wide. Thus a small and highly elevated portion of the state
extends eastwards from its extreme north-eastern corner, and
is attached to the great Afghan quadrilateral by the thin
link of the Panja valley. These narrow limits (called Wakhan)
include the lofty spurs of the northern flank of the Hindu
Kush, an impassable barrier at this point, where the glacial
passes reach 19,000 ft. in altitude, and the enclosing peaks
24,000 ft. The backbone or main water-divide of the Hindu
Kush continues to form the boundary between Afghanistan and
those semi-independent native states which fringe Kashmir
in this mountain region, until it reaches Kafiristan. From
near the Dorah pass (14,800 ft.), which connects Chitral with
the Panja (or Oxus) river, a long, straight, snow-clad spur
reaches southwards, which divides the Kafiristan valley of
Bashgol from that of Chitral, and this continues to denote
the eastern limits of Afghanistan till it nearly touches the
Chitral river opposite the village of Arnawai, 45 m. south of
Chitral. Here the Bashgol and Chitral valleys unite and the
boundary passes to the water-divide east of the Chitral river,
after crossing it by a spur which leaves the insignificant
Arnawai valley to the north; along this water-divide it extends
to a point nearly opposite the quaint old town of Pashat in
the Kunar valley (the Chitral river has become the Kunar in
its course southwards), and then stretches away in an uneven
and undefined line, dividing certain sections of the Mohmands
from each other by hypothetical landmarks, till it strikes
the Kabul river near Palosi. Thence following a course nearly
due south, it reaches Landi Kotal. From the abutment of
the Hindu Kush on the Sarikol in the Pamir regions to Landi
Kotal, and throughout its eastern and southern limits, the
boundary of Alghanistan touches districts which were brought
under British political control with the formation of the
North-West Frontier Provinces of India in 1901. From the
neighbourhood of Laudi Kotal the boundary is carried to the
Safed Roh overlooking the Afridi Tirah, and then, rounding
off the cultivated portidins of the Kurram valley below the
Peiwar, it crosses the Kaitu and passes to the upper reaches
of the Tochi. Crossing these again, it is continued on
the west of Waziristan, finally striking the Gomal river at
Domandi. South of the Gomal it separates the interests of
Afghanistan from those of Baluchistan, which here adjoins the
North-West Frontier Province. From Domandi (the junction of
the Kundar river with the Gomal) the Afghan boundary marches
with that of Baluchistan. (See BALUCHISTAN.) It is carried
to the south-west on a line which is largely defined by the
channels of the Kundar and the Kadanai to a point beyond
the Sind-Peshin terminal station of New Chaman, west of
the Khojak range, and then drops southward to Shorawak and
Nushki. From Nushki it crosses the Helmund desert, touching
the crest of a well-defined mountain watershed for a great
part of the way, and, leaving Chagai to Baluchistan, it
strikes nearly west to the Persian frontier, and joins it on
the Koh-i-Malik Siah mountain, south of Seistan. Two points
of this part of the Afghan boundary are notable. It leaves
some of the most fanatical of the Durani Afghan people on the
Baluch side of the frontier in the Toba district, north of
the Quetta-Chaman line of railway; and it passes 50 m. south
of the Helmund riven enclosing within Afghanistan the only
approach to Seistan from India which is available during the
seasons of Helmund overflow. Between Afghanistan and Persia
the boundary was defined by Sir F. Goldsmid's Commission
in 1872 from the Mahk-Siah-Koh to the Helmund Lagoons, and
rectified by the Commission under Sir Henry Macmahon in
1903-1905. Beyond these lagoons to Hashtadan it is still
indefinite. The eastern limits of Hashtadan had been previously
fixed as far north as the Hari Rud river at Toman Agha. From
this point to Zulfikar the Hari Rud is itself the boundary.
Afghan provinces.
Within the limits of this boundary Afghanistan comprises
four main provinces, Northern Afghanistan or Kabul, Southern
Afghanistan or Kandahar, Herat and Afghan Turkestan, together
with the minor dependencies of the Ghilzai and Hazara
Highlands, Ghazni, Jalalabad and Kafiristan. All these are
described in separate articles. The kingdom of Kabul is the
historic Afghanistan; the link which unites it to Kandahar,
Herat and the other outlying provinces having been frequently
broken and again restored by amirs of sufficient strength and
capability. The Herat province is largely Persian, while
Afghan Turkestan is chiefly Usbeg; and in neither is
the sentiment of loyalty to the central government very
strong. The bond is geographical and political rather than
racial. The geographical divisions of the country are created
by the basins of its chief rivers, the Kabul, the Helmund,
the Hari Rud and the Oxus. The Kabul river drains Northern
Afghanistan, the Hari Rud the province of Herat, and the Oxus
that of Afghan Turkestan. Afghanistan is largely a country
of mountains and deserts; but there are wide tracts of highly
irrigated and most productive country where fruit is grown in
such abundance as to become an important item in the export
trade. The Afghans are expert agriculturists and make profitable
use of all the natural sources of water-supply. As practical
irrigation engineers they are only rivalled by the Chinese.
Mountain systems.
The dominant mountain system of Afghanistan is the Hindu
Kush, and that extension westwards of its water-divide which
reindicated by the Koh-i-Baba to the north-west of Kabul,
and by the Firozkhoi plateau (Karjistan), which merges still
farther to the west by gentle gradients into the Paropamisus,
and which may be traced across the Hari Rud to Mashad.
