Skip to main content

ELD 056 — Ao Safed Pass

Sepia-toned photo-lithograph of a wash sketch, showing the wide and rather flat pass on the road from Kohsan to Gulran, which forms the watershed between the Hari Rud and Murghab Rivers. Spread on the plain are some groups of men and horses and a tent.
[Sketch, recto:] AO SAFEID / ED / 85 // Photographed by the Survey of India Department. // AO SAFED PASS, FROM THE GULRAN SIDE.
[Sketch, verso:] (40) / Ao Safid Pass from the Gulran side, scene of the disaster. ELD 30/6/85.
[Lumsden Album:] –
[List:] (55) Ao Safid, the clean water, pass in Siah Bubak hills.
  • Charles, R. (1885): Diary written when in charge of the ½ Field Hospital and Escort with the Afghan Boundary Commission, 1st April, 1885, fol. 36 R - 36 V: “[…] crossing several deep nullahs – then ascended in the valleys up to top of kotal where camp was to be. This pass [Ao Safed] is to the west of the Cheshm Sabz pass about 4 miles. A considerable mountain torrent, swollen by the recent rains, required to be crossed several times, & many little […] reinforced it falling from the neighbouring peaks. Grass & verdure covered the country – forming excellent & sweet grazing for cattle. Flowers – tulips – lilies – &c. were abundant. A species of leek or garlic made the air redolent with its perfume! At the entrance into the pass were the ruins of what must have been a considerable town & further up on the summit of an overhanging height, overlooking the surrounding district, was a wild & […] tower, much weather beaten, with bastions & […] for guns; this no doubt served as a place from which to watch the wily Turkoman! […] The weather was all that could be desired. A grateful warmth was diffused by the sun, & a breeze blowing from S.W. prevented the heat causing fatigue.”
  • Peacocke, W (1887): Records of Intelligence Party ABC, Vol. 3, pp. 141-142 (April 1, 1885) and pp. 457-458: detailed description of the pass: “[…] the road emerges on to the open, grassy uplands forming its reverse slopes, which drain out in broad rounded ridges and furrows to the west into the Ao Mazar nala. […]”
  • Yate, A.C. (1887): Travels with the Afghan Boundary Commission, pp. 327-328: “[…] On the 1st April the whole of the Commission, except General Lumsden, Colonel Ridgeway, and the cavalry … started for the bridge over the Hari Rud at Tirpul, where it arrived on the 3d April. The first march was to the top of the Au-safid Pass (eight miles – the Au-safid is a very easy pass), […].”
  • Adamec, L.W. (1975): Herat and north-western Afghanistan, p. 27: Ao Safed, “[…] The Ao Safed pass leads over the range of low hills separating Badghis from the Ghorian district of Herat province. […] The pass is only 7 miles long from end to end, and in fact can scarcely be properly termed a pass for quite half that distance, where the road crosses open upland slopes allowing of great latitude of movement. (Peacocke, A.B.C.)”
Image No.
ELD 056
Collection
Afghan Boundary Commission 1884-86
Series
ABC 5, ELD Sketches 054 to 107
Format
Original wash sketch, British Library WD 425, size 230/330 mmLithograph in the Lumsden Album 227/329 mm(almost original size)
Place, date
Ao Safed, June 30, 1885
Descriptors
  • 1.57 Pictures of Landscapes, Cities
  • 1.64 Travel Books before 1914
  • 2.123 Herat and NW-Afghanistan
  • 3.711 Academic Painting
  • 4.365 Abdur Rahman Khan (1880-1901)
  • 4.416 GB Relations with Great Britain
  • 4.85 Civil use of the Military
  • Latitude / Longitude34.950773 / 61.599006
    Google Earth34°57ʹ N / 61°36ʹ E / 1000 m
    Survey of India MapSheet 29, Herat (1916): Kala Ao Safed, J 62

    You know more about this picture?

    Write to us!