58

INDIA

offshoots of the mountains which dominate the province of
Herat south of the Hari Rud. This formation is usually
called “desert” in official publications, but the word is
hardly applicable. Water is indeed scarce, and in the
immediate neighbourhood of the central watershed which
forms the natural boundary between Persia and Afghanistan,
it is unobtainable. But there is a fairly constant vegetation
of scrub—-chiefly wormwood—and the profusion of low-*

 nf

Fig. 16.—The Extension of the Hindu Kush from the Himalayas.

growing plants and flowers which appear after the spring
rains in this wind-swept region entirely belie the appellation
 of desert. The native term for these wide, but not
barren, sandy spaces (which are a marked feature throughout
 Afghanistan and Baluchistan) is “ dasht,” and that word
will be adopted in future to denote an elevated plain, or
talus, extending from the foot-hills of high mountains,
sometimes sandy and affording freedom to lateral movement,
 and sometimes stone-covered and traversable with
difficulty. The ¢dasht” is never entirely devoid of vegeta-