AFGHANISTAN

101

the Kuram, the Tochi, and the Gomal. The province is
officially known as the North-West Frontier province.

As in the case of Baluchistan, it is the Indian Survey records which
have furnished most of the material for this chapter combined with the
author's unpublished notes. The Afghan War of 1839-42 originated
much literature on the subject of Afghanistan, but it has (with the exseption
 of Broadfoot’s remarkable exploration between the Indian frontier
and Ghazni) been superseded by more recent surveys and explorations
carried out in connection with the Afghan War of 1878-80, the Russo-Afghan
 Boundary Commission of 1883-86, and subsequent geographical
researches on the Indian frontier by the native employees of the Indian
Survey Department. It is only within recent years that the border line
of mountains has been mapped, and the progress of the mapping has
led to better information on the kindred subjects of ethnography and
history than existed before. The most important contributor to our
tnowledge of Afghan ethnography is Dr. H. W. Bellew, C.5.1, whose
paper in the Asiatic Quarterly Review of 1891 gives a fairly concise
epitome of his views on the subject. For notes on the geology of the
country I am indebted to Major C. L. Griesbach, C.S.L. (once head of
the Indian Geological Department), who enjoyed unusual opportunities
for its examination. Since the close of the Russo-Afghan Boundary
Commission, Sir G. Robertson's  Kaffiristan ” gives the best account
we possess of an outlying province of Afghanistan. For any account of
Badakshan and the outlying districts reaching to the Pamirs, we must
refer to the records of the Pamir Boundary Commission and the report
of the Forsyth Mission to Yarkand. The best map of Afghanistan is
the Indian Survey compilation on the scale of 16 miles=1 inch; obtainable
 at Calcutta.