The culminating peaks of the Koh-i-Baba overlooking the sources
of the Hari Rud, the Helmund, the Kunduz and the Kabul very
nearly reach 17,000 ft. in height (Shah Fuladi, the highest,
is 16,870), and from them to the south-west long spurs divide
the upper tributaries of the Helmund, and separate its basin
from that of the Farah Rud. These spurs retain a considerable
altitude, for they are marked by peaks exceeding 11,000
ft. They sweep in a broad band of roughly parallel ranges to
the south-west, preserving their general direction till they
abut on the Great Registan desert to the west of Kandahar,
where they terminate in a series of detached and broken
anticlinals whose sides are swept by a sea of encroaching
sand. The long, straight, level-backed ridges which divide
the Argandab, the Tarnak and Arghastan valleys, and flank the
route from Kandaharto Ghazni. determining the direction of
that route, are outliers of this system, which geographically
includes the Khojak, or Kwaja Amran, range in Baluchistan.
North of the main water-parting of Afghanistan the broad synclinal
plateau into which the Hindu Kush is merged is traversed by
the gorges of the Saighan, Bamian and Kamard tributaries of the
Kunduz, and farther to the west by the Band-i-Amir or Balkh
river. Between the debouchment of the Upper Murghab from
the Firozkhoi uplands into the comparatively low level of
the valley above Bala Murghab, extending eastwards in a
nearly straight line to the upper sources of the Shibarghan
stream, the Band-i-Turkestan range forms the northern ridge
between the plateau and the sand formations of the Chul. lt
is a level, straight-backed line of sombre mountain ridge,
from the crest of which, as from a wall, the extraordinary
configuration of that immense loess deposit called the Chul
can be seen stretching away northwards to the Oxus--ridge
upon ridge, wave upon wave, like a vast yellow-grey sea of
storm-twisted billows. The Band-i-Turkestan anticlinal may
be traced eastwards of the Balkh-ab (the Band-i-Amir) within
the folds of the Kara Koh to the Kunduz, and beyond; but
the Kara Koh does not mark the northern wall of the great
plateau nor overlook the sands of the Oxus plain, as does the
Band-i-Turkestan. Here there intervenes a second wide synclinal
plateau, of which the northern edge is defined n1y the
fiat outlines of the Elburz to the south of Mazar-itsharif,
and immediately at the foot of this range lie the alluvial
plains of Mazar and Tashkurghan. Opposite Tashkurghan the
Oxus plain narrows to a short 25 m. On the south this great
band of roughly undulatine central plateau is bounded by the
Koh-i-Baba, to the west of Kabul, and by the Hindu Kush to
the north and north-east of that city. Thus the main routes
from Kabul to Afghan Turkestan must cross either one or
other of these ranges, and must traverse one or other of the
terrific defiles which have been carved out of them by the
upoer tributaries of the rivers running northwards towards the
Oxus. Probably in no country in the world are there gathered
together within comparatively narrow limits so many clean-cut
waterways, measuring thousands of feet in depth, affording
such a stupendous system of narrow roadways through the hills.
After the Hindu Kush and the Turkestan mountains, that range
which divides Ningrahar (or the valley of ialalabad) from
Kurram and the Afridi Tirah, and is called Safed Koh (also
the name of the range south of the Hari Rud), is the most
important, as it is the most impressive, in Afghanistan.
The highest peak of the Safed Koh, Sikaram, is 15,600 ft. above
sea-level. From this central dominating peak it falls gently
towards the west, and gradually subsides in long spurs,
reaching to within a few miles of Kabul and barring the road
from Kabul to Ghazni. At a point which is not far east of
the Kabul meridian an offshoot is directed southwards, which
becomes the water-parting between the Kurram and the Logar at
Shutargardan, and can be traced to a connexion with the great
watershed of the frontier dividing the Indus basin from that
of the Helmund. This main watershed retains its high altitude
far to the south. There are peaks measuring over 12,000
ft. on the divide between the Tochi and the Ghazni plains.
So far as we know at present the geological history of Afghanistan
differs widely from that of India. When, somewhere at the
commencement of the Cretaceous period, the peninsula of India
was connected by land with Madagascar and Southern Africa, all
Afghanistan, Baluchistan and Persia formed part of an area
which was not continuously below sea-level, but exhibited
alternations of land and sea. The end of the Cretaceous
period saw the beginning of a series of great earth movements
ushered in by volcanic eruptions on a scale such as the earth
has never since witnessed, which resulted in the upheaval
of the Himalayas by a process of crushing and folding of the
sedimentary rocks till marine fossils were forced to an altitude
of 20,000 ft. above the sea. It was not till the Tertiary
age, and even late in that age, that much of the land area of
Afghanistan was raised above the sea-level. Then the ocean
gradually retired into the great Central Asian depressions.
Everywhere there have been great and constant changes of
level since that period, and the process of flexure and the
formation of anticlinals traversing the northern districts of
Afghanistan is a process which is still in action. So rapid
has been the land elevation of Central Afghanistan that the
erosive action of rivers has not been nble to keep pace with
that of upheaval; and the result all through Afghanistan (but
specially marked in the great central highlands between Kabul
