Note 1223 — Chapter XV · —Mountain Barriers And Their Passes

Such mountains can be crossed only by circuitous routes from pass to pass, ascending and descending each range of the system. The Central Alps, grooved by the longitudinal valleys of the upper Rhone, Rhine and Inn, make transit travel a series of ups and downs. The northern range must be crossed by some minor pass like the Gemmi, (7553 feet) or Panixer (7907 feet) to the longitudinal valleys, and the southern range again by the Simplon (6595 feet), San Bernadino (6768 feet), Splügen (6946 feet) or Septimer (7582 feet) to the Po basin. Across the corrugated highland of the Hindu Kush, lying between the plains of the Indus and the Oxus, the caravans of western Asia seek the market of the Punjab by a circuitous route through the Hajikhak Pass (12,188 feet) or famous Gates of Bamian over the main range of the Hindu Kush, by the Unai Pass over the Paghman Mountains to Kabul at 5740 feet, and then by gorges of the Kabul River and the Khaibar Pass (6825 feet) down to Peshawar. This road presents so many difficulties that caravans from Turkestan to India prefer another route from Merv up the valley of the Heri-Rud through the western hills of the Hindu Kush to Herat, thence diagonally southeast across Afghanistan to Kandahar, and thence by the Bolan Pass down to the Sind. The broad, low series of forested mountains consisting of the Vindhyan and Kaimur Hills, reinforced by the Satpura, Kalabet, Gawilgarh ranges, Mahadeo Hills, Maikal Range and Chutia Nagpur Plateau as a secondary ridge to the south, forms a double barrier across the base of peninsular India. It divides the Deccan from Hindustan so effectually that it has sufficed to set limits to any Aryan advance en masse southward. It kept southern India isolated, and admitted only later Aryan influences which filtered through the barrier. To people accustomed to treeless plains, these wide belts of wooded hills were barrier enough. Even a few years ago their passes were dreaded by cartmen; most of the carriage of the country was effected by pack-bullocks. Even when roads were cleared through the forests, they were likely to be rendered impassable by torrential rains.1223