ENGLISH OFFICIAL EXPLORATION—LORD AND WOOD

Then followed the Afghan Campaign of 1839-40, a campaign which was in many ways disastrous to our credit in Afghanistan both as diplomats and soldiers, but which undoubtedly opened out an opportunity for acquiring a general knowledge of the conformation of the country which was not altogether neglected. With the political methods attending the inception of the campaign (treated with such scathing scorn by Masson), and the strange bungling of an overweighted and unwieldy force armed with antique weapons we have nothing to do. The question is whether, apart from the acquisition of route sketches and intelligence reports dependent on the movements of the army in the field, was there anything that could rank as original exploration in new geographical fields? Lieut. North's excellent traverse and report of the route to Kandahar, which still supplies data for an integral part of our maps, was distinguished for more accuracy of detail and observation than most efforts of a similar character made at that time; but it can hardly be regarded as an illustration of new and original exploration, the route itself being well enough known to British Missions, although never before surveyed. It is undoubtedly one of the best map contributions of the period.

The adventures of Dr. Lord and Lieut. Wood in Badakshan, and the remarkable journey of Broadfoot across Central Afghanistan, however, belong to another category. These explorations covered new ground, much of which has never since been visited by European travellers, and they are authoritative records still. There were missed opportunities in abundance. Also opportunities which were not missed, but of which our records are so incomplete and obscure that the modern map-maker can extract but little useful information from them.

When Burnes was in Kabul on his first commercial mission, Dr. Lord and Lieut. Leech of the Bombay Engineers were attached to his staff, and both these gentlemen, with Lieut. Wood of the Indian Navy, distinguished themselves by much original research, and have left records the value of which has been proved by subsequent observations. In the middle of October 1837 Dr. Lord left Kabul on an expedition into the plains of the Koh Daman, to the north of that city, which was to be extended to the passes of the Hindu Kush leading into Badakshan, when he was subsequently invited to attend the court of Murad Beg, the chief of Kunduz, in his professional capacity. Murad Beg was one of the strongest chiefs of that time. As a bold and astute freebooter and successful warrior he had made his name great amongst the Uzbeks south of the Oxus, and had consolidated their scattered clans for the time being into a formidable cohesion, the strength of which made itself felt and respected at Kabul. Where Dost Mahomed's influence ceased on the north there commenced that of Murad Beg, and the line of division may be said to have extended from Ak Robat at the head of the Bamian valley on the west, to the passes and foot-hills of the Hindu Kush above Andarab on the east. It was late in the year for Lord to attempt the passing of the Hindu Kush, and he appears to have lingered too long amongst the delightful autumn scenes of that land of enchantment, the Koh Daman. He selected the passes which strike off from Charikar, near the junction of the Ghorband with the Panjshir rivers. There has always been a slight confusion in the naming of this group of passes, owing to the universal habit in Afghanistan of bestowing the name of some possibly insignificant village site on rivers, passes, and roads, without attaching any distinct and definite name to these features themselves.

From that break in the hills which gives passage to the Ghorband from the south-west and the Panjshir from the north-east there strikes off one well-known route across the backbone of the Hindu Kush, which is marked near the southern foot of the mountains by the ancient town of Parwan—a commercial site more ancient than that of Kabul—the headquarters of Sabaktagin, the Ghuri conqueror, when he wrested Kabul from the Hindu kings, and of Timur the Tartar in later ages. Consequently, the pass which bears north from that point is often called the Parwan. It was, according to Lord, the chief khafila route from Badakshan (although it may be doubted whether it was ever as popular as the Khawak when the Panjshir route was not closed by tribal hostility), notwithstanding that far less traffic passed that way than by Bamian and the Unai. The head of the pass was known as Sar Alang, so that it figures in geographical records frequently under this name also, whilst the local name acquired for it in the course of surveying in 1883 was Bajgah. To the west of this is the Kaoshan Pass, which is also known par excellence as the pass of "Hindu Kush"; and farther west again is the Gwalian (or Walian), an alternative to the Kaoshan when the latter is in flood. Lord selected the Parwan or Sar Alang Pass, narrow, rocky, and uneven, with a fall of about 200 feet per mile, and was fairly defeated in his attempt to cross, on October 19, by snow. This is about the closing time of the passes generally, the Parwan being only 12,300 feet in altitude, although Lord estimated it at 15,000. It is worth noting here that the Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission party crossed by the Chahardar Pass (a pass to the west again of the Walian) in the same month of October without encountering any insuperable difficulty from snow, although the Chahardar is more than 1000 feet higher than the Parwan. The fact that Lord met a khafila snow-bound near the top of the pass indicates that it was closed rather unexpectedly. Valuable observations were, however, the result of this reconnaissance. It revealed the fact that snow lies lower and deeper on the northern side of the Hindu Kush than on the southern, a fact which is in direct opposition to the general characteristics of the Himalayas. The explanation is, however, simple. In both cases the snow lies lowest on that side which reaches down to low humid plains and much precipitation of moisture. Where the barrier of the mountains breaks the upward sweep of vapour-bearing currents, there snowfall is arrested, and the highlands become desiccated. Lord's observation as a geologist also determined the constitution of these mountains. He noted the rugged uplift (beautiful from the admixture of pure white felspar and glossy black hornblende) of the central granite peaks through the overlying gneiss, schists, and slate, which thus revealed the extension of one of the great primeval folds of Himalayan conformation.

