precisely the same as the Japanese lanterns, except that this time the name was ‘Lifeguard’ embossed with a picture of a trooper of the Household Cavalry, and the label ‘Made in Germany’ was more prominent.
The shopkeeper named a price two and a half times the Japanese. I gave up the struggle to support the Empire.
‘It is always better to buy Japanese,’ remarked Ghulam Naabi, when some twenty minutes later he had effected a fifty per centreduction in the price of the Japanese lanterns. ‘Much cheaper. Everything Japanese comes by railway, through Russia.’
We made one last stop to buy six dozen boxes of Russian safety matches, which effectively undercut in price even the Japanese matches, and our shopping was at an end.
I asked Ghulam Naabi whether we should have enough food. He must have understood where my anxiety lay, for he winked and said, ‘Sahib, all will be well. Do not be worried. Am I not a fat man?’
Readers who are not interested in the history and geography of Nuristan should leave off here and start again at Chapter 8.
The country which was our final goal is still, in the second half of the twentieth century, one of the least known in the world. As late as 1910 Colonel Sir Thomas Holdich, in his book, The Gates of India, could write of Nuristan:
Who will unravel the secrets of this inhabited outland, which appears at present to be more impracticable to the explorer than either of the poles?
Nearly fifty years have passed since the Chief Survey Officer of the Indian Section made this challenging statement but, even allowing for a certain exaggeration, there is no doubt that the means of getting into it have not become any easier; neither the aeroplane nor the motor-car has made the slightest difference. To get there you still have to walk.
But it is not only the absence of roads that makes Nuristan difficult. The Afghan Government has displayed understandable reluctance in allowing travellers to enter it; partly because the inhabitants are unpredictable in their reception of foreigners andpartly because potential visitors are suspected of being agents who would stir up trouble.
Nuristan, ‘The Country of Light’, is a mountainous territory in the north-east of Afghanistan, lying between latitudes 34 and 36 north and longitudes 70 and 71–50 east, although some authorities consider that its southern limits extend a few more minutes southwards.
It is walled in on every side by the most formidable mountains. To the north by the main Hindu Kush range, which is the watershed between the Oxus and the deserts of Central Asia and the Indus and the rivers that flow into the Indian Ocean; to the northeast by the Bashgul range, eastwards of the river of that name; to the east and south-east its boundary is the Kunar river to its junction with the Kabul river; and to the south and south-west the mountains which rise on the left bank of the Kabul river.
To the west, the side from which we were approaching it, the boundary is a spur of the Hindu Kush on the east bank of the Panjshir, whose crowning points are Mir Samir and another unnamed mountain to the north-east. The whole of this area including the parts in Chitral has been estimated to cover an area of 5,000 square miles and has been known since early times as Kafiristan, ‘The Country of the Unbelievers’; the larger part, that inside Afghanistan, having been called Nuristan since 1895.
Nuristan is drained by three main rivers. They all have their origins on its northern frontier and they all flow towards the Kabul river, from the great ox-bow bend that the Hindu Kush makes south-west of its junction with the Pamirs and the Karakoram range. The one farthest east is the Bashgul river; in the centre is the Pech and on the west, next to the Panjshir, is the Alingar whose upper waters are called the Ramgul; the Bashgul and the Pech discharging into the Kunar, the Alingar into the Kabul river above Jalalabad. Eventually all are united where
The shopkeeper named a price two and a half times the Japanese. I gave up the struggle to support the Empire.
‘It is always better to buy Japanese,’ remarked Ghulam Naabi, when some twenty minutes later he had effected a fifty per centreduction in the price of the Japanese lanterns. ‘Much cheaper. Everything Japanese comes by railway, through Russia.’
We made one last stop to buy six dozen boxes of Russian safety matches, which effectively undercut in price even the Japanese matches, and our shopping was at an end.
I asked Ghulam Naabi whether we should have enough food. He must have understood where my anxiety lay, for he winked and said, ‘Sahib, all will be well. Do not be worried. Am I not a fat man?’
Readers who are not interested in the history and geography of Nuristan should leave off here and start again at Chapter 8.
The country which was our final goal is still, in the second half of the twentieth century, one of the least known in the world. As late as 1910 Colonel Sir Thomas Holdich, in his book, The Gates of India, could write of Nuristan:
Who will unravel the secrets of this inhabited outland, which appears at present to be more impracticable to the explorer than either of the poles?
Nearly fifty years have passed since the Chief Survey Officer of the Indian Section made this challenging statement but, even allowing for a certain exaggeration, there is no doubt that the means of getting into it have not become any easier; neither the aeroplane nor the motor-car has made the slightest difference. To get there you still have to walk.
But it is not only the absence of roads that makes Nuristan difficult. The Afghan Government has displayed understandable reluctance in allowing travellers to enter it; partly because the inhabitants are unpredictable in their reception of foreigners andpartly because potential visitors are suspected of being agents who would stir up trouble.
Nuristan, ‘The Country of Light’, is a mountainous territory in the north-east of Afghanistan, lying between latitudes 34 and 36 north and longitudes 70 and 71–50 east, although some authorities consider that its southern limits extend a few more minutes southwards.
It is walled in on every side by the most formidable mountains. To the north by the main Hindu Kush range, which is the watershed between the Oxus and the deserts of Central Asia and the Indus and the rivers that flow into the Indian Ocean; to the northeast by the Bashgul range, eastwards of the river of that name; to the east and south-east its boundary is the Kunar river to its junction with the Kabul river; and to the south and south-west the mountains which rise on the left bank of the Kabul river.
To the west, the side from which we were approaching it, the boundary is a spur of the Hindu Kush on the east bank of the Panjshir, whose crowning points are Mir Samir and another unnamed mountain to the north-east. The whole of this area including the parts in Chitral has been estimated to cover an area of 5,000 square miles and has been known since early times as Kafiristan, ‘The Country of the Unbelievers’; the larger part, that inside Afghanistan, having been called Nuristan since 1895.
Nuristan is drained by three main rivers. They all have their origins on its northern frontier and they all flow towards the Kabul river, from the great ox-bow bend that the Hindu Kush makes south-west of its junction with the Pamirs and the Karakoram range. The one farthest east is the Bashgul river; in the centre is the Pech and on the west, next to the Panjshir, is the Alingar whose upper waters are called the Ramgul; the Bashgul and the Pech discharging into the Kunar, the Alingar into the Kabul river above Jalalabad. Eventually all are united where
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