About Huzarnow and on both sides, low ridges of sand occur.  In this sand graves are usually dug, and in some places to an extent indicating dreadful devastations from disease, each grave is headed by a stone, and about every ramification of the irregular size of the burial ground, there is a building of the usual mud structure, designed for a mosque, but not domed as is customary in Mussulman cemeteries, but ornamented with flagstaffs bearing white bits of cloth.  These low sand ridges are often very much undulated; they consist of a very fine powder, and at Huzarnow are evidently of the same nature as the cultivated soil:  they are neither in attachment as it were to the neighbouring hills, nor distinct from them, but always have some communication with the shingly slopes, to which they are evidently inferior.

So that the base of Khorassan may be taken to be the tillable portions, over which occur, to a vast extent, the shingly very barren slopes, which every section shows to be nothing but a mass of debris, resting on the mountain rocks.

9th.—­Ali-Baghan.  To this the road is good, along the right bank of the river, wherever it does not wind along over the spurs forming a considerable part of the march.  To the first point where this occurs, it extends over the same sort of plain as that about Ichardeh; keeping rather close to the bank of the river, it is good, also through the valley of Gundikuss, and from near the Choky, to Ali-Baghan.

The first rocky ridge is about three-quarters of a mile in length, and is not very difficult; at the end near Gundikuss, is a curious ruin built into the stream, where the latter runs with violence on the rocky bank:  it consists of a broadish pathway, with a wall on the river side, breast high; the masonry is good and solid, of the usual Bactrian materials, but well cemented; it has mostly been ruined by the river, only one end being perfect.  Although the materials are Bactrian, the contour is Mussulman, and I was told by some people that it was a Mussulman erection:  originally it perhaps extended all along this part, as slight traces here and there are discernible; for what use the original structure was intended I know not, as there are no remains visible of a fort.

The inlet of Gundikuss is well cultivated, the village itself a large straggling one, built close under a ridge.

From this to the Choky the path is rocky, and in many places very bad, consisting of a series of ascents and descents, and winding round spurs; in the worst place, the path almost overhangs the river 200 feet above its bed, and it is very hard and very rocky.  The distance between ten or eleven miles, the road is impracticable for guns, etc. nor could our camels with loads well get over it.

10th.—­To Camp at the Bussout river, nothing remarkable occurred; immense quantities of Serratuloides on the sandy raviny parts of the road.  Crossed the river on the usual mussuck rafts, the animals forded it, at the quiet head of a rapid, water breast deep:  this river is smaller than that from Kooner.