So long must this strange region of ditch-like valleys, carved out of the wrinkled central highlands of Afghanistan, have existed as the focus of devout pilgrimage, if not of commercial activity, under the Bamian kings, that the absence of any record descriptive of the routes across it is rather surprising. Above the surface of the plateau the long grey folds of the hills follow each other in monotonous succession, with little relief from vegetation and unmarked by forest growth. It is generally a scene of weary, stony desolation through which narrow, white worn tracks thread their way. In the valleys it is different. Cut squarely out of the plateau these intersecting valleys, cliff bound on either side with reddish walls such as border the valley of Bamian, offer fair opportunity for colonization. Where the valleys open out there is space enough for cultivation, which in early summer makes pretty contrast with the ruddy hills that hedge it. Where it spreads out from the mouth of the gorges nourished by hundreds of small channels which carry the water far afield, it is in most charming contrast to the gaunt ruggedness of the hills from whence it emerges. Such is the general outlook from the Firozkohi plateau, looking northward into the Oxus plains when the yellow dust haze, driven southward by the north-western winds, lifts sufficiently from athwart the plains to render it possible to see towards Maimana or into the valley of Astarab. The valley of Bamian stands at a level of about 8500 feet; the passes out of it northward to Balkh or southward to Kabul rise to 11,000 and 12,000 feet. It is the mystery of its unrecorded history and the local evidences of the departed glory of Buddhism, which render Bamian the most interesting valley in Afghanistan. Massive ruins still look down from the bordering cliffs, and for six or seven miles these cliffs are pierced by an infinity of cave dwellings. Little is left of the ancient city but its acropolis (known as Ghulghula), which crowns an isolated rock in the middle of the valley. Enormous figures (170 and 120 feet high) are carved out of the conglomerate rock on the sides of the Bamian gorge. Once coated with cement, and possibly coloured, or gilt, these images must have appealed strongly to the imagination of the weary pilgrim who prostrated himself at their feet. "Their golden lines sparkle on every side," says Huen Tsang, who saw them in the year A.D. 630, when he counted ten convents and 1000 monks of the "Little Vehicle" in the valley of Bamian.