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99 through the Laghman valley ran across it in Bajaur. Consequently former conquerors, such as Alexander the Great and Babar, who advanced from Kabul, and were always concerned in reducing the hill tribes about the Kunar before they entered the plains of India, knew it well. The Kunar valley is among the most lovely of the many lovely valleys of Afghanistan. Flanked by the snow-covered mountains of Khushmund on the west, and the long level water-shed which divides it from Bajaur and Panjkora drainage on the east, it appears as one enters it from Jalalabad side, to be hemmed in and to be very narrow, But it widens out north-ward, a few miles above the entrance, where the ridges of the lofty Khushmund tail off into low altitudes of sweeping hills. The Lower Kunar (or Kooz Kunar) in the early autumn is passing beautiful. Down the tawny plain, backed by purple hills, the river Kunar winds its way, reflecting the azure sky with pure turquoise, blinking and winking with tiny sun-shifts, and running emerald green at the edges, and sharp perpendicular columns of black break the landscape in ordered groups. There are the cypresses which still adorn, in stately rows, the archaic gardens of hamlets which once were flourishing towns. The clustering villages are thick in some parts, so thick that they jostle each other continuously. The villages are white-walled and outwardly clean. The scent of orange-blossoms is luscious and overpowering. It was through these lovely villages that Alexander the Great marched on his way to India (327 B.C.). Perhaps he crossed the Kunar watershed by the Speensuka Pass, which leads direct from Pasht to Bajaur. It was here that the bold invader met the stubborn resistance of the Aspasians or Assakenians (perhaps modern Safis) and was severely wounded.