Page:Prehistoric Ancient And Hindu India.djvu/23

Rh Kabul, Ghazna or Ghazni and Kandahar. They formed a province of the first and northernmost region of India.

Baluchistan has always been a different country and forms a part of the Iranian desert, though it lies so very close to the Indian provinces of Afghanistan and Sindh. This country was the borderland between India and Persia, and the northern part of it, now called Kalat, was called Drangani in Sanskrit and Zranka in Old Persian, both of which terms mean "The Frontier". When the Greeks came they transliterated this term into Drangiane or Drangiana.

Geographically India is divided into four parts. The first consists of the mountainous country extending from the borders of Persia in the west to those of the province of Yun-nan in the south of China. Most of the provinces in this region are enclosed within a very long and wide mountain system called the Himalayas and the Hindu-Kush. The Himalayas form a barrier between the high tableland of Tibet and the low plains of the basins of the Ganges and the Indus river systems. Towards the north-west this mountain chain encloses the fertile valley of Kashmir, which was the bed of a lake in prehistoric times, and the small groups of valleys of the modern districts of Balkh, Kabul and Kandahar in Afghanistan. The western part of this mountain system has acquired different names; such as the Karakorum, the Hindu-Kush, the Sulaiman, and the Khirthar; but in reality they are parts of one range. The western side of these mountains is entirely different from the eastern; the latter is covered with dense vegetation, while the former is almost bare. But these western ranges contain the fertile valleys of Kabul and Kandahar. The eastern part contains the less productive and smaller valleys of Kumaun, Garhwal, and Nepal. In the north-eastern corner, these valleys, though more frequent and fertile, are not productive, on account of the dense jungle, which has not been removed since the formation of this tract. The second part, or region, consists of the basins of the seven rivers of the Panjab and the flat plains through which the Ganges and the Brahmaputra flow. In recent geological ages, this tract, with the exception of the hills in the Jhelum district of the Panjab, formed with Rajputana a sea-bed.