1859.] Notes on Kafiristan. 321 



or Kasbkar, Panjkorah, and Bajawer ; and west by the mountains 

 on the left bank of the Panjsher river, the eastern boundary of the 

 valley of that name, the Koh-daman, and the Kohistan or Highlands 

 of Kabul. Within its boundaries are iucluded the ridges and steep 

 spurs of the Hindu Kush, enclosing narrow and fertile valleys de- 

 scending in terraces towards the Kabul river and the Indus, in a 

 north-east and south-west direction. 



The valleys are watered by numerous streams somewhat like 

 the ramifications and reticulations of a leaf, which running east and 

 west, at length fall into the five considerable rivers intersecting 

 the country. These take their rise on the southern slopes of the 

 Hindu Kush, and flow towards the south until they empty them- 

 selves into the river of Kabul, the Kophenes of the Greeks, which 

 running east, disembogues into the Aba-sind or " Father of Rivers" 

 — as the Indus or Attak* is termed in the Afghan language — a little 

 above the town bearing the latter name. 



Other less important streams, rising in the northern slope of the 

 mountains, run towards the north, until they fall into the Oxus and 

 its tributaries. 



The largest of the five principal rivers above alluded to, the 

 most easterly, and separating the upper part of Kafiristan from 

 Chitral or Kasbkar, rises on the southern slope of the Belut Tagh 

 or Cloudy Mountains (in the Tiirki language) ; but known by the 

 Afghans, and other tribes inhabiting these regions, by the Persian 

 name of Beluristan or the " Eegion of Crystal"! from the quantities 

 of that substance found there, at the Talah-i-nil, or "Blue Lake," J 

 lying further to the south than that of Sir-i-ko]§ visited by Wood, 



* cX)| Attafc, in Hindi signifies "a bar, obstruction, or obstacle;" and, as 

 may be implied from its meaning, is a name given to the Indus, the river which 

 Hindus, by their religion, are forbidden to cross. 



f See Khttshhal Khan's poem in the account of Suwat. 



% See notice of KAsnkAR ; and Moorcropt's Travels. 



§ " An individual who had seen the region between Wakhan and Kashmir in- 

 formed me that the Kunir river had its principal source in a lake resembling that 

 in which the Oxus has its rise ; and that the whole of this country, comprehending 

 the districts of Gilgitt, Gunjit and Chitral, is a series of mountain defile3 that 

 act as water-courses to drain Pamir." { Journey to the Oxus.' 



