the line of hills between the Arghandab and the Tarnak may be crossed close to Kalat-i-Ghilzai; but of the two former it may be said that they are not ways open to the passage of Afghan armies owing to the hereditary hostility existing between the Aeimak and Hazara tribes and the Afghans generally, while the latter is not beyond striking distance from Kandahar. The one great high road from Herat and the Persian frontier to India is that which passes by Farah and crosses the Helmund at Girishk. Between Kandahar and India the road is comparatively open, and would be available for railway communication but for the jealous exclusiveness of the Afghans. To the north-west, and parallel to the long ridges of the Tarnak watershed, stretches the great road to Kabul, traversed by Nott in 1842, and by Stewart and subsequently by Roberts in 1880. Between this and the direct route to Peshin is a road which leads through Maruf to the Kundar river and the Guleri pass into the plains of Hindustan at Dera Ismail Khan. This is the most direct route to northern India, but it involves the passage of some rough country, across the great watershed between the basins of the Helmund and the Indus. But the best known road from Kandahar to India is that which stretches across the series of open stony plains interspersed with rocky hills of irregular formation leading to the foot of the Kwaja Amran (Khojak) range, on the far side of which from Kandahar lies the valley of Peshin. The passage of the Kwaja Amran involves a rise and fall of some 2300 ft., but the range has been tunnelled and a railway now connects the frontier post of New Chaman with Quetta. Two lines of railway now connect Quetta with Sind, the one known as the Harnai loop, the other as the Bolan or Mashkaf line. They meet at Sibi (see BALUCHISTAN). Several roads to India have been developed through Baluchistan, but they are all dominated from Kandahar. Thus Kandahar becomes a sort of focus of all the direct routes converging from the wide-stretching western frontier of India towards Herat and Persia, and the fortress of Kandahar gives protection on the one hand to trade between Hindustan and Herat, and on the other it lends to Kabul security from invasion by way of Herat.