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The country is otherwise open and easily traversable, but only on the main routes can water be readily obtained, and forage is scarce in the winter. The Turnuk valley, running northeast from Kandahar, is followed by the great route to Ghazni and Kabul skirting the Guikok range separated from the Hazaristan to its west by the parallel valley of the Argandab.
The high ridge and outlying hills dividing Kandahar and its suburbs from the Argandab valley completely command all the level ground between the city and the pass. Beyond the gap a group of detached mountains extends, overlooking the approaches, and follows the left bank of the Argandab as far down as Panjwai, fifteen miles distant.
General Biddulph examined this position carefully in 1879, and discovered a site for a work which would command the valley of the Argandab and sweep the elevated open plain toward the west and northwest. Abbaza is a village at the crossing of the Herat road over the Helmund, forty-six miles west of Atta Karez. On the west bank lies the ancient castle of Girishk.
And if we turn to the aspect of the country beyond the gap, we see in the Argandab valley, along the canals and the river banks, a fair and beautiful landscape of village and cultivated ground, stretching for many miles in each direction.
Exactly opposite to the city, and two miles to the westward, there is a wide break in the dividing ridge, through which the road to Herat leads, and by which are conducted the many canals and watercourses, taken from the Argandab, to supply the town and fertilize its environs. The energy and skill displayed in these extensive water-works cannot be too highly extolled.
The country between the Argandab and the Helmund is rolling and inclining gradually from the hills toward the junction of these rivers. The plateau opposite Girishk is 175 feet above the river, which it commands. The Helmund has already been described. There are numerous fords, but, at certain times, bridges would be required for military purposes.
Brought from a point many miles distant in the Argandab valley, the chief canal, with its offshoots, conducts a vast body of water, which is dispersed along the contours of the declining plain in innumerable channels, spreading a rich fertility for many miles in a fan-like form to the southeast of the gap.
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