There is a good deal of cultivation all round the town, which is situated on a sloping mound, separated by the ditch from the ridge forming the northern boundary of the valley, up which the Cabul road runs; there is a small mosque on this ridge, and below it, within 400 yards of the ramparts, a small village, from which the attack was best seen.  The gardens are as usual walled, and are all capable of irrigation, the plots being covered with fine grass or clover.  Apples, apricots, pears, and plums much like the Orlean’s plum, a sort of half greengage, bullace, Elaeagnus, and mulberries, are the principal fruit trees; of these the pear is the best, it is small but well flavoured; the others are indifferent.  There are many vineyards dug into shallow trenches:  the plum is allied to the egg-plum, but altogether there are four kinds.

The chief vegetation of the uncultivated ground is a small Salsola, Salsola luteola, this is mixed with Peganum, Santalaceae, Senecionoides glaucescens, Umbelliferoid bicornigera, Composita, having the decurrent part of the leaves dislocated and hanging down.  Centaurea spinescens, Linaria, Joussa, and one or two Astragali.

The vegetation, with the exception of an Artemisia indicae similis, a Malvacea, and an Orobanche growing on Cucumis sp., is precisely the same as that met with from Mookhloor hither, Cichorium, Polygonum graminifolium natans, and two others, Rumex, Mentha, Epilobium micranthum, Dandelion, Plantago major, Panicum.

There are two kinds of willow trees; Thermopsis is not uncommon, Centaurea magnispina and Zygophyllum of Candahar are very common, Sisymbrium, Lophia, Hyoscyamus, Centaurea cyanea, Tauschia.  Magpies, Hoopoes, Pastor roseus.  Corvus corax, etc., along the water-cuts.

Some fine Poplars occur at a village, or rather a Fuqeer’s residence; about one and a half mile to the south-west of the town on the road to Candahar, and about it, one or two Carduaceae, one a fine one, to be called C. zamufolia, Pomacea acerifolia, also in gardens:  among the cultivated plants are maize, fennel, aniseed?  Solarium, Bangun!  Madder, the beautiful clover of Mookhloor, lucerne, melons, watermelons, cresses, L. sativum, radishes, onions, beetroot.

There are no ruins indicating a very extensive old city.  About our camp are the remains of bunds and old mud walls; near us, and between us and the city, are two minars, with square tall pedestals, of burnt brick, about 100 feet high, and 600 paces apart:  there is nothing striking about them, although they bear evidences of greater architectural skill than any thing I have seen in the country, excepting the interior of Ahmed Shah’s tomb.  The base is angular, fluted, and equals the capital, which is but little thicker towards its base.  They are brick, and derive their beauty from the diversity in the situation of the bricks.  The one nearest the city is the smaller, and appears perfect, it is likewise provided with a staircase:  the larger one is broken at the top of the capital.