1838.] the Ghorband mines, and Hindu Kush. 527 



broken on our first day's march, and a barometer was too cumbrous and 

 ostensible an object for persons wishing to avoid observation. How- 

 ever from calculations made by Lieut. Leech (to whose survey I refer 

 for all topographical details), respecting the rates of ascent at portions 

 of the road, we felt inclined to conclude that the total height could not 

 be less than 15,000 feet, and comparisons which I have subsequently 

 been able to make with other passes in the same range, the height of 

 which I ascertained, afford me assurance that this is by no means an 

 over-estimate. 



We searched in vain on the top for the Kirm i barf or snow-worm, 

 the existence of which is confidentially affirmed by the natives who ac- 

 counted for our want of success by saying that fresh snow had fallen, 

 and that the worm was only to be found on that of last year. In that case 

 its existence at least on this pass must be extremely limited, as it would 

 be hard to name a month in which snow does not or may not fall here. 



At the time of our visit the snow, which on the southern face extend- 

 ed in any quantity to a distance of not more than four or five miles, on 

 the northern, reached eighteen or twenty ; and at a subsequent period, 

 November 9th, when I made an attempt to go into Turkistdn by the 

 pass of Sir-Alang*, and met with no snow until within ten miles of 

 the summit, it actually on the northern face extended 60 miles or nearly 

 four days' journey. This is a fact which forcibly arrested my attention 

 as the reverse is well known to be the case, in the Himalaya chain where 

 snow lies lower down on the southern face than on the northern, to an 

 extent corresponding with 4000 perpendicular descent. But the 

 Himalaya and the Hindu Kush have the same aspect, the same general 

 direction, lie nearly in the same latitude, and in fact are little other than 

 integral parts of the same chain. The local circumstances however 

 connected with each are precisely reversed. The Himalaya has to the 

 north the elevated steppes of central Asia, and to the south the long 

 low plains of Hindustan. Hindu Kush, on the other hand, has to the 

 south the elevated plains of Kabul and Koh-i-Ddman between five or six 

 thousand feet above the level of the sea, while to the north stretch away 

 the depressed, sunken and swampy flats of Turkistdn; Balkh, according 

 to Captain Burnes, being only 1800 feet, while Kunduz at which 

 I am now writing is by the boiling of the waterf not quite 500 above 

 the surface of the ocean. 



* The upper district in the Parwdn valley is called Alang ; the mouutain pass over 

 it Sir-Alang ; Sir simply meaning head or top.— Mr. Elphinstone writes it Sauleh 

 Oolong. 



T The mean of three thermometers which had been carefully boiled and registered 

 at the sea level. 



3 u 2 



