AFGHANISTAN

59

tion. Occasionally it is carpeted with grass and flowers,
knee-deep and compact, something like an American
prairie. The “dasht” is indeed to the nomadic peoples of
these border countries what the prairie is, or was, to the
Red Indian— his home, his world, the support of his flocks
and herds, his happy hunting-ground. Absolutely barren
desert is rare in Southern Asia. Where it occurs it is

F16. 17.—Boundaries of Afghanistar

usually in connection with “kavirs” or swamps where salt
strata underlying the soil effectually destroys all vegetable
growth for many miles around a central depression.
A short space of demarcated boundary occurs near
Hashtidun before touching the banks of the Hari Rud
(the river of Herat), not far from the old town of Kuhsan.
Thenceforward it is marked by the course of the stream
to the now historical Russian post of Zulfikar, from which
point to the Oxus River near Khamiab it was demarcated
and defined by pillars erected during the progress of the