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In addition to the narrative of events which had taken place before their eyes, its members brought back invaluable documents concerning the geography of Afghanistan and Cabulistan, the climate, animals, and vegetable and mineral productions of that vast country.

Moreover a very clear and definite notion was obtained of the kind of life led by the founders of the Indo-European race, and the changes brought about in it by the progress of civilization. The Vedas give us a picture of the Aryan race before it migrated to India, and occupied the Punjab and Cabulistan.

The end gained was perhaps rather political than geographical; but science profited, once more, by political needs. Hitherto the little knowledge that had been gained of the regions lying between Cabulistan, India, and Persia, had been as incomplete as it was defective.

As every pilgrimage implies the sale of relics, Herdouar was the centre of an important market, where horses, camels, antimony, asafoetida, dried fruits, shawls, arrows, muslins, cotton and woollen goods from the Punjab, Cabulistan, and Cashmere, were to be had. Slaves, too, were to be bought there from three to thirty years of age, at prices varying from 10 to 150 rupees.

It was the whole or part of the present Cabulistan. The name of Cophene is connected with the river Kophes, supposed to be the same as the present Cabul river, which falls into the Indus, from the west, at Attock, after passing Peshawar. The city of Cabul, the capital of Afghanistan, may be the Kophene of the text; but we do not know that Sang-shao and his guide got so far west.

More exact than most of his predecessors, he had collected and offered to the public a mass of most interesting historical facts, anecdotes, and geographical descriptions. Cabulistan had been, from the middle of the eighteenth century, the scene of a succession of ruinous civil wars.

They retired to their cabin, resolved to escape, even if it cost them their lives. Immediately the "Albatross" resumed her course to the west. During the day at moderate speed she passed over the territory of Cabulistan, catching a momentary glimpse of its capital, and crossed the frontier of the kingdom of Herat, nearly seven hundred miles from Cashmere.