176 AFGHAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION. 



cities marks the introduction of wood, which, except in the neigh- 

 bourhood of some towns, is exceedingly scarce in these regions. 



To the north of Jowain the country rapidly assumes a new 

 geographical aspect. Sand is not so conspicuous. The Farah-Rud, 

 Kushk-Rud, and Har-Rud or Adraskand drain from the eastward 

 through gently swelling uplands, whose hard, gravelly surface 

 is traversed by sharp ridges of limestone, which preserve an approxi- 

 mate parallelism and a general trend from N.E. to S.W. These 

 rocky, steep, and deeply serrated ridges are seen on a closer approach 

 to be crossed transversely by numerous open and easy Jcotals. 

 It is the rivers rather than the hills which form the chief 

 physical obstacles, for though the amount of melted snow brought 

 down by them into Seistan is practically inconsiderable, they 

 are all just as liable to violent floods as if they were mountain 

 torrents. 



The valley of the Hari-Rud westwards from Herat is separated 

 from the basin of the Helm and by a low water-shed, and is very 

 partially cultivated, notwithstanding that the canal system appears 

 ample and that the villages are packed quite close together. At 

 Kuhsan the English and Indian sections of the Commission met for 

 the first time. Six miles above is the Tirpul bridge, the main 

 connecting link in times of flood between Western Afghanistan and 

 Persia. Up to Kaman-i-Bihisht (about 30 miles below Kuhsan) 

 there is usually an excellent road alongside of the Hari-Rud, but 

 at that point the river commences to flow through a series of 

 magnificent gorges or defiles which it has cut for itself through the 

 mountains, and it cannot be approached till it emerges into a 

 contracted but beautiful valley south of Zulfikar. 



Throughout the iower valley of the Hari-Rud the effects of the 

 devastating ravages of the Turkomans on its agricultural population 

 were plainly visible, but the impression formed by Colonel Holdich 

 was that even under settled rule no very great extension of cultivation 

 could ever take place. 



From Mashhad, the longitude of which was fixed in the summer 

 of L885, a triangulation series was brought down southwards to 

 Zulhkar. and the survey of the Persian frontier and eastern Khorasan 

 was carried as far west as opportunity admitted. A junction was 

 effected with the Russian surveys north of Mashhad, but no trigo- 

 nometrical connexion, as their triangulation had not at that time 



