“Waziristan,” writes Holdich, “the land of the Waziris or Wazirs, constitutes a little independent mountain state, geographically apart from the larger mountain systems to the north and south. No roads through Waziristan lead to Afghanistan—at least no roads that are better than mere mountain footpaths. Of these there is no lack at any part of the frontier. North of Waziristan the Tochi Valley affords a through route about which we know little; and south of it the Gomal Valley leads to Ghazni; but at the back of Waziristan, between it and the plateau or high-land of Afghanistan, there is a band of rough hills packed in more or less parallel lines across the path from India, which shuts off the head of the Tochi from the Ghazni plains, and forms the barrier through which the Gomal breaks ere it reaches the open stony plain of Wana. Wana lies to the south-west of Waziristan. From the Gomal River southward commences the true Suleimani mountain system, presenting a band of rugged, serrated ridges, facing the Indus, and preserving the attitude of an impenetrable barrier (an attitude which is, after all, only a magnificent assumption) between the plains of the Indus and Afghanistan.... Waziristan is sufficiently far north to partake rather of the characteristics of the mountains of the Kurram and Safed Koh than of the Suleiman Hills to the south. There are pine trees and grand deodars on the far slopes of Waziristan to the west; there are magnificent ilex (oak) trees, which throw broad square spaces of solid shade. The young ilex sprouts all over the lower slopes of the hills, imitating holly in its early stages. The spreading poplar is the glory of many a village, and the ubiquitous bher, or jujube, is in every low-lying nullah. And Waziristan possesses a glorious group of mountains, culminating in two giant peaks—Shuidar, or Sheikh Haidar, to the north, Pirghal to the south—each of them rising 11,000 feet above the plains of the Indus, and standing like twin sentinels, guardians of the western passes of the country. From Shuidar, looking northward, one may see the flat, white back of the Safed Koh, which divides the Khyber from the Kurram, culminating in Sika Ram (16,000 feet), and from Pirghal, the craggy outline of Kaisarghar, the highest peak of the mountain called the Takht-i-Suleiman, bars further view to the south. From both peaks westward there stretches a boundless vista of ridge and hazy plain, a diapason of tender distances fainting to lighter tints of blue, till it is only against the yellowing evening sky that the pale silhouette of the hills that stand about Ghazni can be detected.... The wide cultivated ramp formed by the valley of the Tochi to the north of Waziristan, as well as the more restricted valley of the Gomal to the south, are both of them highroads to Ghazni. They figure in history, though no modern force has ever made use of them. Tradition points to the former as the route sometimes selected by that arch-raider of the