Returning from his attempt to cross the pass, Lord had the good fortune to be able to extend his researches for a day's march up the Ghorband valley, and to explore the ancient lead mines of Ferengal, which have been sunk in the Ghorband conglomerates, but had long been abandoned by the Afghans. These he found to have been worked on "knowledge and principle, not on blind chance,"—as might have been expected in a country which still possesses some of the best practical mining and irrigation engineers in the world; and he testifies, inter alia, to the extraordinary effect of the exceeding dryness of the interior, as evidenced by the preservation from decay of dead animals. Similar phenomena have been observed in many parts of the world both before and since, and it would appear that a satisfactory scientific explanation is still wanting for this preservative tendency of caves and mines; the atmosphere, in some cases where well-preserved remains are found, being subject to exactly the same conditions of humidity as the outer air.

It was during this interesting exploratory trip that Dr. Lord received a welcome invitation to visit Murad Beg in the Uzbek capital of Kunduz, where his professional advice was in urgent demand. Although the northern passes of the Hindu Kush were closed, the route to Badakshan was still open via Bamian and Khulm, and it was by this route that for the first (and apparently the last) time the journey from Kabul to Kunduz was made by European officers. Lord was accompanied by Lieut. Wood, and it is to Wood's summary of the conditions of the route that we now refer. As far as Bamian it was already beginning to be a well-known road (well known, that is, to European travellers); but beyond that point it was a new venture then, nor can any record be traced of subsequent investigations on it.

Wood summarises the route by first enumerating the seven passes which have to be negotiated before reaching Kunduz (or Khulm), and gives us a slight description of them all. Four of these passes were in Afghan territory, and three beyond. Of the passes of Ispahak and Unai he merely remarks that a mail-coach might be driven over them. The Hajigak group he regards as the "Key-guide to the Bamian line," the Hajigak being the highest pass encountered (about 11,000 feet). A little to the north is the Irak, and to the south is the Pushti Hajigak (Kafzur in modern maps); the Hajigak, or Irak, being open to khafilas for ten months of the year, but for a considerably less period to the passage of troops. The next pass Wood calls Kalloo (Panjpilan in our maps), which he regards as being lower than Hajigak. Then follows the descent into Bamian. Next is the Ak Robat Pass (10,200 feet), between the valleys of Bamian and Saighan, of which Wood reports that "it is open to wheeled traffic of all description." As far as this (the then frontier of Afghanistan) Wood refers to the fact, already recorded, that the Amir's Lieutenant—Haji Khan—was able to take field-pieces "of a size between 12- and 18-pounders." We already know the conditions under which this passage of artillery was effected. It is also on record that Nadir Shah took guns as far as Saighan. What is not so generally known is that the Uzbek chief, Murad Beg, took an 18-pounder over the rest of the route from Saighan to Kunduz. The three remaining passes are (1) the Dandan Shikan, between Saighan and Kamard, of which Wood reports the north face to be exceedingly difficult, and where he would never have believed that a gun could pass, had it not been actually traversed by the 18-pounder of Murad Beg. It may be mentioned here that it took 1100 men to drag that gun up the northern face of the pass, so that Wood is quite justified in classing it as only fit for camels. Then follows (2) the Kara Pass, leading from Kamard into the valley of the Tashkurghan River, about which the only remark made by Wood is that it may be turned by the pass of Surkh Kila (which involves a considerable detour). As Wood does not definitely state which is (3) the seventh pass, we may assume that it is the Shamsuddin, which is merely a detour to avoid an awkward reach of the Tashkurghan valley.

