Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/870

836 KANDAHAR the Kojak range, on the far side of which from Kandahar lies the valley of Pishin. The passage of the Kojak involves a rise and fall of some 2300 feet, but an excellent road now crosses the pass. The proposed line of railway | to Kandahar follows an easier but comparatively waterless route, turning the Kojak at Gwaja (about 25 miles south west of the Kojak Pass), and involving no serious gradients. Between the Pishin valley and India are several routes, all more or less open to a force equipped for mountain war fare, of which the best known are the Bolan and the Chappar (or Nan) passes from the plateau of Afghanistan to the plains of Sind at Jacobabad ; and the Zh6b and the B6ri valley routes leading through the Sulimani range to Dera Ismail and Dera Ghazi Khan respectively. The Bori valley was the line followed by Sir M. Biddulph in 1879, and it diverges but slightly from that known as the Thal-Chotiali route. Thus Kandahar becomes a sort of focus of all the direct routes converging from the wide-stretching western frontier of India towards Herat and Persia, and the fortress of Kandahar gives protection on the one hand to trade between Hindustan and Herat, and on the other it lends to Cabul security from Herat invasion. Kandahar is approximately a square-built city, sur rounded by a wall of about 3f miles circuit, and from 25 to 30 feet high, with an average breadth of 15 feet. Out side the wall is a ditch 1 feet deep. The city and its defences are entirely mud-built, with no pretensions to architectural beauty. There are four main streets crossing each other nearly at right angles, the central "chouk" being covered with a dome. These streets are wide and bordered with trees, and are flanked by shops with open fronts and verandahs much after the universal fashion of the East. There are no buildings of any great pretension in Kandahar, a few of the more wealthy Hindus occupying the best houses. The tomb of Ahmed Shah is the only attempt at monumental architecture. This, with its rather handsome cupola, and the twelve minor tombs of Ahmed Shah s children grouped around, contains a few good speci mens of fretwork and of inlaid inscriptions. The four streets of the city divide it into convenient quarters for the accommodation of its mixed population of Duranis, Ghilzais, Parsiwans, and Kakuris, numbering in all some 30,000 souls. Of these the greater proportion are the Parsiwans (chiefly Kizilbashes). It is reckoned that there are 1600 shops and 182 mosques in the city. The mullas of these mosques are generally men of considerable power. The walls of the city ( are pierced by the four principal gates of " Cabul," " Shikar- pur," "Herat/ and the "Idgah," opposite the four main streets, with two minor gates, called the Top Khana and the Barclurani respectively, in the western half of the city. The Idgah gate passes through the citadel, which is a square built enclosure with sides of about 260 yards in length. The flank defences of the main wall are insuffi cient ; indeed there is no pretence at scientific structure about any part of the defences ; but the site of the city is well chosen for defence, and the water supply (drawn by canals from the Argandab or derived from wells) is good. About 4 miles west of the present city, stretched along the slopes of a rocky ridge, and extending into the plains at its foot, are the ruins of the old city of Kandahar as it existed until it was sacked and plundered by Nadir Shah in 1738. From the top of the ridge a small citadel overlooks the half-buried ruins. On the north east face of the hill forty steps, cut out of solid limestone, lead up ward to a small, dome-roofed recess, which contains some interesting Persian inscriptions cut in relief on the rock, recording particulars of the history of Kandahar, and denning the vast extent of the kingdom of the emperor IJalxjr. Popular belief ascribes the founda tion of the old city to Alexander the Great. Although Kandahar has long ceased to be the seat of government, it is nevertheless by far the most important trade centre in Afghanistan, and the revenues of the Kandahar province assist largely in supporting the chief power at Cabul. There are no manufactures or industries of any importance peculiar to Kandahar, but the long lines of bazaars display goods from England, Russia, Hindustan, Persia, and Turkestan, embracing a trade area as large probably as that of any city in Asia. The customs and town dues together amount to a sum equal to the land revenue of the Kan dahar province, which is of considerable extent, stretching to Pul-i- Sangin, 10 miles south of Khelat-i-Ghilzai on the Cabul side, to the Helmand on the west, and to the Hazara country on the north. Although Farrah has been governed from Kandahar since 1863, its revenues are not reckoned as a part of those of the