Once more a start was made from Girishk, and this time our explorer succeeded in reaching Farah by the direct route through Washir. It was in the month of October, and the fiery heat of the Bakwa plain was sufficiently trying even to this case-hardened Frenchman. About Farah he has much to say that still requires confirmation. Of the exceeding antiquity of this place there is ample evidence; but no one since Ferrier has identified the site of the second and later town of Farah "an hour" farther north or "half an hour" from the Farah Rud (river), where bricks were seen "three feet long and four inches thick," with inscriptions on them in cuneiform character, amidst the ruins. This town was abandoned in favour of the older (and present) site when Shah Abbas the Great besieged and destroyed it, but there can be no doubt that the bricks seen by Ferrier must have possessed an origin long anterior to the town, which only dates from the time of Chenghiz Khan. The existence of such evidence of the ancient and long-continued connection between Assyria and Western Afghanistan would be exceedingly interesting were it confirmed by modern observation. Farah is by all accounts a most remarkable town, and it undoubtedly contains secrets of the past which for interest could only be surpassed by those of Balkh. At Farah Ferrier was lodged in a "hole over the north gate of the town, open to the violent winds of Seistan, which rushed in at eight enormous holes, through which also came the rays of the sun." Here wasps, scorpions, and mice were his companions, and it must be admitted that Ferrier's account of the horrors of Farah residence have been more or less confirmed by all subsequent travellers to Seistan. But he finally succeeded in obtaining, through the not inhospitable governor, the necessary permission from Yar Mahomed Khan of Herat (whose policy in his dealings with Ferrier it is quite impossible to decipher) to pass on to Shikarpur and Sind; and the permission is couched in such pious and affectionate terms, that the "very noble, very exalted, the companion of honour, of fortune, and of happiness, my kind friend, General Ferrier," really thought there was a chance of escaping from his clutches. He was, by the way, invited back again to Herat, but he was told that he might please himself.
Here follows a most interesting exploration into a stretch of territory then utterly unreconnoitred and unknown, and it is unfortunate that this most trying route through the flats and wastes which stretch away eastwards of the Helmund lagoons should still be but sketchily indicated in our maps. It is, however, from Farah to Khash (where the Khash Rud is crossed), and from Khash to the Helmund, but a track through a straight region of desolation and heat, relieved, however (like the desert region to the south of the Helmund), by strips of occasional tamarisk vegetation, where grass is to be found in the spring and nomads collect with their flocks. Watering-places might be developed here by digging wells, and the route rendered practicable across the Dasht-i-Margo as it has been between Nushki and Seistan, but when Ferrier crossed it it was a dangerous route to attempt on tired and ill-fed horses. The existence of troops of wild asses was sufficient evidence of its life-supporting capabilities if properly developed. Ferrier struck the Helmund about Khan Nashin. Here a most ill-timed and ill-advised fight with a Baluch clan ended in a disastrous flight of the whole party down the Helmund to Rudbar, and it would perhaps be unkind to criticise too closely the heroics of this part of Ferrier's story.
At Rudbar Ferrier again noticed bricks a yard square in an old dyke, whilst hiding. Rudbar was well known to the Arab geographers, but this record of Ferrier's carries it back (and with it the course of the Helmund) to very ancient times indeed. Continuing to follow the river, they passed Kala-i-Fath and reached "Poolka"—a place which no longer exists under that name. This is all surveyed country; but no investigator since Ferrier has observed the same ancient bricks at Kala-i-Fath which Ferrier noted there as at Farah and Rudbar. There is every probability, however, of their existence. All this part of the Helmund valley abounds in antiquities which are as old as Asiatic civilization, but nothing short of systematic antiquarian exploration will lead to further discoveries of any value.
