1837.] Some account of Ghazni and Kdbal. 773 



Ismdel Khdn. After a very harassing fortnight's march, no sleep in the 

 day from the heat, no sleep at night from the firing and hallooing of the 

 guards, half killed by the weather and poisoned by the bad water pro- 

 curable only by scraping away the earth, I arrived at Ghazni. The 

 greatest height of this mountain pass is nearly 8,000 feet, but the ascent 

 very gradual. The snowy mountains near Ghazni come in sight at the 

 top of this hill. Khordsan I was the cry amongst the Lohdnis men, wo- 

 men, and children ; they call it Khordsan directly these ranges are pas- 

 sed. A consul vXMittencote with liberty to trade is, as Mr. Masson says, 

 all that is necessary to entice the trade up the Indus. The Vizeri moun- 

 taineers are a hardy and desperate set without a chief with whom could 

 be made an agreement. For days there is nothing but the barren 

 mountain, with here and there a melancholy looking Lohdni burying- 

 place, studded with the horns of the Mouflon, the Ibex, and the 

 Markhun : hardly a blade of grass is seen and no dwelling. Bloody 

 *euds are constant. These mountains, on the confines of the range at 

 least, are one mass of hardened shingle. The first day's halt the 

 ground is covered with small sea- shells in remnants, and on the 

 third or fourth there was a very fine looking marl and sand cliff 

 in which shells were found, but the heat was so intense I could not 

 visit it. 



Ghazni is in a fine situation at the end of a gypsum hill ; its mud 

 towers are just numerous enough to be in the way of each other 

 but it cannot be made very strong, as it is commanded. The minars of 

 Mahmud are beautiful specimens of brickwork with cufic inscriptions ; 

 about 140 feet high {from memory). The Rozeh-i-sultan or Mahmud's 

 tomb is in shape a triangular prism of gypsum with cufic inscriptions. 

 The sandal-wood gates are now scentless and the carving defaced 

 by age. I went out of the regular road to Kabul with a servant of the 

 Nawab Jabar Khan as cicerone. The whole country seems full of 

 copper and iron ; lapis lazuli is not rare. J shall never forget the 

 change from India to <l Khordsdn :" it was Persia all over, the cool 

 air perfumed with thyme and gumcestus, long kandts or covered 

 water-ways, the mud castles, the large pigeon grouse, the mulberry 

 trees, and walled gardens, the willow, the sanjid and the English 

 magpie, contrasted to give the country a very different aspect from 

 that of the Panjdb side of the mountains. 



Ghazni is very high, 7,000 feet. The snow reaches to Simlabora about 

 one-third of the way from Ghazni to the Panjdb. The country is 

 irrigated chiefly from the Band i sultan, a large dam built by Mahmud 

 at the top of the plain. It is a noble work but I was rather disap- 

 pointed after all I had heard of it. It would be very desirable if the 



