Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/879

Rh I N D U K U S H 839 Koh-i-Baba. Ou the south the drainage is received by two catch ment channels flowing parallel to the watershed in opposite direc tions, the Panjhir (or Panjshir) from the east, and the Ghorband river from the west, meeting near Charikar and flowing S.S.E. to meet the river from Cabul. The Panjhir valley is populous and fruitful, with irrigated orchards and mulberry gardens, the chief support of the people, though these, of Pashai kindred, have for ages borne a repute for ruthless turbulence. It contains silver- mines, worked at an early date, and early Mahometan coins bear the mint marks of secluded towns like Panjhir and Andarab, the latter place north of the mountains, head of a canton subject of Kunduz. From the Panjhir to the Andarab valley lead at least seven passes. The chief of these is Khawak, crossed by Wood from the north in 1838, and nearly 1200 years before (644) by Hwen- Tsa ng from the south. The Tul Pass, a loop to this, was crossed by the great Timur on his advance to India (1398). From the Ghor band valley there are also seven or more passes ; two ascend from Parwan, one of which, Sar-aulang, was attempted unsuccessfully by Wood and Lord in November 1837, since crossed and surveyed by Havildar Hyder Shah (1870). Kushan Pass, under the great peak, was ascended by Leech and Lord in October 1837. Four of the Ghorband passes descend on the lower Andarab valley, two more on the Surkhab river, coming from the valleys about Bamian. The last, the pass of Shibr, ascends from the top of Ghorband valley, and descends on that of Bamian near the castle of Zohak. This was crossed by Hwen-Tsang in approaching India (630), and by Timur on his return (1399), and was commonly used by Baber, who calls it Shibrtu. There remain the Koh-i-Baba passes of Irak, Hajjigak, and Pusht-i-Hajjigak. These are all approached from Cabul by the upper valley of the Cabul river and headwaters of the Helmand. The first Brigadier Dennie s force crossed to Bamian in 1840, before fighting Dost Mahommed on that famous site ; Burnes (1832), Wood and Lord (1837), Griffith (1840), and others at that time crossed the Hajjigak, the best known of all the passes. North of the mountains the Andarab river and the Surkhab form catchments like Panjhir and Ghorband rivers on the south. Uniting near Ghori they form the river of Kunduz or Akserai (called by Baber Doghdba) flowing north to the Oxus. Hazaras (see vol. i. p. 235) are the chief occupants of this section in its western portion. Further east on the north side the higher valleys are occupied by tribes of old Tajik lineage, mixed more and more with Uzbeks and other Turki people as the Kokcha is approached (see also vol. i. p. 241 sq.). Geology. Information is most scanty, and applies only to the western extremities of Hindu Rush. On the Kushau Pass Lord speaks of the lower parts as consisting of micaceous schist, black slate with occasional bursts of granite, then mica slate and gneiss, and the summits of the pass and range of a granite core shooting up in precipitous peaks. On the Koh-i-Baba, also, Griffith speaks of the lower mass as predominantly of slaty formations ; the summits of coarse quartzose grey granite, and of very compact brown quartzose rock. In the Irak Pass, and at Zohak, are masses of conglomerate. Limestone occurs in the upper part of the valley of Parwan, exhibiting large cavities, in one of which the stream is engulfed for two miles ; also higher up the Ghorband valley, where a magnificent natural cavern occurs. Limestone occurs also on the Hajjigak Pass ; and we hear of another great cavern near Doab, north of Bamian. Eruptive deposits occur in Ghorband valley towards Char- deh, and these recur at Bamian. Richthofen has sup posed, from Chinese analogies, that the multitude of arti ficial caves and cave dwellings about Bamian indicate a loess deposit; such details as we have seem hardly to corroborate this. The region is rich in minerals. Iron is abundant and widely diffused. Villages called Ahangirdn (of the &quot;iron workers &quot;) are numerous. There is a rich black ore on the Hajjigak Pass, but fuel is entirely absent. Iron is also made at several places in Baclakhshan, and of excellent quality in Bajaur east of the Kunar river. The districts adjoining the Jerm and Vardoj rivers are called Yamghan, which is popularly interpreted as Hamah-Kdn (&quot;All-Mines&quot;) from its various mineral wealth. Copper mines (not worked) exist here and also in Chitral. Antimony is found in Ghorband, and accurate Griffith speaks of ore of antimony forming boulders and even &quot;a