AFGHANISTAN

63

Balkh, All of them are situated on those lines of drainage
which should (but which do not) reach the Oxus, and all
command a certain amount of cultivated space, and boast
local bazaars and markets. None of them are of political
importance except Mazar-i-Sharif, which is not only the
headquarters of the Governor of Afghan Turkestan, but
is a very sacred Muhammadan centre.
Balkh, the “mother of cities” (said to have been founded
by Nimrod), has figured in ancient history as the central

['1G. 19.—The Russian Position North of Afghanistan.

focus of Asiatic trade, dominating the vast extent of the
lower Oxus plain once cultivated and teeming with a
civilised population. This can never be again. Its
glories have been overshadowed by the sacred shrines of
Mazar-i-Sharif since the ruthless hands of such world’s
destroyers as Chenghiz Khan and his Mongol successors
swept the walls of Balkh from their foundations and
destroyed its inhabitants at recurrent intervals. It is also
possible that the gradual evolutions of Nature, tending
towards the elevation of the Balkh plain, may have had
much to do with the decline of its fertility. Irrigation
has become impossible where irrigation once existed.