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AFGHANISTAN [geography from that of Chitral, and this continues to denote the eastern maximum 38°, in the northern Herat districts. Waves of limits of Afghanistan till it nearly touches the Chitral river intense cold occur, lasting for several days, and one may opposite the village of Arnawai, 45 miles south of Chitral. Here have to endure a cold of 12° below zero, rising to a the Bashgol and Chitral valleys unite and the boundary passes maximum of 17° below freezing-point. The eastern to the water-divide east of the Chitral river, after crossing it a spur which leaves the insignificant Arnawai valley to reaches of the Hari Hud river are frozen Hard in winter, by the north ; along this water-divide it extends to a point rapids and all, and the people travel on it as on a road. nearly opposite the quaint old town of Pashat in the Kunar On the other hand the summer temperature is exceedingly valley (the Chitral river has become the Kunar in its course southhigh, especially in the Oxus regions, where a shade maxi- wards), and then stretches away in an uneven and undefined line, certain sections of the Mohmands from each other by mum of 110° to 120° is not uncommon. Afghanistan lying dividing hypothetical landmarks, till it strikes the Kabul river near Palosi. outside monsoon influences, there are steadier weather Thence following a course nearly due south, it reaches Lundi indications than there are in India. The north-west Kotal. From the abutment of the Hindu Kush on the Sarikol in blizzards which occur in winter and spring are the most the Pamir regions to Lundi Kotal, and indeed throughout its noticeable feature, and their influence is clearly felt on the eastern and southern limits, the boundary of Afghanistan which are describing does not part that country from British India, Indian frontier. The cold is then intense and the force of we but from certain outlying independent frontier districts, all of the wind cyclonic. It was a blizzard of this nature which which lie beyond the boundary which Britain inherited from the proved so disastrous to the Afghan Boundary Commission Sikhs, and which is still recognized as the limit of British India. Kanjut, Chitral, Bajaor, the Mohmand districts, Swat, and Buner in April 1885. all included in this fringe of quasi-independent territory, Political Boundaries.—In the realm of political geo- are which, although the degree of independence enjoyed by it is of graphy, whilst no great changes have lately been effected a different character altogether from that enjoyed by Afghanistan in the political status of Afghanistan as an independent (being more immediately under British political control), has state subject to British suzerainty, more exact definition never yet been included within the red line. From the neighof Lundi Kotal the boundary is carried to the Sated has been given to the extent of territory under Kabul rule ; bourhood Koh overlooking the Afridi Tirah, and then, rounding off the and the geographical limits of the Amir’s responsibility cultivated portions of the Kuram valley below the Peiwar, it have been more distinctly laid down by the delimitation crosses the Kaitu and passes to the upper reaches of the Tochi. of boundaries. These delimitations commenced with the Crossing these again, it is continued on the west of Waziristan, striking the Gomul river at Domandi. So far it has Russo-Afghan Commission of 1885, and they concluded finally divided Afghanistan from the independent province of the with the Mohmand expedition of 1897, at the close of a Punjab. South of the Gomul it separates the interests of long series of disjointed efforts arising out of the agree- Afghanistan 1from those of Baluchistan. The Punjab independent provinces are traversed by certain routes (the Khaibar, the ment signed at Kabul in November 1893. Kuram, the Tochi, and the Gomul) which are held by British Commencing with the Persian border at Zulfikar on the Hari arms, and guarded by regulars or militia in British pay. At the Bad river, the boundary between Afghanistan and Russia follows western extremities of these routes India touches Afghanistan, a line roughly parallel to the course of the Paropamisus, and and nowhere else. From Domandi (the junction of the Kundar about 35 miles to the north of it, till it strikes the Kushk river in river and the Gomul) the Afghan boundary marches with that of Jamshidi territory at a point which was once known as Chaliil Baluchistan (see Baluchistan). It is carried to the south-west Dukteran, but is now the Russian station of Kushk, and the on a line which is largely defined by the channels of the Kundar and terminus of a branch railway from Merve. The Russian Kushk the Kadanai to a point beyond the Sind Peshin terminal station is about 20 miles below the old