his countless flocks of sheep and
camels are scattered for the summer grazing" (Holdich's _India_, pp.
80-81).

~Physical features of hilly country between Peshawar and the Gomal
river.~--The physical features of the hill country between Peshawar and
the Gomal pass may best be described in the words of Sir Thomas Holdich:

"Natural landscape beauty, indeed, may here be measured to a
certain extent by altitude. The low ranges of sun-scorched,
blackened ridge and furrow formation which form the approaches to
the higher altitudes of the Afghan upland, and which are almost as
regularly laid out by the hand of nature in some parts of the
frontier as are the parallels ... of the engineer who is besieging
a fortress--these are by no means 'things of beauty,' and it is
this class of formation and this form of barren desolation that is
most familiar to the frontier officer.... Shades of delicate purple
and grey will not make up for the absence of the living green of
vegetation.... But with higher altitudes a cooler climate and
snow-fed soil is found, and as soon as vegetation grasps a
root-hold there is the beginning of fine scenery. The upper
pine-covered slopes of the Safed Koh are as picturesque as those of
the Swiss Alps; they are crowned by peaks whose wonderful altitudes
are frozen beyond the possibility of vegetation, and are usually
covered with snow wherever snow can lie. In Waziristan, hidden away
in the higher recesses of its great mountains, are many valleys of
great natural beauty, where we find the spreading poplar and the
ilex in all the robust growth of an indigenous flora.... Among the
minor valleys Birmal perhaps takes precedence by right of its
natural beauty. Here are stretches of park-like scenery where
grass-covered slopes are dotted with clumps of _deodar_ and pine
and intersected with rivulets hidden in banks of fern; soft green
glades open out to view from every turn in the folds of the hills,
and above them the silent watch towers of Pirghal and Shuidar ...
look down from their snow-clad heights across the Afghan uplands to
the hills beyond Ghazni." (Holdich's _India_, pp. 81-82.)

~The Suliman Range.~--A well-marked mountain chain runs from the Gomal to
the extreme south-west corner of the Dera Ghazi Khan district where the
borders of Biluchistan, Sind, and the