From the Indus to the Tigris

by H. W. Bellew

We cleared the Sanzari lands at a roadside ziárat, over the door of which were fixed some iben and márkhor horns; and leaving the Ashogha canal and village to the left, entered on a vast treeless waste, that gently slopes up to the Khákrez range towards the north. We followed a well-trodden path over the gravelly plain in a south-west direction, and leaving the Sufed Rawán villages and cultivation along the river bank to our left, camped a little beyond the Hanz Maddad, and close to a ruined mound called Sang Hissár.

The hanz, or reservoir, named after its builder, Maddad Khán, of whom nobody could tell us anything, is now, like everything else in this country, fast going to ruin. It has long been dry, and the projecting wings from the central dome, which were meant as a shelter for the wayfarer, are now choked with the débris of the crumbling walls and heaps of drift sand. At the hanz the road branches—one track goes due west across the plain to Kishkinákhud and Girishk, and the other south-west to Garmsel by the route of Calá Búst.

Westward of this point the country assumes an aspect altogether different from that we have hitherto traversed. It presents a vast expanse of undulating desert plain, upon which abut the terminal offsets from the great mountain ranges to the northward and eastward. The weather being fine and the atmosphere singularly clear, we were enabled to get a very extensive view of the general aspect and configuration of the country.

To the west were the terminal spurs of the Khákrez range, ending on the plain, and concealing from view the valley of that name, and on which we looked back as we advanced on our route. To the west and south respectively, the horizon was cut by an arid waste and sandy desert. Close at hand to the east, between the junction of the Argandáb with the Tarnak, is the termination of the Baba Walí range. To its north lies the valley of the Argandáb, running up north-east as far as the eye can reach in a continual succession of villages, gardens, and corn-fields, a picture of prosperity strikingly in contrast with the arid and bare aspect of the country to the south of the range. In this latter direction the parallel ranges of Arghasán, Barghana, and Kadani, coursing the wide plateau from north-east to south-west, all terminate in low ridges that abut upon the Dorí river opposite to the sand-cliffs of the great desert that separates Kandahar and Sistan from the mountain region of Makrán.

The angle of junction of the Argandáb and Tarnak is called Doaba. To the south of the Takhti Sanzari it is continuous with the Panjwaí district on the banks of the Tarnak. It is very populous, and is covered with villages and gardens, celebrated for the excellence of their pomegranates. From Panjwaí there is a direct route across the desert to Hazárjuft. The distance is said to be only eighty miles. The desert skirt from this point, along the course of the Dorí right down to the end of the Lora river on the plain of Shorawak and Núshkí, is said to afford excellent winter pasturage for camels and sheep. This skirt forms a tract some fifteen or twenty miles wide on the border of the actual sandy desert, and is at this season occupied by the camps of the nomad Achakzai, Núrzai, and Bárech Afghans. It produces lucerne, clover, carrot, and other wild herbs in profusion during the spring. Our next stage was twenty-two miles, to the river bank near the hamlet called, from its adjacent spring, Chashma. It is included in the lands of Kishkinákhud. Our route was by a well-beaten path on the gravelly plain at about two miles from the river, towards which it slightly inclined as we proceeded westward.

To the left of our course, along a narrow strip on the river bank, are the collection of villages and gardens known as Bágh Marez and Sháhmír. Amongst them, conspicuous for its neatness and strength, is the little fort of Khúshdil Khán, son of the late Sardár Mihrdil Khán, and elder brother of Sardár Sher Ali Khán, the recent governor of Kandahar. He has always held aloof from politics, and spends his life in the seclusion of his country retreat. On the farther side of the river the land rises at once into a high coast, formed by round bluffs that stretch away towards the desert in a tossed and billowy surface of loose sand.

To the right of our route lay the Kishkinákhud plain. It supports a very scattered and thin growth of pasture herbs, amongst which we noticed some stunted bushes of the camel-thorn and sensitive mimosa. As we advanced we came abreast of the Khákrez valley away to the north across the plain. It has a dreary and desert look, and appeared uninhabited. It has no perennial stream, but is drained by a central ravine which crosses the plain as a wide and shallow water-run, called Khákrez Shela. We crossed it dryshod a little way short of camp.

Beyond Khákrez is the Sháh Macsúd range of hills, now covered with snow. The hills are said to be well stocked with large trees, and amongst them the wild or bitter almond. We were assured that the Popalzais, who hold this country, had of late years taken to grafting the wild trees as they grew on the hillsides with the sweet and cultivated almond, and with complete success.

At the foot of a dark spur branching off southward from the main range was pointed out the site of the ruins of Mywand. They are described as very extensive; and in the time of Mahmúd of Ghazni, the city was the seat of the government of his wazír, Mír Hassan. At the head of the valley, to its north, are the sulphur hot springs of Garmába, resorted to by the natives of the vicinity as a remedy for rheumatism and diseases of the skin.

During the latter part of the march we passed a couple of roadside hamlets occupied by Hotab Ghilzais, and watered by kárez streams. There was very little cultivation about, and the villagers appeared a very poor and miserable set.