At Zirni Ferrier found that his further progress towards Kandahar was arrested, and from that point, to his bitter disgust, he was compelled to return to Herat. From Zirni to Herat was, in his day, an unmapped region, and he is the first European to give us even a glimpse of that once well-trodden highway. His conjectures about the origin of the Aimak tribes which people Central Afghanistan are worthy of study, as they are based on original inquiry from the people themselves; but it is very clear that either time has modified the manners of these people, or that popular sources of information are not always to be trusted. He repeats the story of the fighting propensities of Hazara women when dealing with the Taimanis, and adds, as regards the latter, that "a girl does not marry until she has performed some feat of arms." It may be that "feats of arms" are not so easy of achievement in these days, but it is certain that such an inducement to marry would fail to be effective now. It might even prove detrimental to a girl's chances. Once again we can only regard with astonishment Ferrier's record of a ride from "Tarsi" (Parsi) to Herat, at least 90 miles, in one night. A district Chief told Captain (now Colonel) the Hon. M. G. Talbot, who conducted the surveys of the country in 1883, that "a good Taimani on a good horse" might accomplish the feat, but that nobody else could. Ferrier, with his considerable escort, seemed to have found no difficulty, but undoubtedly he was in excellent training. His general description of the country that he passed through accords with the pace at which he swept through it, and nothing is to be gained by criticising his hasty observations. At Herat he was fortunate in securing the consent of Yar Mahomed Khan to his project for reaching the Punjab _via_ Kandahar and Kabul; and with letters from that wily potentate to the Amir Dost Mahomed Khan and his son-in-law Mahomed Akbar Khan this "Lord of the Kingdom of France, General Ferrier" set out on another attempt to reach India. In this he was unsuccessful, and his path was a thorny one. He travelled by the road which had been adopted as the post-road between Herat and Kandahar, during the residence of the English Mission at Herat--a route which, leaving Farah to the west, approaches Kandahar by Washir and Girishk, and which is still undoubtedly the most direct road between the two capitals. But the particularly truculent character of the Durani Afghan tribes of Western Afghanistan rendered this journey most dangerous for a single European moving without an armed escort, and he was robbed and maltreated with fiendish persistency. It was a well-known and much-trodden old road, but it has always been, and it is still, about the worst road in all Afghanistan for the fanatical unpleasantness of its Achakzai and Nurzai environment.