Page 35

20 Afghanistan. A branch of it leads to Kilat-i-Ghilzai and Katawaz. Trade is carried over it on camels, horses and ponies. The fifth is the Bolan Pass route, which starts from Quetta (5,000 ft.) and goes along the Khojak Pass and via Chaman (4,450 ft.) reaches Kandahar (3,340 ft.) in Southern Afghanistan. From Kandahar it passes farther into the interior of the country and goes to Herat via Farah in Western Afghanistan. From Chaman to Kandahar there is now an excellent motor road 70 miles long, which carries a considerable part of the trade of the country. There are also some minor routes from Jalalabad to Bajaur and Swat via the Kunar valley. Alexander, the Great, during his march on India (327 B.C.) made use of one of these routes. Rivers & Lakes. Afghanistan, though well-watered, has few large rivers for a country of such a size. With the exception of the Amu (the Oxus), in the extreme north, which forms the natural boundary between Russian Turkestan and Afghanistan, there is no river in the whole of the country which is not fordable throughout its course for the greater part of the year. Afghanistan is a closed basin, having no outlet to the open sea. Its maritime province, Baluchistan, was snatched from it in 1876, and incorporated with British India. Except the Kabul and its tributaries and a few small rivers in the south-east, which flow into the Indus, all the rivers of Afghanistan are either absorbed inland or disappear in the neighbouring countries. Though most of these rivers are not suitable for navigation they offer great potentialities for the development of combined irrigation and hydro-electric projects. But the greatest drawback in this