The village of Jigdilik is not on the hill where the serai is situated, but in the valley at the foot. Here three gorges meet. One was the road by which the ill-fated army came in their retreat from Kabul through the Khurd Kabul Pass. We took another road to the north-west. We climbed up and down over steep mountains and through narrow defiles hemmed in by bare rocks. In the valleys it was rare to see anything but stones, rocks, and pebbles. There was one valley at Katasung where there was a little stream with grass growing by it. This valley, a short time ago, was very dangerous to travel through on account of the highway robberies and murders of a tribe living near. It is safer now, for the Amîr has killed some of them, imprisoned others, and dispersed the rest. We camped at Sei Baba, a narrow valley of pebbles, with a small stream trickling through it. An enterprising peasant, finding water there, had picked all the pebbles off a narrow strip of ground, piled them in a ring round his field, led the water by a trench to it, and had planted some corn. He, however, was nowhere to be seen, nor was there any house or hut there. [Sidenote: Irrigation Terraces.] We occasionally came across these patches among the mountains wherever there was a trickle of water to be obtained. Sometimes they were more extensive than this one, and, if made on the slope of the mountain, the ground was carefully dug and built up into terraces, so that irrigation was possible. In the middle of the Sei Baba valley was a tomb with a low wall all round it, and a solitary tree was growing by. On the tomb were placed two or three pairs of horns of the wild goat. This is done as a mark of great respect. Every passer by, too, throws a stone on a heap by the grave, and strokes his beard while he mutters a prayer. The heap of stones, or “tsalai,” is supposed to be piled only over the graves of holy men or martyrs; but they are heaped over any grave that happens to be apart from others, and by the wayside. The peasants, not knowing, assume it is the grave of a holy man. The custom is said by some to originate by imitation from an act of Mahomed, in which the form but not the spirit of the ceremony, has been retained; for Mahomed, fleeing for refuge to Mecca from Medina, threw stones at the city and cursed it. By others, these heaps of stones are supposed to be representative of the Buddhist funeral pillars, the custom having remained extant since the days when Buddhism was the dominant religion of the people inhabiting this country. The latter seems the more likely explanation.