[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF ALEXANDER'S ROUTE]
In the days preceding the use of fire-arms the march of a body of troops through defiles such as the Khurd Kabul or the Jagdallak was comparatively simple. So far from such defiles serving as traps wherein to catch an enemy unawares and destroy him from the cliffs and hills on either side, these same cliffs and hills served rather as a protection. The mere rolling down of stones would not do much mischief, even if they could be rolled down effectively, which is not usually the case; and in hand-to-hand encounters the tribespeople were no match for the armoured Greeks. Alexander's operations would preserve his force from molestation on its northern flank, and the rugged ridges and spread of desolate hill-slopes presented by the Safed Koh and other ranges on the south has never afforded suitable ground for the collection of fighting bodies of men in any great strength. General Stewart marched his force from Kabul to Peshawur in 1880 with his southern flank similarly unprotected with the same successful result, his movements being so timed as to give no opportunity for a gathering of the Ghilzai clans. On the northern flank of the Khaibar route, however, there had been large tribal settlements from the very beginning of things, and it was most important that these outliers should feel the weight of Alexander's mailed fist if the road between Kabul and the Indus were ever to be made secure. He accordingly directed his attention to a more northerly route to India which would bring him into contact with the Aspasians, Gauraians, and Assakenians.
We need not follow the ethnologists who identify these people with certain tribes now existing with analogous names. There may very possibly be remnants of them still, but they are not to be identified. They obviously occupied the open cultivable valleys and alluvial spaces which are interspersed amongst the mountains of the Kabul River basin, the Kohistan and Kafiristan of modern maps. The Gauraians certainly were the people of the Panjkora valley, and there is no difficulty in assigning to the Aspasians the first great fertile tract of open valley which would be encountered on the way eastwards. This is Laghman (or Lamghan) with its noble reach of the Kabul River meeting a snow-fed affluent, the Alingar, from the Kafir hills. There is, indeed, no geographical alternative. Similarly with even a cursory knowledge of the actual geographical conformation of the country, it is impossible to imagine that Alexander would choose any other route from Alexandreia towards Laghman than that which carries him past Kabul. The Koh Daman (the skirts of the hills) which intervene between Alexandreia (or Bagram) and Kabul is one of the gardens of Afghanistan. There one may wander in the sweet springtide amidst the curves and folds of an undulating land, neither hill nor plain, with the scent of the flowering willow in the air, and the rankness of a spring growth of flower and grass bordering narrow runlets and irrigation channels; an unwinking blue above and a varied carpet beneath, whilst the song of the labourer rises from fields and orchards. Westward are the craggy outlines of Paghman (a noble offshoot of the Hindu Kush hiding the loveliness of the Ghorband valley behind it), down whose scarred and wrinkled ribs slide waterfalls and streams to gladden the plain. Piled up on steep and broken banks from the very foot of the mountains are scattered white-walled villages, and it is here that you may find later in the year the best fruit in Afghanistan.