Jamshidi settlement of the same of Hew Chaman, west of the Khojak range, and then drops southname, itself about 15 miles north of the crest of the Paropamisus. wards to Shorawak and Nushki. From Nushki it crosses the The height of the Russian station is about 2000 feet above sea, Helmand desert, touching the crest of a well-defined mountain and there is a rise of 4000 feet to the crest of the Paropamisus. watershed for a great part of the way, and, leaving Chagai to From here to Herat (roughly 25 miles) the fall is about 3500 feet. Baluchistan, it strikes nearly west to the Persian frontier, and From Kushk the boundary runs north-east, crossing the Murghab joins it on the Koh-i-Malik Siah mountain, south of Sistan. Two near Maruchak (which is an Afghan fortress), and thence passes points of this part of the Afghan boundary are notable. It leaves north-east through the loess hills of the Chul, and the undula- some of the most fanatical of the Durani Afghan people on the ting deserts of the Aleli Turkmans, to the Oxus, leaving the valleys Baluch side of the frontier in the Toba district, north of the of Charshamba and of the Andkhui (to which it runs approximately Quetta-Chaman line of railway ; and it passes 50 miles south of the parallel) within Afghan limits. These valleys denote the limits Helmand river, enclosing within Afghanistan the only approach of cultivation in this direction. Throughout all this region the to Sistan from India which is available during the seasons of boundary is generally of an artificial character, marked by pillars, Helmand overflow. Between Afghanistan and Persia the but it is here and there indicated by natural features forming boundary was defined by Sir F. Goldsmid’s Commission in 1872 local lines of water-parting or water-course. The boundary meets from the Malik-Siah-Koh to the Helmand Hamuns; beyond the Oxus at Khamiab at the western extremity of the culti- those lagoons to the northward it is still indefinite till it touches vated district of Khwaja Salar, and from that point to the the district of Hashtadum in lat. 34° 15'. Here again a small eastern end of Lake Victoria in the Pamirs the main channel of section of about 40 miles has been delimited as far as the Hari the Oxus river forms the northern limits of Afghanistan (see Rud river at Toman Agha (some 12 miles below Kuhsan), Oxus). Eastwards from Lake Victoria the frontier line was and from this point to Zulfekar the Hari Rud is itself the determined by the Pamir Boundary Commission in 1895. A part boundary. of the little Pamir is included in Afghan territory, but the Afghan Provinces.—Within the limits of this boundary boundary crosses this Pamir before the great bend northwards of the Aksu takes place, and, passing over a series of crags and un- the chief provinces of Afghanistan are those of Kabul, traversable mountain ridges, is lost on the Chinese frontier in the Zabul (or Kandahar), Herat, and Afghan Turkestan. The snowfields of Sarikol. Bending back westwards upon itself, Kabul province mainly (for it is not possible to enter into the line of Afghan frontier now follows the water-parting of the Hindu Kush ; and as the Hindu Kush absolutely overhangs details as regards these indefinite internal provincial the Oxus nearly opposite Ishkamish, it follows that, at this point, boundaries) includes the Kabul basin, and Roh. Roh Afghanistan is about 10 miles wide. Thus a small and highly originally signified all the country of the Suliman and elevated portion of the State extends eastwards from its extreme north-eastern corner, and is attached to the great Afghan quadri- Khaibar hills so far as they are occupied by Pathans, z.e., lateral by the thin link of the Panja valley. These narrow from Bajaor on the north to Peshin and Sibi on the limits (called Wakhan) include the lofty spurs of the northern south, and from the Indus to Ghazni and the Khojak in flank of the Hindu Kush, an impassable barrier at this point, the west. The word Roh means the same as Koh (a where the glacial passes reach 19,000 feet in altitude, and the mountain), and the Roh mountaineers are the Rohilla of enclosing peaks 24,000 feet. The backbone or main water-divide of the Hindu Kush continues to form the boundary between history. By the late boundary demarcation a part of Roh Afghanistan and those semi-independent native states which has become independent of Afghanistan, and the name fringe Kashmir in this mountain region, until it reaches Kafiristan. might conveniently be applied to all that independent From near the Dorah pass (14,800 feet), which connects Chitral 1 with the Panja (or Oxus) river, a long, straight, snow-clad spur These provinces have been included in a political agency distinct reaches southwards, which divides the Kafiristan valley of Bashgol from the Punjab since the above was written.