The rivers on the Quetta-Kandahar route do not present much
impediment to the passage of troops in dry weather, but in flood
they become serious obstacles and cannot be passed until the waters
retire.
The ascent from the east through the Khojak Pass is easy, the
descent on the west very precipitous. A thirteen-foot cart road was
made, over the entire length of twenty miles, by General Biddulph in
1878-9, by which the first wheeled vehicles, which ever reached
Khorassan from India, passed.
From Kandahar (elsewhere described)--which is considered by General
Hamley and other authorities, one of the most important strategic
points in any scheme of permanent defence for India--diverge two
main roads: one a continuation of the Quetta-Herat route bearing
N.W., and one running N.E. to Kabul.
Gen. Biddulph says: "The position of Kandahar near to the slopes of
the range to the westward of the city renders it impossible to
construct works close at hand to cover the road from Herat. The high
ridge and outlying hills dividing Kandahar and its suburbs from the
Argandab valley completely command all the level ground between the
city and the pass.
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