Abdur Rahman did not confine his work of reorganisation solely to the military system of Afghanistan. He devoted great attention to the military roads of the state, realising that a system of communications was as important as a well-equipped and efficiently-organised army. Kabul, as the capital, was united with Badakshan on the east, with Turkestan on the north and with Kandahar and Herat on the south and west. Prior to these works certain native roads did exist between the several centres; but it was due to the activity and initiative of the late Amir that improvements were introduced, or altogether new lines of communication opened. Undeterred by the difficulties which beset his engineers and as an index to the consistent vigour with which he assisted the development and execution of his policy, he threw roads across the Hindu Kush, facilitating by these means not only the trend of inter-provincial trade, but the pacification and administration of his provinces. In addition to these strategic roads, he improved the trade routes which led into the country from the Trans-Oxus, India and Persia. In the south the Khyber, Kurram and the Gomul routes received notice; in the north there were the routes from Russian Turkestan leading through well-known centres to points of admission upon the Afghan border. After the subjugation of Kafiristan he took the precaution of making a military road through that country from north to south, thus opening up communication with the Kunar Valley, and Jelalabad, where considerable numbers of troops are always stationed. Further, he directed that it should eventually be carried over the western Hindu Kush so as to give a better route to Kataghan, Badakshan, and the upper Oxus Valley. This portion of the work was finished in March 1904. The northern terminus of the road is at Faizabad, the principal town of Badakshan, where caravan routes meet from Bokhara on the north-west, the Pamirs and Kashgar on the north-east. The Afghan Government have constructed _serais_ at all the halting-places, and caravans are encouraged to use the road in preference to that through Chitral. Curiously enough in another direction, the construction of fortresses, Abdur Rahman was more neglectful. If he improved the lines of communication and re-organised the state of the army he built but few forts, relying almost entirely upon those which already had been constructed. Nowadays with the exception of the Kabul positions, Dehdadi, Mazar-i-Sharif and Baldak Spin, the two latter of which he built to command the approaches to Balkh and Kandahar, there are no modern forts in the kingdom. Those that do exist are made of mud and are of insufficient strength to withstand bombardment. The great majority serve merely as garrison depôts and are without interest save as interesting ruins. The list is as follows: