The great drawbacks are the want of wood, and above all want of inhabitants; from what I have seen of the cultivation, the soil appears to be very capable, and well adapted to barley and wheat; rice might also be raised as a summer crop. With regard to water, if there is a scarcity of this element, it is due to the indolence of the people. I have not yet seen any vestiges of buildings, topes, etc. to indicate that Candahar has ever been a very populous place, the want of trees considering the ease with which they may be cultivated, is a strong evidence of the extreme laziness of the Affghans, who appear to me remarkably low in the scale of civilization; and in personal habits, very generally inexpressibly filthy.
Poplars, mulberries, and willows are the principal trees: the poplar is very much akin to the Sofaida of the Sutledge, it is a handsome tree, with a fine roundish crown. The fruit trees generally appear small in gardens; lettuces and onions are commonly cultivated, especially the latter, fields of Lucerne are very abundant, and I believe clover also; a pony load of the former now costs five annas, but it is sufficient for a day’s consumption of two or three horses. The pomegranate attains the ordinary size. In gardens two or three Ranunculaceæ, Jasminum, pinks, sweet-williams, marigolds, stocks, and wall-flowers, are common, with a broad-leaved species of flag, the flowers of which I have not seen.
The crops vary according to the mode in which they have been watered; if this has been properly done, they are rich. Some of the fields are tolerably clean, others filled with weeds, among which a Dipsacea, and one or two Centaureæ are very common.
The villages are not generally defended: each house has its own straggling direction, is built of mud, and the roof is generally dome-shaped, and it has its own enclosure within a mud-wall. The houses are very low, and indicate poverty, and want of ingenuity. The better order appear always with arched roofs, and none are without picturesque ribs and recesses.
The vineries here are so well enclosed, that there is no way of access except by scaling the mud-wall: the vines are planted in trenches; a row on each side, and allowed to run over the elevated spaces between the trenches. In one garden pomegranates, a pomaceous tree, and mulberries, whose fruit is now ripe but quite devoid of flavour, occurred. A Zygophyllum, a beautiful Capparis, an Anthemis, Marrubium, Centaureoides 2, occurred as weeds, with Plantago, Phalaris, Cichorium.
For an excellent register of the thermometer at this place, I am indebted to the kindness of Dr. Henderson; the range in the open air is from 60° to 110°!!!
The variations in the wet bulb are due to the currents of air, which beginning about 11 A.M., pass into a rather constant strongish west wind about 11½ or 2 P.M., and even almost become hot. The climate is excessively dry, as indicated by the effects it has on furniture, etc.
The difference of temperature between a tent, even with two flies or double roof, and the open air in free situations, is by no means great; thus when the thermometer was 105° in part of my tent, it was scarcely 110° in the sun; in Capt. Thomson’s large tent 102°; placed against the outer kunnat, it rose to 105°. Hanging free with black cloth round the bulb, 112°. But to shew the great heating powers of the sun, the thermometer with the bulb, placed on the ground and covered with the loose sand of the surface of the soil, rose to 141°.
Black partridges occur in the cornfields here, but in no great numbers. Much of the cultivation of barley, wheat, and rye, is very luxuriant, but the proportion of waste, to cultivated land is too considerable to argue either a large population or active agricultural habits. Pastor roseus occurs in flocks; it is evidently nearly allied to the mina. The capabilities of this valley are considerable, more particularly when the extreme readiness with which water is obtained in wells is considered, as well as the nature of the soil, which is well adapted to husbandry. Candahar, viewed from about a mile to the west of our camp, backed by the picturesque hills (one bluff one in particular), the numbers and verdure of the trees, the break in the mountains on the Herat road, presents a pretty scene.
8th.—The installation of the Shah, which took place to-day on the plain to the north of the city, was a spectacle worth seeing on account of the grand display of troops; but there were very few of the inhabitants of Candahar or surrounding villages present. Mulberries and apricots are now ripening. Rats, a Viverra with a long body and short legs, tawny with brown patches, face broad, blackish-brown, white band across the forehead, and white margins to the ears which are large; storks were seen when alarmed. Pastor roseus occurs in flocks; magpies, swallows, swifts, and starlings. There is a garden with some religious buildings, to which an avenue of young trees leads in a north-east direction from one of the Cabul gates, for there are two on this face. The buildings are not remarkable; nor are the trees, which are small; a few planes (Platanus) occur, the most common is the Benowsh, a species of ash, (Fraxinus) of no great size or beauty. The elegant palmate leaved Pomacea likewise occurs, with the mulberry: the marigold is a great favourite.