The Swat Valley, and those to the west and south-west of it, form classic ground, for it was through them that Alexander himself marched on his way to the invasion of India. It was in the winter of 327 B.C. that he left the city he had founded to the north of Kabul, and somewhere west of Jagdallak he divided his force into two parts. Hephæstion, with the heavy troops forming the main body, followed the direct route through the Khyber, marching on an ancient city, the capital of Gandhara, and to the north-east of Peshawar. Alexander, with the light troops, entered the Kunar Valley and crossed the Kunar watershed by the Spinasuka Pass, which leads direct from Pashat, the present capital of Kunar, into Bajaur, and there found himself close to Nawagai, the present chief town of Bajaur. Thence he passed over the Gauraios or Panjkora River some few miles below its junction with the Swat, and so came to the siege and capture of Massaga, identified as Matkanai, near the Malakand Pass, by which Alexander must have crossed from the Swat Valley to the plain country bordering the Indus. The language spoken in Swat is Pushtu, except in Swat Kohistan, where Torwali and Garhwi are used. The best road into Swat from the south is over the Malakand Pass; the Shakot, further to the east, is shorter, but the ascent is steeper, while the Morah Pass entrance is still more difficult. [Sidenote: The Government of Swat] The Government of Swat, like that of all Pathan tribes, is an almost complete democracy. The country is split up into nearly as many factions as there are villages. Each sub-division of each division of each clan has its separate quarrels, and supports its own chief, who is generally at mortal feud with either his own relations or his neighbours, and who is seldom obeyed one instant longer than is convenient; so that nothing short of pressing danger to the whole community from without could ever bring together all the divisions into which Swat is separated. But that which could not be effected by ordinary means has, in a measure, been brought about by the influence of one individual, working on the religious feelings of a mass of grossly ignorant and proportionately bigoted people, such as are the inhabitants of Swat; this man was the late Akhund of Swat. The Akhund exerted such a powerful influence, as already seen in the Ambela campaign, not only over the district of Swat, but over the whole of the Yusafzai border, that an account of him somewhat in detail may not be out of place.