Ferrier was now in Seistan, and we may pass over his record of interesting observations on the wealth of antiquarian remains which surrounded him. It is enough to point out that he was one of the first to call public attention to them from the point of view of actual contact. It must be accepted as much to the credit of Ferrier's narrative that the latest surveys of Seistan (i.e. those completed during the work of the Commission under Sir H. MacMahon in 1903-5) entirely support the account given in his Caravan Journeys as he wandered through that historic land. By the light of the older maps, completed during the Afghan Boundary Commission some twenty years previously, it would have been difficult to have traced his steps. We know now that the lake of Seistan should, with all due regard to its extraordinary capacity for expansion and contraction, be represented as in MacMahon's map, extending southwards to a level with the great bend of the Helmund. Ferrier's narrative very conclusively illustrates this position of it, and proves that such an expansion must be regarded as normal. We can no longer accurately locate the positions of Pulaki and Galjin, but from his own statements it seems more than probable that the first place is already sand-buried. They were not far north of Kala-i-Fath. From there he went northward to Jahanabad, and north-west (not south-west) to Jalalabad. It was at Jahanabad that he nearly fell into the hands of Ali Khan, the chief of Chakhansur (Sheikh Nassoor of Ferrier), the scoundrel who had previously murdered Dr. Forbes and hung his body up to be carefully watered and watched till it fell to pieces in gold ducats. There was an unfortunate superstition current in Baluchistan to the effect that this was the normal end of European existence! Luckily it has passed away. Escaping such a calamity, he turned the lake at its southern extremity, passing through Sekoha, and travelled up its western banks till, after crossing the Harat Rud, he reached Lash Jowain. From here to Farah and from Farah once again to Herat, his road was made straight for him, and we need only note what he has to say about the extent of the ruins near Sabzawar to be convinced that here was the mediæval provincial capital of Parwana. At Herat he was enabled to do what would have saved him a most adventurous journey (and lost us the pleasure of recording his work as that of a notable explorer of Afghanistan), i.e. take the straight road back to Teheran from whence he came.
With this we may bid adieu to Ferrier, but it is only fair to do tardy justice to his remarkable work. I confess that after the regions of Central Afghanistan had been fairly well reconnoitred by the surveyors of the Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission, considerable doubt remained in my mind as to the veracity of Ferrier's statements. I still think he was imposed upon now and then by what he heard, but I have little doubt that he adhered on the whole (and the conditions under which he travelled must be remembered) to a truthful description of what he saw. It is true that there still remains wanting an explanation of his experiences at that restful island in the sea of difficulty and danger which surrounded him—Dev Hissar—but I have already pointed out that it may exist beyond the limits of actual subsequent observation; and as regards the stupendous bricks with cuneiform inscription, it can only be said that their existence in the localities which he mentions has been rendered so probable by recent investigation, that nothing short of serious and systematic excavation, conducted in the spirit which animated the discovery of Nineveh, will finally disprove this most interesting evidence of the extreme antiquity of the cities of Afghanistan, and their relation to the cities of Mesopotamia.
CHAPTER XVIII
SUMMARY
The close of the Afghan war of 1839-40 left a great deal to be desired in the matter of practical geography. It was not the men but the methods that were wanting. The commencement of the second and last Afghan war in 1878 saw the initiation of a system of field survey of a practical geographical nature, which combined the accuracy of mathematical deduction with the rapidity of plane table topography. It was the perfecting of the smaller class of triangulating instruments that made this system possible, quite as much as the unique opportunity afforded to a survey department in such a country as India for training topographers. It worked well from the very first, and wherever a force could march or a political mission be launched into such a region of open hill and valley as the Indian trans-frontier, there could the surveyors hold their own (no matter what the nature of the movement might be) and make a "square" survey in fairly accurate detail, with the certainty that it would take its final place without squeezing or distortion in the general map of Asia. This was of course very different from the plodding traverse work of former days, and it rapidly placed quite a new complexion on our trans-frontier maps. Since then regular systematic surveys in extension of those of India have been carried far afield, and it may safely be said now that no country in the world is better provided with military maps of its frontiers than India. In Baluchistan, indeed, there is little left to the imagination. A country which forty years ago was an ugly blank in our maps, with a doubtful locality indicated here and there, is now almost as well surveyed as Scotland. Afghanistan, however, is beyond our line, "out of bounds," and the result is that there are serious gaps in our map knowledge of the country of the Amir, gaps which there seems little probability of investigating under the present closure of the frontier to explorers.
