PATHAN GEOGRAPHICS. Geographically the Pathan country is hard to describe, even with a map. If is best seen as a long narrow fortification running parallel in two belts, first a moat then a rampart, along the line of the Indus which here runs alsomst north and south, with a slight trend towards the west. Towards the south the rampart stands back much further from the river. Behind the rampart begins the great Iranian plateau which, except through the Sulaiman Mountains, has no drainage to the sea. The first belt is made up of plains and valleys along the river; the second, standing over the valleys, is the great transept of the Sulaiman Mountains running southward from its apex in the mighty ranges of the Hindu Kush where they culminates on Tirich Mir. At many points this transept thrusts forward fingers towards the Indus, fingers which even cross the river more than once. Nestling between the fingers are the valleys of which the most beautiful and fertile, as well as the largest, is the plain of Peshawar [Note: Today its comprises of the Districts of Peshawar, Charsadda, Nowshera, Mardan and Swabi]. Further south are the other plains-lands, Kohat, Bannu-Marwat and the Derajat, sometimes known as Daman. North of Peshawar are no more plains, but a tangle of alpine mountain and valley rising to the snows of the Hindu Kush. The Sulaiman chain runs roughly north-east and south-west, but has many divagations. The most important of these is in its highest part, the Sufed Koh, where it rises in the Sikaram peak north of Kurram to over 15,000 (fifteen thousand) feet and, running due east and west, forms part of the Durand Line. This escarpment of the Sulaiman system is the geographical eastern front of the Iranian world, turned towards the present day Pakistan. Across it there has been much ebb and flow, but in the result the Iranian scene, and the Iranian man, have spilled this eastern limit and prevail as far as the Indus, and even beyond-some would say up to Lahore. But to a Pathan who approaches from Lahore the unmistakable change of atmosphere is felt, at Margalla, forty miles before crossing of the Indus and close to the site of ancient Taxilla. Here a Pathan will smell the scents of the home-land. This is the Pakhtun Khwa, the land of the Pathans. Prof. Dr. Taskeen Ahmad Khan (Urologist / Gemito-Urinary Surgeon). [Marghuz Village].
Posted on: Sat, 15 Jun 2013 19:51:49 +0000
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