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INDIA

route followed by the Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission
 party on its return from Turkestan to Kabul in 1886,
and it has since been developed into a highroad ; but the
Chahardar Pass is too elevated to be always practicable in
the winter months. Curiously enough it was neither of
these two passes, but one intermediate, called the Kaoshan,
or Hindu Kush (14,300 feet) (the name of which was subsequently
 transferred to the whole mountain range), which
has been the recognised gateway through all ages from
High Asia into Kabul and India. It was well known to
the Greeks, and Alexander made use of it, assisted no
doubt by Kyrenian emigrants who were already colonising
Andarab in Badakshan. Long before the time of the
Greek it was the pass utilised by the inrushing hordes of
Aryans, Skyths, Goths, Turks, and Mongols, who have
overwhelmed Kabul from time immemorial, and who
finally peopled India. It is, indeed, the highway of history
from High Asia to India. Even those mighty bands of
emigrants, who started from the north of China to discover
a more congenial home in the south, appear to have
passed westwards to this entrance, finding no way across
‘he Hindu Kush and its great offshoots farther east.
But the great altitude of the Kaoshan renders it liable
to interruption for many months in the year, and the
natural difficulties of other passes of less altitude having
been overcome by artificial means, this historical pass
will in future rank low in the scale of practicable gateways
 to the plains of Kabul. Another historical crossing
of the main watershed between Turkestan and Afghanistan
occurs west of Kabul, where the Kotal-i-Irak (13,500 feet)
leads into the valley of Bamian, so celebrated for its rockcut
 figures and other Buddhist relics ; but west of this we
may search in vain for any open way southwards from
the Oxus basin till we reach Herat; for the Koh-i-Baba,
the Band-i-Baidn, and other ranges north, of Herat, merging
 into each other, form one continuous chain of elevated
water parting, which, with the intricate system of subsidiary
spurs thrown off northwards, present an effectual barrier
to approach from the north. Thus, noting that the