Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/248

Rh 230 AFGHANISTAN [TOWNS. miles, and ending in a svramp adjoining the Daman-i-Koh, on the border of the Turkman desert. Of the rivers that run towards the Indus, south of the Kabul river, the chief are the Kurram and the Gomal. The Kurram drains the southern flanks of Safed Koh. The middle valley of Kurram, forming the district so called, is highly irrigated, well peopled, and crowded with small fortified villages, orchards, and groves, to which a fine background is afforded by the dark pine forests and alpine snows of Safed Koh. The beauty and climate of the valley attracted some of the Mogul emperors of Delhi, and the remains exist of a garden of Shah Jahan s. The river passes the British frontier, and enters the plain country a few miles above Banu, spreading into a wide bed of sand and boulders, till it joins the Indus near Isa-Khel, after a course of more than 200 miles. By the Kurram valley is one of the best routes from India into Afgha nistan. It was travelled by Major Lumsden s party in 1857-58. The Gomal, rising in the Sulimani mountains, though in length equal to the Kurram, and draining, with its tributaries, a much larger area, is little more than a winter torrent, diminishing to a mere rivulet, till December, when it begins to swell. At its exit into the plain of the Derajat a local chief threw a dam across its channel ; and it is now only in very wet seasons that its waters reach the Indus, near Dera Ismael Khan. Not long before leaving the hills it receives from the S.W. a tributary, the Zhob, of nearly equal length and size, coming from the vicinity of the Kand and Joba peaks, in long. 68. LAKES. As we know nothing of the lake in which the Lora is said to end, and the greater part of the lake of SEISTAN (see that article) is excluded from Afghanistan, there remains only the Ab-i-Istada, on the Ghilzai plateau. This is about 65 miles S.S.W. of Ghazni, and stands at a height of about 7000 feet, in a site of most barren and dreary aspect, with no tree or blade of grass, and hardly a habitation in sight. It is about 44 miles in circuit, and very shallow; not more than 12 feet deep in the middle. The chief feeder is the Ghazni river. The Afghans speak of a stream draining the lake, but this seems to be un founded, and the saltness and bitterness of the lake is against it. Fish entering the salt water from the Ghazni river sicken and die. PROVINCES AND TOWNS. The chief political divisions of Afghanistan in recent times are stated to be Kabul, Jalalabad, Ghazni, Kandahar, Herat, and AFGHAN TUR KESTAN (q.v.), to which are sometimes added the command of the Ghilzais and of the Hazaras. This list seems to omit the unruly districts of the eastern table-land, such as Kurram, Khost, &c. But we must not look for the pre cision of European administration in such a case. In addition to KABUL, GHAZNI, KANDAHAR, HERAT, described under those articles, there are not many places in Afghanistan to be called towns. We notice the follr w - ing: Jalalabad lies, at a height of 1946 feet, in a plain on the south of the Kabul river. It is by road 100 miles from Kabul, and 91 from Peshawar. Between it and Peshawar intervene the Khybar and other adjoining passes; between it and Kabul the passes of Jagdalak, Khurd-Kabul, &amp;lt;fec. The place has been visited by no known European since Sir G. Pollock s expedition in 1842. As it then existed, the town, though its walls had an extent of 2100 yards, contained only 300 houses, and a permanent population of 2000. The walls formed an irregular quadrilateral in a ruinous state, surrounded on all sides by buildings, gardens, the remains of the ancient walls, &c., affording cover to an assailant. The town walls were destroyed by Pollock, but have probably been restored. The highly-cultivated plain is, according to Wood, 25 miles in length by 3 or 4 miles in breadth ; the central part covered with villages, castles, and gardens. It is abund antly watered. The province under Jalalabad is about 80 miles in length by 35 in width, and includes the large district of Laghman, north of the Kabul river, as well as that on the south, which is called Nangnihar. The former name, properly Lamghan, the seat of the ancient Lampagce, is absurdly derived by the Mahommedans from the patriarch Lantech, whose tomb they profess to show; the latter name is inter preted (in mixed Pushtu and Arabic) to mean &quot; nine rivers,&quot; an etymology supported by the numerous streams. The word is, however, really a distortion of the ancient Indian name Nagarahdra, borne by a city in this plain long before Islam, and believed to have been the Nagara or Uionyso- polis of Ptolemy. Many topes and other Buddhist traces exist in the valley, but there are no unruined buildings of any moment. Baber laid out fine gardens here; and his grandson (Jalaludclin) Akbar built Jalalabad. Hindus form a considerable part of the town population, and have a large temple. The most notable point in the history of Jalalabad is the stout and famous defence made there, from November 1841 till April 1842, by Sir Robert Sale. Istdlif is a town in the Koh Daman, 20 miles N.X.W. of Kabul, which was stormed and destroyed, 29th Sep tember 1842, by a force under General M Caskill, to punish the towns-people for the massacre of the garrison at Charikar, and for harbouring the murderers of Burnes. The place is singularly picturesque and beautiful. The rude houses rise in terrace over terrace on the mountain-side, forming a pyramid, crowned by a shrine embosomed in a fine clump of planes. The dell below, traversed by a clear rapid stream, both sides of which are clothed with vineyards and orchards, opens out to the great plain of the Daman-i-Koh, rich with trees and cultivation, and dotted with turreted castles; beyond these are rocky ridges, and over all the eternal snows of Hindu Kush. Xearly every householder has his garden with a tower, to which the families repair in the fruit season, closing their houses in the town. The town is estimated, with seven villages depending on it, to contain about 18,000 souls. Charikar (population 5000) lies about 20 miles north of Istalif, at the north end of Koh Daman, and watered by a canal from the Ghorband branch of the Baran river. Hereabouts must have been the Triodon, or meeting of the three roads from Bactria, spoken of by Strabo and Pliny. It is still the seat of the customs levied on trade with Turkestan, and also of the governor of the Kohistun or hill country of Kabul, and is a place of considerable trade with the regions to the north. During the British occupa tion a political agent (Major Eldred Pottinger, famous in the defence of Herat) was posted here with a Gurkha corps under Captain Codrington and Lieutenant Haughton. In the revolt of 1841, after severe fighting, they attempted to make their way to Kabul, and a great part was cut off. Pottinger, Haughton (with the loss of an arm), and one sepoy only, reached the city then ; though many were after wards recovered. Kala t-i-Ghilzai has no town, but is a fortress of some importance on the right bank of the Tarnak, on the road between Ghazni and Kandahar, 89 miles from the latter, and at a height of 5773 feet. The repulse of the Afghans in 1842 by a sepoy garrison under Captain Craigie, was one of the most brilliant feats of that war. Girishk is also a fort rather than a town, the latter being insignificant. It is important for its position on the high road between Kandahar and Herat, commanding the ordin ary passage and summer ford of the Helmand. It was held by the British from 1839 till August 1842, but during the latter nine months, amid great difficulties, by a native garrison only, under a gallant Indian soldier, Balwant Singh. Farrah belongs to the Seistan basin, and stands on the river that bears its name, and on one of the main routes from Herat to Kandahar, 164 miles from the fonner, 236 miles from the latter. The place is enclosed by a huge earthen rampart, crowned with towers, and surrounded by a wide and deep ditch, which can be flooded, and with a covered way. It lias the form of a parallelogram, running north