nagarahara. When Mr. Simpson started for the Afghan War, Colonel 

 Yule called his attention to this, as a point of importance, and that the fixing of its 

 site would be of some value. This task the author thinks he has accomplished. 

 About four miles to the west of Jellalabad there is an isolated rock which stands 

 up out of the plain. It is covered with the debris of former structures, amidst 

 which a little careful examination soon discovers remains of ' Buddhist masonry.' 

 This rock, the natives say, was the Bala Hissar of an old. Kaffir city. The word 

 ' Kaffir ' means, in the mouth of a Mahomedan, an ' infidel,' and they apply the word 

 to everything pre-Mahomedan ; hence all the old Buddhist remains they tell you are 

 'Kaffir log Ke.' There are long mounds to be seen in different places around, 

 apparently the vestiges of the old walls, and the quantity of stones scattered about 

 has led the people to call the place Wuttapoor, or the ' City of Stones.' It is also 

 called Begram, which some authorities have rendered ' Chief City.' Our surveyors, 

 in the new map made during the campaign, give one place here, for there are a 

 number of villages within the space of the old city, as ' Nagarat,' which is no 

 doubt a contraction of Nagarahara — Fah Hian, the Buddhist Pilgrim, uses the word 

 ' Nagrak ' (Beal's Trans., p. 40). Close to the old rock the author made a very 

 partial exploration of a large tope, and the name of it as given by the villagers 

 was Nagara Goondi, the last word here meaning a ' knoll ' or ' mound,' and which 

 is used in relation to all topes when they have been reduced to a simple heap. 

 This name would therefore mean the ' Nagara Tope,' and in these words Mr. Simp- 

 son thinks we have the remains of the old name, and they form a very strong 

 evidence, when added to what is already given, that this is the site of the old 

 Buddhist city of Nagarahara. Its position would have been a strong one. It was 



