eaches out an arm into the Pamirs
eastwards--bottle-shaped--narrow at the neck (represented by the northern
slopes of the Hindu Kush), and swelling out eastwards so as to include a
part of the great and little Pamirs. Before the boundary settlement of 1873
the small states of Roshan and Shignan extended to the left bank of the
Oxus, and the province of Darwaz, on the other hand, extended to the right
bank. Now, however, the Darwaz extension northwards is exchanged for the
Russian Pamir extension westwards, and the river throughout is the boundary
between Russian and Afghan territory; the political boundaries of those
provinces and those of Wakhan being no longer coincident with their
geographical limits.

The following are the chief provincial subdivisions of Badakshan, omitting
Roshan and Shignan:--On the west Rustak, Kataghan, Ghori, Narin and
Anderab; on the north Darwaz, Ragh and Shiwa; on the east Charan,
Ishkashim, Zebak and Wakhan; and in the centre Faizabad, Farkhar, Minjan
and Kishm. There are others, but nothing certain is known about these minor
subdivisions.

The conformation of the mountain districts, which comprise all the southern
districts of Badakshan and the northern hills and valleys of Kafiristan, is
undoubtedly analogous to that of the rest of the Hindu Kush westwards. The
water-divide of the Hindu Kush from the Dorah to the Khawak pass, _i.e._
through the centre of Kafiristan, has never been accurately traced; but its
topographical conformation is evidently a continuation of that which has
been observed in the districts of Badakshan to the west of the Khawak. The
Hindu Kush represents the southern edge of a great central upheaval or
plateau. It breaks up into long spurs southwards, deep amongst which are
hidden the valleys of Kafiristan, almost isolated from each other by the
rugged and snow-capped altitudes which divide them. To the north the
plateau gradually slopes away towards the Oxus, falling from an average
altitude of 15,000 ft. to 4000 ft. about Faizabad, in the centre of
Badakshan, but tailing off to 1100 at Kunduz, in Kataghan, where it merges
into the flat plains bordering the Oxus.

The Kokcha river traverses Badakshan from south-east to north-west, and,
with the Kunduz, drains all the northern slopes of the Hindu Kush west of
the Dorah pass. Some of its sources are near Zebak, close to the great bend
of the Oxus northwards, so that it cuts off all the mountainous area
included withi