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The next route of importance is that which leads from Balkh, via Bamian, to the Irak Pass on the Hindoo Kush, and into the upper watercourse of the Helmund River, and thence by the Unai over the Paghman range to Kabul. This is the great trade route from the markets of Turkestan and Central Asia generally to Kabul and India.
The Helmund owing to the dry season was passable everywhere, so that nothing was to be gained by watching the fords. It was determined to fall back to Khushk-i-Nakhud, a point distant thirty miles from Girishk and forty-five from Candahar, where several roads from the Helmund converged and where supplies were plentiful.
Even Abdurrahman, who had received kind treatment in the persons of his imprisoned family at Candahar from the English, was not regarded as a factor of any great importance; while Ayoob, the least known of all the chiefs, was deemed harmless only a few weeks before he crossed the Helmund and defeated our troops in the only battle lost during the war.
From Girishk also a road follows the Helmund to Seistan and Lash Jowain, where it joins the Herat road at Farrah on the river of that name, or at Sabzawar on the Herat. The southernmost of the routes to Farrah also branches from Kash down the river named Kash, joining the Seistan route at Lash.
For commissariat reasons one division under Stewart presently moved by the Cabul road on Khelat-i-Ghilzai, which was found empty, the Afghan garrison having evacuated it. Simultaneously with Stewart's departure from Candahar Biddulph marched out a column westward toward the Helmund, remaining in that region until the third week in February.
He paid a visit to the Maharaja, of Cashmere, who said to him: 'From you I hope to get the truth; you are not an Englishman nor a Russian. The same authority approves Sir Michael Biddulph's recommendation to utilize the strong natural positions near Girishk on the Helmund.
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.
By the main Herat-Kandahar route an advance from the east could also be directly opposed; the crossing of the Helmund by either army would probably be contested. In case of war, whether Anglo-Russian or Russo-Afghan, the first great battle would doubtless be fought on the Kandahar-Ghazni-Kabul line.
His native army was not, however, regarded as reliable; and when the news came that Ayoub, a brother of Yakoob, was moving down from Herat, of which town he was the governor, with a large force, a body of British troops advanced with the Wali's army towards Girishk on the river Helmund. On July the 14th the conspiracy which had been going on among the Wali's troops came to a head.
In the meanwhile Yakoub advanced westward from Herat with a strong force, encountered a British brigade, under General Burrows, near the Helmund, and utterly routed it. The remnant of the European force took refuge in Kandahar, where General Primrose was in command. Surrounding the city, Yakoub succeeded in effectually "bottling up" the British garrison for some time.
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