This is probably the first clear exposition which has ever been made of the general nature of the route connecting Kabul with Afghan Turkistan, and for it we must give Lieut. Wood all the credit that is fully due; for no subsequent surveys and investigations have materially altered his opinion. It must not be forgotten that in dealing with the story of Afghan exploration we are touching on past records. The far-sighted policy of public works development, which distinguished the late Amir Abdurrahmon, led to the extension of roads for facilitating commerce between the Oxus and Kabul, the full effect of which we have yet to learn. To the north of Kabul the roads opened to khafila traffic, via the Chahardar Pass and the Khawak, have introduced a new and important feature into the system of Afghan communications; and it is more than probable that the facilities for wheeled traffic between Kabul and Tashkurghan have lately been largely increased.[12] It is well also to remember that it is not the physical difficulties of rough roads and narrow passes which form the chief obstacle to the movement of large bodies of troops. Roads can be made, and crooked places straightened with comparative ease, but altitude, sheer altitude, still remains a formidable barrier, which no modern ingenuity has taught us to overcome. Deep impassable snow-drifts, and the fierce killing blasts of the north-westers of Afghanistan close these highland fields for months together; and neither roads nor railways (still less air-ships) can prevail against them.

When Wood and Lord turned eastward from Khulm, and passed on to Kunduz and Badakshan, they were treading ground which was absolutely new to the European explorer, and which has seldom been reached even by the ubiquitous native surveyor. Lord gives us but a scanty account of Kunduz and northern Badakshan in his report, and we must turn to the immortal Wood (the discoverer of one of the Oxus' sources) for fuller and more picturesque detail. Wood left Kunduz for the upper Oxus in the early spring of 1838, and it is somewhat remarkable that he should have effected an important exploration successfully in regions so highly elevated at the worst season of the year. Before following Wood to the Oxus, we may add a few further details of that important march from Kabul to Kunduz.

It was in November 1837 that Wood and Lord were again in Kabul after their unsuccessful attempt to cross the Parwan Pass, and losing no time they started on the 15th for Badakshan by the Bamian route, crossing the Unai Pass and the elevated plain which separates it from the Helmund without difficulty. They encountered large parties of half-starved Hazaras seeking the plains on their annual pilgrimage to warm quarters for the winter. They crossed the Hajigak Pass on the 19th "with great ease," then passing the divide between the Afghan and Turkistan drainage; but they had to make a considerable detour to avoid the direct Kalu Pass, and entered Bamian by the precipitous Pimuri defile and the volcanic valley of Zohak. The Ak Robat Pass presented no difficulty. In Saighan they encountered the slave-gang of wretched Hazara people who were being then conducted to Kunduz as yearly contribution. Not much is said about the Dandan Shikan Pass dividing Saighan from Kamurd, where they were welcomed by the drunken old chief Rahmatulla Khan, whose character for reckless hospitality seems to have been a well-known feature in Badakshan. He is mentioned by every traveller who passed that way since Burnes' mission in 1832. On the 28th they reached Kuram, where they found another slave-gang being conducted by Afghans from Kabul, who had the grace to appear much ashamed of being caught red-handed in a traffic which has never commended itself to Afghan public opinion. Amongst Uzbeks it is different, the custom of man-stealing appears to have smothered every better feeling, and the traffic in human beings extends even into their domestic arrangements. Their wives are just as much "property" as their slaves. A little below Kuram they struck off to the right by a direct route to Kunduz, and passing over a district which had "a wavy surface," "affording excellent pasturage," which involved the crossing of the pass of Archa, they finally crossed the Kunduz River, and making their way through the swampy district of Baglan and Aliabad, reached Kunduz on December 4.

Wood is not enthusiastic about Kunduz. He calls it one of the most wretched towns in Murad Beg's dominions. "The appearance of Kunduz accords with the habits of an Uzbek; and by its manner, poverty and filth, may be estimated the moral worth of its inhabitants." He thought a good deal of Murad Beg all the same, and could not deny his great abilities. "But with all his high qualifications Murad Beg is but the head of an organised banditti, a nation of plunderers, whom, however, none of the neighbouring states can exterminate." Murad Beg has joined his fathers long ago, but no recent account of Kunduz much alters Wood's opinion of it. The wretched Badakshanis whom Murad Beg conquered, and whom he set to live or die in the dank pestilential marshes which fill up the space between the Badakshan highlands and the Oxus, have since then been restored to their own country; and of Badakshan we heard enough from the Amir's officials connected with the Pamir Boundary Commission to lead us to believe in it as a veritable land of promise, a land whose natural beauty and fertility may be compared to that of Kashmir—but this was told of the mountain regions, not of the Oxus flats.

When Wood got away from Kunduz and travelled eastwards to Faizabad and Jirm he does rise to enthusiasm, and tells us of scenes of natural beauty which no European eye has seen since he passed that way. On December 11, in mid-winter, Wood started from Kunduz with the permission of Murad Beg to trace the "Jihun" to its source, and the story of this historical exploration will always be most excellent reading.

First crossing an open plain with a southern background of mountains, a plain of jungle grass, moist and unfavourable to human life, with stifling mists of vapour flitting uneasily before them, the party reached higher ground and the town of Khanabad. Behind Khanabad rises the isolated peak of Koh Umbar, 2500 feet above the plain, which appears to be a remarkable landmark in this region. It has never yet been fixed geographically. Passing through the low foot-hills surrounding this mountain, Wood emerged into the plain of Talikhan, and reached the ancient town of that name in a heavy downpour of winter rain. Here at once he encountered reminiscences of Greek occupation and claimants to the lineage of Alexander the Great. The trail of the Greek occupation of Baktria clings to Badakshan as does that of Nysa to the valleys of Kafiristan. The impression of Talikhan is summed up by Wood in the statement that it is a most disagreeable place in rainy weather. He might say the same of every town in Afghan Turkistan. He has much to say of Uzbek character and idiosyncrasies. In one respect he says that the habits of Uzbek children are superior to those of young Britons. They do not rob sparrows' nests! Here, too, Wood found himself on the track of Moorcroft. Striking eastward he crossed the Lataband Pass (since fixed at 5650 feet in height) and first encountered snow. From the pass he describes the surrounding view as glorious: "In every quarter snowclad peaks shot up into the sky," and he gives the name Khoja Mahomed to the range (unnamed in our maps) which crosses Badakshan from north-east to south-west and forms the chief water-parting of the country. Before him the Kokcha "rolled its green waters through the rugged valley of Duvanah." The summit of Lataband is wide and level and the descent eastwards comparatively easy.

Through the pretty vale of Mashad (where Wood's party crossed the Varsach River) to Teshkhan the road led generally over hilly country covered with snow; but leaving Teshkhan it rises over the pass of Junasdara (fixed by Wood at 6600 feet), crossing one of the great spurs of the Khoja Mahomed system, and descended to Daraim, "a valley scarce a bowshot across, but watered, as all the valleys in Badakshan are, by a beautiful stream of the purest water, and bordered, wherever there is soil, by a soft velvet turf." To Daraim succeeded the plain of Argu and the "wavy" district of Reishkhan, which reached to the valley of the Kokcha. So far, since leaving Talikhan, they had met with "no sign of man or beast," but the latter were occasionally in close proximity, for the path was made easy by hog tracks, and Wood has some grisly tales to tell about the ferocity of the wolves of the country. Junasdara he describes as a difficult or steep pass, but he notes the fact that Murad Beg had crossed it with artillery which left evidence in wheel tracks.

Of Faizabad, when Wood was there, "scarcely a vestige was left," and Jirm had become the capital of the country. But Faizabad has risen to importance since, and according to the reports of subsequent native explorers, has regained a good deal of its commercial importance. "Behind the site of the town the mountains are in successive ridges to a height of at least 2000 feet" (i.e. above the plain); "before it rolls the Kokcha in a rocky trench-like bed sufficiently deep to preclude all danger of inundation. Looking up the valley, the ruined and uncultivated gardens are seen to fringe the stream for a distance of two miles above the town." Faizabad is about 3950 feet above sea-level. Wood makes it about 500 feet lower, and his original observations were probably of more than equal value with those of subsequent native explorers. But certain recent improvements in exploring instruments, and certain refinements in computing the value of such observations, render the balance of probability in favour of the later records. Wood (as a sailor) was a professional observer, and where observations alone are concerned his own are excellent.

From Faizabad Wood went to Jirm, which he regarded as a more important position than Faizabad. Elsewhere an opinion has been expressed that Jirm was the ancient capital of the country. Wood took the shortest road to Jirm which leaves the Kokcha valley and passes over the Kasur spur, winding by a high and slippery path for some distance along the face of the hill. It was a two days' march. The fort at Jirm he describes as the most important in Murad Beg's dominions. His stay at Jirm gave him the opportunity of visiting the lapis-lazuli mines near the head of the Kokcha River under the shadow of the Hindu Kush just bordering Kafiristan. This experience was useful, for Wood not only contributes a most interesting account of the working of the mines, but places on record the impracticable nature of the route which follows the Kokcha River from its source above the mines to Jirm. Near the assumed source, and not far south of the mines, there are two passes across the Hindu Kush, viz. the Minjan, which connects with the well-known Dorah and leads to Chitral, and the Mandal, which unites the head of the Bashgol valley of Kafiristan with the Minjan sources of the Kokcha. The upper reaches of the Kokcha River form the Minjan valley. Sir George Robertson crossed the Mandal in 1889 and fixed its height at over 15,000 feet, and he places the head of the Minjan (or Kokcha) much farther south than it appears in our maps. As the Mandal Pass connects Kafiristan with the Minjan valley of the Kokcha (pronounced by Wood to be almost impracticable above Jirm), it is of no great geographical importance; nor, owing to the same impracticability, is the Minjan Pass itself of any great consequence, although it connects with Chitral. The Dorah (14,800 feet), on the other hand, links up Chitral with another branch of the Kokcha, passing by the populous commercial town of Zebak, and is consequently a pass to be reckoned with in spite of its altitude. It is, in short, the chief pass over the Hindu Kush directly connecting India with Badakshan; but a pass which is nearly as high as Mont Blanc affords no royal gateway through the mountains.

Wood had sufficiently indicated the nature of the Kokcha valley between Jirm and Minjan. At the point where the mines occur it is about 200 yards wide. On both sides the mountains are "high and naked," and the river flows in a trough 70 feet below the bed of the valley. We know that it is not a practicable route. It is, however, much to be regretted that no modern explorer has touched the valley of Anjuman to the west of Minjan, which, whilst it is perhaps the main contributor to the waters of the Kokcha, also appears to have contained a recognised route in mediÆval times. "If you wish not to go to destruction, avoid the narrow valley of Koran," is a native warning quoted by Wood, which seems to apply to the upper Kokcha. As a passable khafila route, Idrisi writes that from Andarab to Badakshan towards the east is a four days' journey. Andarab (the ancient site) being fixed at the junction of the Kasan stream with the Andarab River, the only possible route eastwards would be to the head of the Andarab at Khawak, and thence over the Nawak Pass into the Anjuman valley. Nor can the Nawak (which is as well known a pass as the Khawak) have any raison d'Être unless it connects with that valley. There is, however, the possibility of a wrong inference from Idrisi's vague statement. "Badakshan" (which was represented by either Jirm or Faizabad) is actually east of Andarab, but to reach it by the obvious route of the lowlands, following the Kunduz River and ultimately striking eastwards, would involve starting from Andarab to the west of north. But just as the Mandal leading into the Minjan valley opens up no useful route in spite of being a well-known pass, so may the Nawak lead to nothing really practicable in Anjuman. This, indeed, is probably the case, but Anjuman remains to be explored.

Returning to Jirm, Wood awaited the opportunity for his historic exploration of the Oxus. This occurred at the end of January 1838, when news came to Jirm that the Oxus was frozen above Darwaz. The only route open to travellers in the snow time of that region is the bed of the frozen river, and Wood determined to make the best use of the opportunity. He was anxious to visit the ruby mines of the Oxus valley, but in this he did not succeed, owing to the extreme difficulties of the route following the river from its great bend northward to the district of Gharan, in which these mines are situated. He met the remnants of a party returning from Gharan which had lost nearly half its numbers from an avalanche when he reached Zebak, and wisely determined to expend his efforts in following up the course of the river to its source, rather than tempt Providence by a dangerous detour. To reach Zebak from Jirm it was necessary to follow the Kokcha to its junction with the Wardoj and then turn up that valley to Zebak. This journey in winter, with the biting blasts of the glacier-bred winds of the Hindu Kush in their teeth, was sufficiently trying. These devastated regions seem to be never free from the plague of wind. It is bad enough in the Pamirs in summer, but in winter when superadded to the effects of a cold registering 6° below zero it must have been maddening. There was no great difficulty in crossing the divide between Zebak (a small but not unimportant town) and the elbow of the Oxus River at Ishkashm.

Once again since the days of Wood a party of Europeans, which included two well-known geographers (Lockhart and Woodthorpe, both of whom have since gone to their rest), reached Ishkashm in 1886, and they were treated there with anything but hospitality. Wood seemed to have fared better. With the authority of Murad Beg to back him, and his own tact and determination to carry him through, he succeeded in overcoming all obstacles, and from point to point he made his way to where the Oxus forks at Kila Panja. From Ishkashm to Kila Panja the valley was fairly wide and open, and here for the first time he met those interesting nomadic folk the Kirghiz.

