800 Report on subjects connected with Affghanistan, [No. 118. 



respect being paid to their communications with Cabul. At present 

 the line of road for any beast of burden, but a mule or a donkey, is very 

 circuitous and arduous. The dealers in wood and charcoal, however, 

 instead of turning the range which forms the south boundary of the valley 

 of Cabul itself, cross it near the place where the large Bactrian pillar, 

 now called Baber's Pillar is situated ; by this they debouche imme- 

 diately into the valley of Kooro Cabul, saving a circuit of several 

 miles, and preferring shortness and great steepness, to length and com- 

 parative levelness. A new line might possibly be marked out. The 

 grand remedy will be found when good and accessible coal shall have 

 been discovered ; this is one of the greatest desiderata, and search for 

 it should be proportionally encouraged. 



Affghanistan is a country of mountains intersected by vallies, or as 



Physical features s^me may perhaps be called, steppes. It appears to 

 g anis an. ^^ ^^ possess many peculiarities, and my limited 

 experience cannot suggest a country, with which it may fairly be com- 

 pared. A popular general idea of it may be formed by imagining, 

 the upheaving of an extensive and varied system of mountains, 

 through an enormous plain variously covered with boulders and shingle, 

 and presenting here and there deposits of soil, generally in the shape 

 of narrow strips along the principal lines of drainage. The general 

 form of the country as now limited, may be compared to that of an 

 equilateral triangle. Its boundaries are undoubtedly the Indus along 

 the Southern line ; the Koh-i-Baba, Paropamisus, and Hindoo Koosh 

 along the North-Eastern ; Persia, Seistan, and the territories of Khilat 

 along the Western. 



Of the above-mentioned boundaries, those of the North-Eastern 

 and Southern or South-Eastern sides are natural in the strict sense 

 of the term ; those on the Western sides are badly supplied by the 

 changeable and arbitrary boundaries of Beloochistan and Persia. 



The mountains may, I think, be said to belong to two great systems, 



-. , . that of the Hindoo Koosh, Koh-i-Baba, and Paro- 



Moun tains. ' 



pamisus, which appear to be nothing but different 

 parts of the westerly continuation of the great Himalayan chain, and 

 the Sufaid Koh. This is, however, connected with certain of the extreme 

 southerly offsets of the end of the Himalayas, or beginning of the 

 Hindoo Koosh. To one or the other of these systems all the subor- 



