CANDAHAR. 



353 



The villages are not generally defended : each house has its own 

 straggling direction, is built of mud, and the roof is generally dome- 

 shaped, and it has its own enclosure within a mud- wall. The houses 

 are very low, and indicate poverty, and want of ingenuity. The better 

 order appear always with arched roofs, and none are without pictur- 

 esque ribs and recesses. 



The vineries here are so well enclosed, that there is no way of access 

 except by scaling the mud-wall : the vines are planted in trenches ; a 

 row on each side, and allowed to run over the elevated spaces between 

 the trenches. In one garden pomegranates, a pomaceous tree, and mul- 

 berries, whose fruit is now ripe but quite devoid of flavour, occurred. A 

 Zygophyllum, a beautiful Capparis, an Anthemis, Marrubium, Centau- 

 reoides 2, occurred as weeds, with Plantago, Phalaris, Cichorium. 



For an excellent register of the thermometer at this place, I am in- 

 debted to the kindness of Dr. Henderson ; the range in the open air 

 is from 60° to 110°! !! 



The variations in the wet bulb are due to the currents of air, which 

 beginning about 11 a. m., pass into a rather constant strongish west 

 wind about 1 1% or 2 p. m., and even almost become hot. The climate 

 is excessively dry, as indicated by the effects it has on furniture, etc. 



The difference of temperature between a tent, even with two flies 

 or double roof, and the open air in free situations, is by no means 

 great ; thus when the thermometer was 105° in part of my tent, it was 

 scarcely 1 10° in the sun ; in Capt. Thomson's large tent 102° ; placed 

 against the outer kunnat, it rose to 105°. Hanging free with black cloth 

 round the bulb, 112°. But to shew the great heating powers of the 

 sun, the thermometer with the bulb, placed on the ground and covered 

 with the loose sand of the surface of the soil, rose to 141°. 



Black partridges occur in the cornfields here, but in no great num- 

 bers. Much of the cultivation of barley, wheat, and rye, is very luxuri- 

 ant, but the proportion of waste, to cultivated land is too consi- 

 derable to argue either a large population or active agricultural 

 habits. Pastor roseus occurs in flocks ; it is evidently nearly allied 

 to the mina. The capabilities of this valley are considerable, more 

 particularly when the extreme readiness with which water is obtain- 

 ed in wells is considered, as well as the nature of the soil, which 

 is well adapted to husbandry. Candahar, viewed from about a mile 

 to the west of our camp, backed by the picturesque hills (one bluff 

 one in particular), the numbers and verdure of the trees, the break in 

 the mountains on the Herat road, presents a pretty scene. 



2 g 



