]
[Illustration: Khelat-i-Ghilzi, between Kandahar and Ghazni.]
The great obstacle to the satisfactory operation of the transport
system was its novelty and experimental character, and that its
organization had to be combined with its execution. Besides which,
cholera broke out in June and swept away three hundred employes.
Grazing camps were established in the neighborhood of the Bolan Pass
for the bullocks, and aqueducts built for the conveyance of a water
supply; one of these was of masonry, more than a mile in length,
from Dozan down to the Bolan. It has been stated that grazing was
scarce in the region of the Bolan: in 1879 more than four thousand
bullocks were grazed there during the summer, and large quantities
of forage were cut for winter use.
Any prolonged military operations in Afghanistan must, to a certain
extent, utilize hired transport, although there are many objections
urged.
Sir Richard Temple said (1879): "That the amount of transport
required for active service, such as the late campaign in
Afghanistan, is so great that to hire transport is synonymous to
pressing it from the people of the district from which it is hired,
and impressment of the means of transport must lead to impressment
of drivers, who naturally (having no interest whatever in the
campaign in which they are called upon to serve) render the most
unwilling service and take the earliest opportunity of rendering
their animals unserviceable in hopes of escaping a distasteful duty.
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