1879.] during the Campaign of 1878-79. 151 
Captain Rogers got leave to go down the Arghandab Valley with a 
‘small force. He had with him Lieut. Ollivier, pr. E., and did a fair amount 
of survey, about 400 square miles up to Kandahar. He describes the coun- 
try as one vast conglomeration of hills and mountains very difficult to 
work in, The Arghandab River is a large rapid mountain stream running 
in many cases between perpendicular cliffs ; it is impossible to follow its 
course for more than a few miles at a time, it has numerous side streams 
along which are strips of fertile ground and villages. The halts are at 
these and the marches are generally up or down these side valleys and then 
over the intervening ridge into the next valley. Nearer Kandahar the 
hills are less continuous and the ground more open. The Survey party got 
on fairly well with the people, who brought in supplies and got well paid 
for them, but was unable to move without a strong escort as the people 
were not to be trusted. Captain Rogers says that so far as he has gone the 
distances and the positions of places such as Kandahar and Khelat are very 
fairly accurate, but the hills and general ideas of the country are faulty 
and require correction. For instance the part round Khelat-i-Ghilzai is 
entirely wrong. The Arghasan and Arghandab Valleys are almost a blank. 
On the whole he thinks the Arghandab Survey will be a good addition to the 
knowledge of the country. The route survey he made from Quetta to 
Khelat-i-Ghilzai is seemingly a repetition but, possibly, an improvement. 
After the return of the expedition to Kandahar from Khelat-i-Ghilzai, 
Captains Heaviside and Rogers, B. E. were employed along with other officers 
of the Survey in making a survey of the country 12 miles round Kandahar on 
the scale of 1 inch to the mile, and several officers from different corps were 
appointed Assistant Field Engineers to take up the detail survey with 
plane-table. 
Captain Heaviside has given an interesting account of Kandahar: he 
says it lies in a valley about 35 miles long, east and west, by 7 miles broad. 
The country to the east is a flat stony plain ; to the west and south-west an 
area of some 40 square miles is thickly populated with numerous villages 
and a net-work of mud walls, orchards, and irrigation channels with but 
few roads, and what there are, narrow, tortuous, and more or less flooded by 
field irrigation channels. 
Of the hills those to the north and north-east, distant 5 or 6 miles, 
are lofty and precipitous, completely shutting out the country beyond : 
those to the east though lofty are far distant. To the south-east there is 
a low short range, distant about 8 miles, over which glimpses of the coun- 
try towards the Khojak Pass are obtained. To the south and south-west 
the country is open and the desert is seen as an elevated plateau. On the 
west there are sharp-peaked narrow ranges a good deal broken up, distant 
4 or 5 miles, which become even more isolated and broken to the north- 
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