Across those dreary uplands, or else wandering blindfold along the bottom of the river troughs, run the roads and tracks of the country; some of them being the roads of centuries of busy traffic. A little apart from the obvious route supplied by the lower course of the Balkh Ab, and more important as leading more directly to the crest of the main divide, is the road from Mazar to the Band-i-Amir district which is practically the best road to Kabul. This strikes on to the plateau and crosses several minor passes over spurs dividing the heads of certain eastern affluents of the Balkh Ab before it drops into the trough of the Darra Yusuf. Following the course of this river, and skirting the towns of Kala Sarkari and Sadmurda, it strikes off from its head over a pass called Dandan Shikan (the "tooth-breaker") into the Kamard valley which runs eastwards into the big river of Badakshan--the Kunduz. From Kamard over three passes into the Saigan--another valley draining deeply eastwards into the Kunduz. From this again, two parallel routes and passes southward connect Saigan with the Bamian depression. Here the river of Bamian also runs east, parallel to Saigan and Kamard (the three forming three parallel depressions in the general plateau land), but meeting an affluent draining from the east, the two join and curve northward into the Kunduz. This new affluent from the east is important, for it leads over the easy Shibar Pass into the head of the Ghorband valley and to Charikar. Finally, there is the well-travelled route from Bamian, leading southward over the Hajigak Pass into the Helmund valley at Gardandiwal, where it crosses the river and then proceeds _via_ the Unai Pass and Maidan to Kabul. Such is the general system of the Balkh communications with Kabul. From Tashkurghan, east of Mazar, there are other routes equally important. There is a direct road southward, which starts through an extraordinary defile, where perpendicular walls of slippery rock enclose a narrow cleft which hardly admits the passing of a loaded mule to Ghaznigak and Haibak. From Haibak you may follow up the Tashkurgan River to its head and then drop over the Kara Pass into Kamard at Bajgah, and so to Bamian again; or you may avoid Bamian altogether and striking off south-east from Haibak over the plateau, slip down into the Kunduz drainage at Baghlan, and then follow it to its junction with the Andarab at Dosh. This position at Dosh gives practical command of all the passes over the Hindu Kush into the Kabul basin, for the Andarab drains along the northern foot of the Hindu Kush, and commands the back doors of all passes between the Chapdara (or Chahardar) and the Khawak.