From the Indus to the Tigris

by H. W. Bellew

The weather is fine and clear, and the air delightfully fresh and mild. We are now fairly clear of the hills, and are entered upon the great basin of the Kandahar drainage.

17th February.—We set out from Chashma at eight A.M., and marched twenty-three miles to Baldakhán by a good gravelly path following the course of the river at about a mile from its right bank. At about the third mile we passed the hamlet of Mulla Azím, occupied by Mandínzai Isháczais, who are astánadár of the Saraban Afghans (that is to say, descendants of an Afghan saint of the Saraban division of the nation), and consequently hold their lands rent free, and enjoy other privileges and immunities accorded to members of the priest class. Beyond this we entered on the Bandi Tymúr, a long strip of villages and cultivation extending for twelve miles or so along the right bank of the river, which here flows over a wide pebbly channel interspersed with patches of dwarf tamarisk jangal. The soil is everywhere gravelly and charged with salines, which here and there form extensive encrustations on the surface. Several kárez streams, brought from the undulating tract of Kháki Chanpán to the north, cross the road at intervals, and a succession of irrigation canals led off from the river intersect the country on either side. The tract derives its name from an ancient band or weir thrown across the river in the time of Tymúr. We did not see any signs of this dam, nor could we learn that any traces of it were still in existence.

To the north of the Bandi Tymúr tract are first the Miskárez hamlets and cultivation, and beyond them are the Kháki Chanpán hamlets, concealed from view in the sheltered hollows of the undulating pasture tract of that name. Away to the north beyond it, between the Khákrez and Sháh Macsúd ranges, is seen the Ghorát valley, in which are the hot sulphur springs of Garmába already mentioned. To the north of Ghorát is seen the Dosang range of hills, that separate it from the Derawat valley, which drains by a perennial stream to the Helmand in Zamíndáwar. This is described as a very populous and fertile valley, continuous to the north-east with the country of the Hazerahs. To the north-west of it, a range of hills intervening, is the Washír valley, which drains to the river of Khásh.

To the south, on the left of our route, the sandy desert abuts upon the river in a high bank of water-worn stones, in the sheltered hollows between which is a close succession of nomad camps, that extend in a continuous line for nearly fifty miles, for we marched in sight of them to within a few miles of Calá Búst. The camps were on shelving banks close upon the river bed, and were seldom more than half-a-mile apart. Their unbroken black line upon the red ground of the sandy bluffs formed a very prominent object of attraction, and the extent of the cordon proved the numerical strength of the nomads to far exceed the limit of what we had supposed their numbers to be. I counted sixty-three camps in view at the same time. The number of tents in each ranged from twenty up to eighty, but the majority appeared to contain from forty to fifty tents. If we allow two hundred camps along the river from Chashma to Búst, and reckon only forty tents in each, it will give a total of eight thousand tents or families; and if we take each family to consist of five individuals, it will give us forty thousand as the total of the nomad population massed in this part of the country. The calculation is by no means exaggerated; on the contrary I believe it to be under the mark.

Similar encampments, we are assured, extend along the desert skirt, where it abuts on the channels of the Tarnak and Dorí rivers, right down to Shorawak, and are reckoned to contain a total of not less than forty thousand tents, or two hundred thousand souls. These nomads include a number of tribes from all the hill country between this and Kabul. They come down from the highlands with their cattle and flocks during September and October, pass the winter here, and return to their summer pastures during March and April. Their sheep and camels find abundant pasture at this season on the borders of the desert, and are scattered over its surface to a distance of twelve or fifteen miles from the river. There are here and there superficial pools of rain-water (called náwar) on the pasture tracts, but generally the cattle are driven down to water at the river every third or fourth day. A couple of centuries ago nearly the entire Afghan nation were nomads, or, as they are here called, kizhdí nishín, from their mode of dwelling, and sometimes sahára nishín, from the place of habitation.

At about the sixth mile of our march we passed another roadside hamlet of the Mandínzai Isháczais. Some of the villagers came out and took up a position on the road in front of us, with a Curán suspended across the path in a sheet stretched between two poles hastily stuck into the ground. We passed under the sacred volume, and received the blessing of its owners in return for a rupee given to them by the Saggid. Our grooms, with uplifted arms, made a bound, touched the book, and then their foreheads and hearts, the while invoking the prophet’s blessing.

At about half-way on this march we passed the ruins of an old town and the remains of a fort overlooking the river. Beyond this the country is bare and desolate. The soil is either a coarse gravel covered with a thin jangal of camel-thorn, or it is a spongy clay white with excess of salines. For many miles here the road passes through a long succession of salt-pits. Near Ballakhan we turned off to the left, and camped on a saline tract close to the river.

A high north-east wind blew all day, and, fortunately for us, drove clouds of salt dust against our backs, instead of in our faces. The sky became cloudy in the afternoon, and towards sunset gusty showers of rain fell. On the line of march we were overtaken by a courier from Jacobabad with our letters and newspapers, and dates up to the 26th January. We spent the evening in reading the news of the world we had left behind us.

Next to returning to one’s own, there is nothing so delightful as the receiving intelligence from them. We always hailed the arrival of our posts with unconcealed joy; and no sooner possessed ourselves of the contents of one, than we looked forward to the arrival of another, with an eagerness that only those placed in similar circumstances could possibly evince.