kindly supplied by my friend Major Wade with a map taken principally
from the one executed by the late Lieutenant Sturt.]

To the traveller whose experience of mountain scenery is confined to
Switzerland, the bold rocks and rich though narrow valleys of the
frontiers of Toorkisth[=a]n offer all the charms of novelty; the lower
ranges of hills are gloomy and shrubless, contrasting strikingly with
the dazzling, yet distant splendour of the snowy mountains. It is
an extraordinary fact, that throughout the whole extent of country
occupied by these under features, which presents every variety of form
and geological structure, there are scarcely any hills bearing trees
or even shrubs; every valley, however, is intersected by its native
stream, which in winter pursues its headlong course with all the
impetuosity of a mountain torrent, but in the summer season glides
calmly along as in our native meadows.

The multitude and variety of well-preserved fossils which are imbedded
in the different strata of the Toorkisth[=a]n hills would amply reward
the researches of the Geologist, and to the Numismatologist this
portion of Asia proves eminently interesting, Balkh and other
localities in its vicinity abounding in ancient coins, gems, and other
relics of former days; and I much regret that I was unable to reach
the field from whence I expected to gather so rich a harvest.




CHAPTER II.