point of much importance and commanded one of the chief routes between Turkestan and India. Hsuan Tsang, the Chinese traveller, who passed through it in the 7th century, states that there were then two folding doors or gates, cased with iron and hung with bells, placed across the pass. Clavijo, the Spanish ambassador to the court of Timur, heard of this when he passed through the defile nearly 800 years later, but the gates had then disappeared. The Surkhan valley is highly cultivated, especially in its upper portion. It supplies Bokhara with corn and sheep, but its chief products are rice and flax. The town of Hissar (pop. 15,000) commands the entrance into the fertile valleys of the Surkhan and Kafirnihan, just as Kabadian at the southern end of the latter defends them from the south. Hissar was long famous for its damascened swords and its silk goods. Kulab produces wheat in abundance, and gold is brought thither from the surrounding districts. Kabadian is a large, silk-producing town, and is surrounded with rice-fields. The population consists principally of Uzbegs and Tajiks, the former predominating and gradually pushing the Tajiks into the hills. On the banks of the Amu there are Turkomans who work the ferries, drive sheep and accompany caravans. Lyuli (gipsies), Jews, Hindus and Afghans are other elements of the population. The climate of the valleys of Hissar and Kulab is pleasant, as they are protected by mountains to the north and open towards the south. They produce all the cereals and garden plants indigenous to Central Asia. Cotton is grown in the district of Shirabad; and cotton, wheat, flax, sheep and rock-salt are all exported. _History._--This country was anciently part of the Persian empire of the Achaemenidae, and probably afterwards of the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom, and then subject to the invading Asiatic tribes who broke up that kingdom, e.g. the Yue-chi. It was afterwards conquered by the Ephthalites or White Huns, who were subdued by the Turks in the early part of the 7th century. It then became subject successively to the Mahommedan invaders from Persia, and after to the Mongol dynasty of Jenghiz Khan, and to Timur and his successors. It subsequently became a cluster of Uzbeg states and was annexed by the amir of Bokhara (q.v.) in 1869-1870, soon after the Russian occupation of Samarkand. (J. T. Be.; C. El.)