sometimes almost come to blows. Several populous villages are scattered
about the valley within easy range of human vision; the Heri Rood, now
bursting its natural boundaries under the stimulus of the spring floods,
glistens broadly at intervals like a chain of small lakes. The fortress
of Herat is dimly discernible in the distance beyond the river, probably
about twenty miles from our position; it is rendered distinguishable from
other masses of mud-brown habitations by a cluster of tall minarets,
reminding one of a group of factory chimneys. The whole scene, as viewed
from the commanding view of our ridge, embraces perhaps four hundred
square miles of territory; about one-tenth of this appears to be under
cultivation, the remainder being of the same stony, desert-like character
as the average camel-thorn dasht.

Doubtless a good share of this latter might be reclaimed and rendered
productive by an extensive system of irrigating canals, but at present no
incentive exists for enterprise of this character. In its present state
of cultivation the valley provides an abundance of food for the
consumption of its inhabitants, and as yet the demand for exportation is
limited to the simple requirements of a few thousand tributary nomads.
The orchards and green areas about the villages render the whole scene,
as usual, beautiful in comparison with the surrounding barrenness, but
that is all. Compared with our own green hills and smiling valleys, the
Valley of Herat would scarcely seem worth all the noise that has been
made about it. There has been a great amount of sentiment wasted in
eulogizing its alleged beauty. Of its wealth and commercial importance in
the abstract, I should say much exaggeration has been indulged in. Still,
there is no gainsaying that it is a most valuable strategical position,
which, if held by either England or Russia, would exercise great
influence on Central Asian and Indian affairs. Such are my first
impressions of the Herat Valley, and a sojourn of some ten days in one of
its villages leaves my conjectures about the same.

A few miles along a stony and gradually descending trail, and we are
making our way across the usual chequered area of desert, patches,
abandoned fields, and old irrigating ditches that so often tell the tale
of decay and retrogression in the East. These outlying evidences of
decay, however, soon merge into green fields of wheat and barley, poppy
gardens, and orchards, and flowin