Wood's observations on the people he met are always acute and interesting, but he seems rather to have been influenced (as he admits that he may have been) by his Badakshani guides in framing his estimate of Kirghiz character. Thieves and liars they may be. These characteristics are common in High Asia, but even in these particulars they compare favourably with Uzbeks and Afghans generally. At any rate he trusted them, and it was with their assistance that he reached the source of the Oxus. Without them in a world of snow-covered hills and depressions, with every halting-place buried deep and not a trace of a track to be seen, he would have fared badly. At Kila Panja he was faced with a difficulty which gave him anxious consideration. Could he have guessed what issues would thereafter hang on a decision to that momentous question—which branch of the Oxus led to its real source—it would have caused him even greater anxiety. Ultimately he followed the northern branch which waters the Great Pamir, and after almost incredible exertion in floundering through snowdrifts and scratching his way along the ice road of the river surface, on February 19, 1838, he overlooked that long narrow expanse of frozen water which is now known as Victoria Lake.

We may discuss the question of the source, or sources, of the Oxus still, and trace them to the great glaciers from which the lakes north and south of the Nicolas range are fed, or to the ice caverns of the Hindu Kush as we please—there are many sources, and it is not in the power of mortal man to measure their relative profundity—but Wood still lives in geographical history as the first explorer of the upper Oxus, and will rank with Speke and Grant as the author of a solution to one of the great riddles of the world's hydrography. With infinite labour he dug a hole through the ice and found the depth of the lake at its centre to be only 9 feet. Were he to plumb it again in these days he would find it even less, for the lake (like all Central Asian lakes) is growing smaller and shallower year by year. The information which he absorbed about the high regions of Asia, the Pamirs (the Bam-i-dunya), was wonderfully correct on the whole, and is strong evidence of his ability in sifting the mass of miscellaneous matter with which the Asiatic usually conceals a geographical truth. He is incorrect only in the matter of altitude, which he fixes too high by more than a thousand feet, and he makes rather a strange mistake in recording that the Kunar (the Chitral River) rises north of the Hindu Kush and breaks through that range. Otherwise it would be difficult to add to or to correct his information by the light of subsequent surveys. With his return journey surrounded by all the enchantment of bursting spring in those regions we need not concern ourselves. After a three months' absence he rejoined Dr. Lord at Kunduz.

Wood's return to Kunduz was but the prelude to another journey of exploration into the northern regions of Badakshan which, in some respects, was the most important of all his investigations, for it is to the information obtained on this journey that we are still indebted for what little knowledge we possess of the general characteristics of the Oxus valley above Termez. Dr. Lord was summoned in his medical capacity to visit a chief at Hazrat Imam on the Oxus River, and Wood seized the opportunity to explore the Oxus basin from Hazrat Imam upwards through Darwaz.

Kunduz itself has been described by both authorities as a miserable swamp-bound town, with pestilential low-lying flats stretching beyond it towards the Oxus. This low country is, however, productive, and is probably by this time largely reclaimed from the grass and reed beds which covered it. Into this poisonous swamp country the Uzbek chief had imported the wretched Badakshani Tajiks whom he had captured during his extensive raids, for the purpose of colonizing. Wood reckons that 100,000 people must have originally been dumped into this swamp land, of whom barely 6000 were left when he was at Kunduz. Between the swamp and the Oxus was a splendid stretch of prairie or pasture land, reaching to the tangled jungle which immediately fringed the river below the Darwaz mountains, and this naturally excited his admiration. "Eastward" of Khulm "to the rocky barriers of Darwaz all the high-lying portion of the valley is at this season (March) a wild prairie of sweets, a verdant carpet enamelled with flowers"; and he describes the "low swelling" hills fringing these plains as "soft to the eye as the verdant sod which carpets them is to the foot." This is very pretty, and quite accords with the general description of country which forms part of the Oxus valley much farther west. The Oxus jungles, however, only occur at intervals. In Wood's time (1838) they were a thick tangle of low-growing scrub, which formed the haunts of wild beasts which were a terror to the dwellers in the plains. Tigers are found in those patches of Oxus jungle still. Hazrat Imam then ranked with Zebak and Jirm as one of the most important towns of Badakshan. East of Hazrat Imam were the traces of a gigantic canal system with its head about Sherwan, from which point to the foot-hills of Darwaz the river is (or was) fordable in almost any part. Wood forded it at a point near Yang Kila, opposite Saib in Kolab, in March, and found the river running in three channels, only one of which was really difficult. In this one, however, the current was running 4 miles an hour and the width of the channel was about 200 yards. It was only by uniting the forces of the party to oppose the stream that they were able to effect the passage. Thus was Wood probably the first European to set his foot in Kolab north of the Oxus. The river-bottom in this part of its course is generally pebbly, and at the Sherwan ford guns had been taken across. Near the mouth of the Kokcha (here a sluggish muddy stream) Wood found the site of an ancient city which he calls Barbarra, and which I think is probably the Mabara of Idrisi.