large mountain &quot; on the top f Hajjigak. Lead is found in Ghorband and in Yamgban. Sulphate of zinc occurs in Ghorband ; silver, as above mentioned, at the head of Panjhir ; rock-salt on the borders of Badakhshan and Kunduz (mentioned by Marco Polo) ; sulphur in Yamghan and Sanglich (north of the Dora Pass) ; sal-ammoniac in Kuran. Orpiment is exported from Chitral, a fact mentioned also by Hwen-Tsang. The lazuli of Kurd,n has been spoken of. Zoology. Of this we have not space to speak, nor accurate material. Afghanistan lies on the borders of the Oriental and Pala3arctic regions (vol. vii. p. 269), and par takes in degree of both; but the Hindu Kush is to a certain extent a boundary between them. Thus it limits the genus Salmo, which is found in no Indian or Persian stream, but immediately on crossing the passes. The late estimable Russian traveller Fedchenko thought he had first discovered trout in Turkestan, but they were frequently caught by English officers at Bamian in 1840, and Marco Polo mentions them in Badakhshan. Vegetation. The only basis for a view of this would be Griffith s collections near Koh-i-Baba and in the Kunar valley, but they have not been analysed in such a. sense. These general remarks by Hooker and Thomson are, how ever, apposite : &quot; The collections of Griffith, besides con taining an immense number of Persian and European plants which find their eastern limits within the British territory, are rich in Himalayan forms which advance no farther west; and, what is of still greater importance, they contain many species common both to Europe and the Himalaya, but which, from mere differences induced by local causes in these two distant countries, might not be imagined to have a common origin, did not the Afghanistan specimens blend their characters or show the transition between them.&quot; Flora Indica, i. 85, 86. Historical Notices. We have said that Hindu Kush is the Caucasus of Alexander s historians. It is also included in the Paropamisus, though the latter term embraces more, Caucasus being apparently used only when the alpine barrier is in question. Whether the name was given in mere vanity to the barrier which Alexander passed (as Arrian and others repeatedly allege), or was founded also on some verbal confusion, we cannot say. It was no doubt regarded (and perhaps not altogether untruly) as a part of a great alpine zone believed to traverse Asia from west to east, whether called Taurus, Caucasus, or Imaus. Arrian himself applies Caucasus distinctly to the Himalaya also. The applica tion of the name Tanais to the Sir seems to indicate a real confusion with Colchian Caucasus. Alexander, after building an Alexandria at its foot (probably at Hupian near Charikar), crossed into Bactria, first reaching Drapsaca, or Adrapsa. This has been interpreted as Andarab, in which case he probably crossed the Khawak Pass, but the identity is uncertain. The ancient Zend name is, according to Kawlinson, Parcsina, the essential part of Paropamisus ; this accounts for the great Asiatic Parnassus of Aristotle, and the Pho-lo-sin-a of Hwen Tsang. The name Hindu Kvish does not appear, so far as we can ascer tain, in any of the earlier Arab geographers. But it is used by Ibn Batuta, who crossed (c. 1332) from Andarab, and he gives the explanation of the name which, however doubtful, is still popular, as (Pers.) Hindu-Killer, &quot;because of the number of Indian slaves who perished in passing&quot; its snows. Baber always calls the range Hindu Kush, and the way in which he speaks of it shows clearly that it was a range that was meant, not a solitary pass or peak (according to modern local use, as alleged by Elphinstone and Burnes). Probably, however, the title was confined to the section from Khawak to Koh-i-Baba (see Baber, pp. 136, 139). The name has by some later Oriental writers been modified into Hindu Koh (mountain), but this is factitious, and throws no more light on the origin of the title. The name seems to have become known to European geographers by the Oriental translations of the two Petis de la Croix, and was taken up by Delisle and D Anville. Kennell and Elphinstone familiarized it, and Wilford wilfordized about it. Burnes first crossed the range (1832). A British force was stationed at Bamian beyond it in 1840, with an outpost at Saighan. The Hindu Kush, formidable as it seems, and often as it has been the limit between petty states, has hardly ever been the boundary of a considerable power. Greeks, White Huns, Samanidse of Bokhara, Ghaznevides, Mongols, Timur and Timuridae, down to Saddozais and Barakzais, have ruled both sides of this great alpine chain. (H. Y.i