province. The land revenue proper is assessed in grain, the salaries of Govern ment officials, pay of soldiers, &c. , being disbursed by "barats" or orders for grain at rates fixed by Government, usually about 20 per cent, above the city market prices. The land revenue for the year 1877-78 amounted to 640,000 rupees English. English goods imported from Kurrachee pay upwards of 18 per cent, on their value at Kandahar. By the time they are exposed for sale at Herat they pay upwards of 28 per cent, ad valorem. Nevertheless the greater part of the English goods sold at Herat are imported by Kurrachee and Kandahar a fact which testifies to the great insecurity of trade between Meshhed and Herat. Some of the items included as town dues are curious. For instance, the tariff on animals exposed for sale includes a charge of 5 per cent, ad valorem on slave girls, besides a charge of 1 rupee per head. The kidney fat of all sheep and the skins of all goats slaughtered in the public yard are perquisites of Government, the former being used for the manufacture of soap, which, with snuff, is a Government monopoly. The imports consist chiefly of English goods, indigo, cloth, boots, leather, sugar, salt, iron, and copper, from Hindustan, and of shawls, carpets, "barak" (native woollen cloth), postins (coats made of skins), shoes, silks, opium, and carpets from Meshhed, Herat, and Turkestan. The exports are wool, cotton, madder, cum min seed, asafcetida, fruit, silk, and horses. The system of coinage is also curious : 105 English rupees are melted down, and the alloy extracted, leaving 100 rupees worth of silver ; 295 more English rupees are then melted, and the molten metal mixed with the 100 rupees silver; and out of this 808 Kandahari rupees are coined. As the Kandahari rupee is Avorth about 8 annas (half an English rupee) the Government thus realizes a profit of 1 per cent. Govern ment accounts are kept in "Kham" rupees, the "Kham" being worth about five-sixths of a Kandahari rupee ; in other words, it about equals the franc, or the Persian "keran." Immediately to the south and west of Kandahar is a stretch of well-irrigated and highly cultivated country, but it is the valley of the Argandab that possesses the chief local wealth of agriculture, and which, from the luxuriant abundance of its orchards and vineyards, offers the most striking scenes of landscape beauty. The wide extent of the pomegranate fields forms a striking feature in the valley, the pomegranates of Kandahar, with its "sirdar" melons and grapes, being unequalled in quality by any in the East. The vines are grown on artificial banks, probably for want of the necessary wood to trellis them, the grapes being largely exported in a semi-dried state. Fruit, indeed, besides being largely exported, forms the chief staple of the food supply of the inhabitants throughout Afghanis tan. The art of irrigation is so well understood that the water supply is at times exhausted, no river water being allowed to run to waste. The plains about Kandahar are chiefly watered by canals drawn from the Argandab near Baba-wali, and conducted through the same gap in the hills which admits the Herat road. The amount of irrigation and the number of water channels form a considerable impediment to the movement of troops, not only immediately about Kandahar, but in all districts where the main rivers and streams are bordered by green bands of cultivation. Irrigation by "karez" is also largely resorted to. The karez is a system of underground channelling which usually taps a sub-surface water supply at the foot of some of the many rugged and apparently waterless hills which cover the face of the country. The broad nullahs which seam their sides frequently possess a supply of water some distance below the surface which can be tapped by boring. The water is not brought to the surface, but is carried over long distances by an underground channel or drain, which is constructed by sinking shafts at intervals along the required course, and connecting the shafts by tunnelling. The general agricultural products of the country are wheat, barley, pulse, fruit, madder, asaicetida, lucerne, clover, and tobacco. Of the mineral resources of the Kandahar district not much is known, but an abandoned gold mine exists about 2 miles north of the town. Some general idea of the resources of the Kandahar district may be gathered from the fact that it supplied the British troops with everything except luxuries during the entire period of occupation in 1879-81 ; and that, in spite of the great strain thrown on those resources by the presence of the two armies of Ayub Khan and of General Roberts, and after the total failure of the autumn crops and only a partial harvest the previous spring, the army was fed without great difficulty until the final evacua tion, at one-third of the prices paid in Quetta for supplies drawn from India.