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CHAPTER XVIII. 

 From Peshawur to Pushut. 



January 8th. — At Ichardeh. Between Busoollah and Lalpoor are 

 three curious low ridges, none above sixty feet high, and all of small ex- 

 tent ; they are covered with fractured masses of rock of the same size 

 as those strewn so liberally about the shingly slopes ; but they are 

 much cleaner or fresher looking, and appear to me less worn. Whence 

 do they derive their singular situation ? They occur in such numbers, 

 that one would at first think they originated from a mass of ruins, 

 but the ridges present scarcely any surface for buildings to stand 

 upon, certainly not to such extent as would account for the abun- 

 dance of these fragments. 



About Huzarnow and on both sides, low ridges of sand occur. In 

 this sand graves are usually dug, and in some places to an ex- 

 tent indicating dreadful devastations from disease, each grave is 

 headed by a stone, and about every ramification of the irregular size 

 of the burial ground, there is a building of the usual mud structure, 

 designed for a mosque, but not domed as is customary in Mussul- 

 man cemeteries, but ornamented with flagstarTs bearing white bits 

 of cloth. These low sand ridges are often very much undulated ; 

 they consist of a very fine powder, and at Huzarnow are evidently 

 of the same nature as the cultivated soil : they are neither in attach- 

 ment as it were to the neighbouring hills, nor distinct from them, 

 but always have some communication with the shingly slopes, to 

 which they are evidently inferior. 



So that the base of Khorassan may be taken to be the tillable 

 portions, over which occur, to a vast extent, the shingly very barren 

 slopes, which every section shows to be nothing but a mass of debris, 

 resting on the mountain rocks. 



9th. — Ali-Baghan. To this the road is good, along the right bank 

 of the river, wherever it does not wind along over the spurs forming 

 a considerable part of the march. To the first point where this 

 occurs, it extends over the same sort of plain as that about Ichardeh ; 

 keeping rather close to the bank of the river, it is good ; also through 

 the valley of Gundikuss, and from near the Choky, to Ali-Baghan. 



The first rocky ridge is about three-quarters of a mile in length, and 

 is not very difficult; at the end near Gundikuss, is a curious ruin built 

 into the stream, where the latter runs with violence on the rocky bank ; 



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