The villagers have their fortlets to retreat to,
and, if they reach them, can pull the ladders over after them and
fire away from their towers.
Dadur is an insignificant town at the foot of the Bolan. From here
the Kandahar road leads for sixty miles through the Pass--a gradual
ascent; in winter there is not a mouthful of food in the entire
length of the defile.
Quetta, compared with the region to the south, appears a very Garden
of Eden. It is a small oasis, green and well watered.
From Quetta to Pishin the road skirts the southern border of a vast
plain, interspersed with valleys, which extend across the eastern
portion of Afghanistan toward the Russian dominion. A study of the
Pishin country shows that it is, on its northwestern side supported
on a limb of the Western Sulimani. This spur, which defines the west
of the Barshor valley, is spread out into the broad plateau of Toba,
and is then produced as a continuous ridge, dividing Pishin from the
plains of Kadani, under the name of Khoja Amran. The Barshor is a
deep bay of the plain, and there is an open valley within the outer
screen of hills. A road strikes off here to the Ghilzai country and
to Ghazni.
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