A short distance above the fort commences the ascent toward the Peiwar Pass (8,000 feet alt.), twenty-four miles distant. The road, thickly bordered with cedar and pine trees, is covered with boulders and is very difficult, and from the village of Peiwar--one of many _en route_, of the usual Afghan fortified type--it leads through a winding defile to the top of the pass. Here the road is confined by perpendicular chalk rocks, the summits of which are covered with scrub timber and a luxurious growth of laurel. On the farther side of the pass the road ascends to the height of the Hazardarakht, (which is covered with snow in the winter), and then climbs to the Shuturgurdan Pass (11,375 feet alt.), reaching a plateau on which the snow lies for six months of the year; thence it descends into the fertile Logar valley and reaches Akton Khel, which is only fifty-one miles from Kabul. The total length of this route is about 175 miles. The third, or Dera-Ismail-Khan-Sargo-Ghazni, route passes through a region less frequented than those mentioned, and is not thought sufficiently difficult for detailed description. Passing due west, through seventy miles of mountain gorges destitute of supplies or forage, it debouches, through the Gomal Pass, into a more promising country, in which forage may be obtained. At this point it branches to Ghazni, Kandahar, and Pishin respectively. A road exists from Mooltan, crossing the Indus at Dera-Ghazi-Khan, Mithunkot, Rajanpur, Rojan, Lalgoshi, Dadur to Quetta, and was utilized by General Biddulph, from whose account of his march from the Indus to the Helmund, in 1879, is gleaned the following. The main point of concentration for the British forces, either from India or from England via Kurrachee is thus minutely described.