West of Kafirstan across the Hindoo Kush
are, as we have said, passes innumerable, but only three which
need be regarded as practicable for an advancing force, all the
others more or less converging into these three. These are the
Khak, the Kaoshan (or Parwan, also called Sar Alang), and the
Irak. The Khak leads from Kunduz _via_ Ghori and the valley of
the Indarab to the head of the Panjshir valley. Its elevation is
about thirteen thousand feet. It is described as an easy pass,
probably practicable for wheeled artillery. The Panjshiris are
Tajaks, and, like the Kohistanis generally, are most bigoted
Suniu Mohammedans. The rich and highly cultivated valley which
they inhabit forms a grand highway into Kohistan and Koh Dahman;
but all this land of terraced vineyards and orchards, watered by
snow-cold streams from the picturesque gorges and mountain
passes of the Hindoo Kush and Paghman mountains,--this very
garden of Afghanistan, stretching away southwards to the gates
of Kabul, is peopled by the same fierce and turbulent race who
have ever given the best fighting men to the armies of the
Amirs, and who have rendered the position of Kabul as the ruling
capital of Afghanistan a matter of necessity; with their
instincts of religious hostility, it will probably be found that
the Kohistani, rather than the Hindoo Kush, is the real barrier
between the north and the south.
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