Wood's next excursion from Kunduz was by the direct high road westward to Mazar, where he and Lord hoped to find relics of Moorcroft (in which quest they were successful), and back again. This only confirmed what was previously known of the facility of that route, one of the most ancient in the world, and the attention which had been paid to it by the construction of covered tanks (they would be called Haoz farther west) at intervals for the convenience of travellers. The final recall of these two explorers to Kabul afforded them the opportunity for investigating the route which runs directly south from Kunduz by the river valley of that name to the junction with the Baghlan. Thence, following the Baghlan to its head, they crossed by the Murgh Pass into the valley of Andarab, and diverging eastward they adopted the Khawak Pass to reach the Panjshir valley, and so to Kabul. No great difficulties were encountered on this route (which has only been partially explored since), involving only two passes between the Oxus and Kabul, i.e. the Murgh (7400 feet) which is barely mentioned by Wood, and the Khawak (11,650 feet—Wood makes it 1500 feet higher), and it undoubtedly possesses many advantages as the modern popular route between Kabul and Badakshan. It is not the high-road to Mazar (the capital of Afghan Turkistan), which will always be represented by the Bamian route, but it must be recognised as a fairly easy means of communication in summer between the chief fords of the Oxus and the Kabul valley. The Greek settlements were about Baghlan and Andarab, and undoubtedly this was the road best known to them across the Hindu Kush, and probably as much used as the Kaoshan or Parwan passes, which were more direct. For many centuries, however, in mediÆval history the Panjshir valley possessed such an evil reputation as the home of the worst robbers in Asia, that a wide berth was given to it by casual travellers. Timur Shah made good use of it for military purposes, as we have seen, and latterly it has been improved into a fair commercial high-road under Afghan engineers. The Panjshir inhabitants (once Kafirs—now truculent Mohamedans) have been reduced to reason, and it will be in the future what it has been in the ancient past—one of the great khafila routes of Asia. When Wood crossed it in May it was not really practicable for horses, and the party made their way across with considerable difficulty. It is the altitude, and the altitude alone, which renders it a formidable military barrier, and thus will it remain as part of that great Hindu Kush wall which forms the central obstruction of a buffer state.

Before taking leave of these two most successful (and most trustworthy) explorers of Afghanistan, it may be useful to sum up their views on that little-known region, Badakshan. The plains, the useful and beautiful valleys of Badakshan, lie in the embrace of a kind of mountain horse-shoe, which shuts them off from the Oxus on the north-east and east and winds round to the Hindu Kush on the south. The weak point of the semicircular barrier occurs at the junction with the Hindu Kush, where the pass between Zebak and Ishkashm is only 8700 feet high. From the slopes of the Hindu Kush mountain torrents drain down through the valleys of Zebak (called the Wardoj by Wood), the Minjan (or Kokcha) and the Anjuman into the great central river of Kokcha. Of these valleys, so far as we know, only the Wardoj is really practicable as a northerly route to the Oxus. Shutting off the head of the Kokcha system, a lateral range called Khoja Mahomed by Wood (a name which ought to be preserved), in which are many magnificent peaks, sends down its contributions north-west to the Kunduz. We know nothing about these valleys, and Wood tells us nothing, but the geographical inference is strong that all this part of upper Badakshan, including the heads of the Kokcha and Kunduz affluents, is but a wide inhospitable upland plateau of a conformation similar to that which lies east and west of it, cut into deep furrows and impassable gorges by the mountain streams which run thousands of feet below the plateau level. Within it will almost certainly be traced in due course of time the evidences of those primeval parallel folds, or wrinkles, which form the basis of Himalayan construction. Probably the Khoja Mahomed represents one of them, and the heads of the streams which feed the Kokcha and the eastern affluents of the Kunduz will be found (as already indicated in the Wardoj, or Zebak, stream) to take their source in deep, lateral, ditch-like valleys, which, closely underlying these folds, have been reshaped and altered by ages of denudation and seismic destruction.

The few inhabitants who are hidden away in remote villages and hamlets belong to the great Kafir community. This is a part of unexplored Kafiristan rather than Badakshan, and he will be a bold man indeed who undertakes its investigation. No Asiatic secret now held back from view will command so much vivid interest in its unfolding as will the ethnographical conditions of these people when we can really get at them. This mountain region occupies a large share of Badakshan. The rest of the plateau land to the west we know fairly well and have sufficiently described. The wonder of the world is that the deeply recessed valleys of it, the Bamian, Saighan, Kamard, Baghlan, and Andarab depressions should have figured so largely in the world's history. That a confined narrow ribbon of space such as Bamian, difficult of access, placed by nature in the heart of a wilderness, should have been the centre not only of a great kingdom but the focus of a great religion, would be inexplicable if we did not remember that through it runs the connecting link between the wealth of India and the great cities of the Oxus plains and Central Asia.

