Page 253

202 The tomb consists of two lofty cupolas, and it suggests that the plan was copied from the Mussallas of Herat. The exterior walls have been retiled. As it is now, there is nothing in the mausoleum to compare it with the buildings and tile-works of Herat; but all the same the general turquoise-blue effect is very pleasing under the bright Afghan sky, surrounded as it is by old trees and flocks of white pigeons flying around it. (3) Mazari-Sharif to Herat: (Distance 507 miles, via Balkh, Aqchah, Shibarghan, Shah Mardan, Maimanah, Murghab, Qala-i-Nao, and Sabzak-Pass). (a) Mazari-Sharif to Balkh (distance 12 miles): Balkh is frankly a great disappointment. One has heard so much of this city that was already of a hoary antiquity when Herodotus wrote his history, that one expects to see something of its past grandeur. As one approaches Balkh by the Aqchah road from the west, one looks anxiously around for some outward signs of its extreme antiquity. They are not altogether wanting, but time and the mellowing hand of nature have rounded off the mounds of debris which lie scattered over miles of the surround- ing country, covered with the fresh green of vegetation that leaves no sign by which to judge the age of its hoary past. It is difficult to get back farther than the age of the terrible conqueror Changez Khan. Beyond these surface ruins and below them, there must be cities, arrayed, as it were, in under- ground flats, one piled on another, strata below strata, till we reach the debris of the pre-Semitic days of Western and Central Asia. It was here that the Aryans laid the foundation of their first city—Bakhdi of Lofty Banners. It existed centuries before the era of Alexander the Great. Of its extreme antiquity there can be no doubt. It is certain that at a very early date it was the rival of Ninevah and of Babylon.