The northern slopes and plains of Badakshan, between the mountains and the Oxus, form part of a region which once represented the wealth of civilization in Asia. The whole region was dotted with towns of importance in mediÆval times, and the fame of its beauty and wealth had passed down the ages from the days of Assyria and Greece to those of the destroying Mongol hordes. From prehistoric times nations of the west had planted colonies in Baktria, and here are to be gathered together the threads of so many ethnographical survivals as may be represented by the successive Empires of the West. Baktria is the cradle of a marvellously mixed ethnography, and to all who have seen the weird beauty of that strange land, the fascination which it has ever possessed for the explorer and pilgrims is no matter of surprise.

A word or two must be added here about that previous explorer (Moorcroft) in Northern Afghanistan whose fate was ascertained by Lord. It is most unfortunate that some of the most important manuscripts of this unfortunate Asiatic traveller were never recovered, but his story has been written and will be referred to in further detail. We have direct testimony to the fate which finally overtook him in Dr. Lord's report of his visit to Mazar-i-Sharif, which was made with the express purpose of recovering all the records that might be traced of Moorcroft's travels in Afghan Turkistan.

A previous story of Moorcroft is highly interesting. An early Tibetan explorer (the celebrated AbbÉ Huc) told a tale of a certain Englishman named Moorcroft, who was reported to have lived in Lhasa for twelve years previous to the year 1838 and who was supposed to have been assassinated on his way back to India via Ladak. The story was circumstantial and attracted considerable attention. We know now from a memorandum of Dr. Lord written in May 1838, that in the early spring of that year when he and Lieut. Wood visited Mazar-i-Sharif they discovered that the German companion of Moorcroft (Trebeck) had died in that city, leaving amongst many loose records a slip of paper, with the date September 6, 1825, thereon, noting the fact that "Mr. M." (Moorcroft) "died on August 27th." Dr. Lord's investigations led him to the conclusion that Moorcroft died at Andkhui, a victim "not more to the baneful effects of the climate than to the web of treachery and intrigue with which he found himself surrounded and his return cut off." Trebeck, who seems to have been held in great estimation by the Afghans, died soon after; neither traveller leaving any substantial account of his adventures. Moorcroft's books (thirty volumes) were recovered, and the list of them would surprise any modern traveller who believes in a light and handy equipment. Dr. Lord's inquiries, in my opinion, effectually dispose of the venerable AbbÉ's story of Moorcroft's residence at Lhasa; although, of course, the record of his visit to Western Tibet and the Manasarawar Lakes earlier in the century must have been well enough known; and the Tibetans may possibly have believed in a reincarnation of their one and only European visitor in their own capital.

This chapter cannot be closed without a tribute of respect to those most able and enterprising geographers who (chiefly as assistants to Burnes) were the means of first giving to the world a reasonable knowledge of the geography of Afghanistan. The names of Leech, Lord, and Wood will always remain great in geographical story, and although none of them individually (nor, indeed, all of them collectively) covered anything like as wide an area as the American Masson, they effected a far greater change in the maps of the period—for Masson was no map-maker. As regards Sir Alexander Burnes, his initiative in all that pertained to geographical exploration was great and valuable, but he was individually more connected with the exploitation of Central Asian and Persian geography than with that of Afghanistan. Previous to the year 1836, when he undertook his political mission to Kabul (and when he was travelling over comparatively old ground), he had already extended his journeys across the Hindu Kush to the Oxus, Bokhara, and Persia; and the book which he published in 1834 was a revelation in Central Asian physiography and policy. But as an explorer in Afghanistan he owed his information chiefly to his assistants, and undoubtedly he was splendidly well served. The ridiculous and costly impedimenta which seemed to be recognised as a necessary accompaniment to a campaign or "an occupation" in those days—the magnificent tents, the elephants, wives and nurseries and retinue of military officers—found no place whatever in the explorers' camps. Men were content to make their way from point to point and take their chance of native hospitality. They lived with the people amongst whom they moved, and they gradually became almost as much of them as with them. Perhaps their views, political and social, became somewhat too warmly tinted with local colour by these methods, but undoubtedly they learned more and they saw more, and they acquired a wider, deeper sympathy with native aspirations and native character than is possible to travellers who move en prince amongst a people who only interest them as races dominating a certain section of the mountains and plains of a strange world. All honour to the names of Leech, Lord, and Wood—especially Wood.