ELD 059 — Zulfikar Pass, East of the First Gorge

• Owen, Charles (1884-86): Transcript of diary and letters, p. 301: “29 Sep [1885] […] Durand and Peacocke visit Zulfikar. […]”; p. 307: letter to Mrs CW Owen (dated 5 Oct 1885), “Zulfikar is a horrible place. The only part of the Boundary settled at home has been to within 6 miles of Zulfikar so all the rest will have to be fought over […]”; p. 337: “10 Nov [1885] […] After breakfast left at 10 am for Zulfikar reached at 11.45. […] Pass fine and cliffs grand. […] Plenty of chicore about here. Took 2 photos this afternoon, No 1 of cliff of entrance to pass, No 2 of cliffs between N. side and extending N. forming southern bank of Hari Rud.”; “12 Nov [1885] Thursday. 1st boundary pillar erected to-day, 2 versts from ruined tower on mound at entrance of Zulfikar Pass. Colonel, Durand, Yate, Merk etc were there. […]”
• The Graphic, Vol. 31 (1885/1), March, 7, p. 238: “Moreover the Russians have occupied the Zulfikar Pass, twenty miles to the south of Pul-i-Khatun, so that they are in practical possession of the whole breadth of that tongue of land which, lying between Hari Rud and Murghab rivers, leads direct to Herat.”; Vol. 32 (1885/2), October 31, p. 479: “The pass is a split or chasm cleft through these ranges in a direction generally at right angles to their ‘strike’, and therefore consists of two successive defiles interrupted about midway by a broken valley. […]”; p. 497: engraving based on a sketch by Captain Maitland showing the Zulfikar pass looking west.
• The Illustrated London News, Vol. 86 (1885/1), May 9, p. 478: engraving of the Zulfagar pass based on a sketch by W. Simpson and a description of its name: “Zulfagar was the name of the Ali’s sword, a weapon as mystic and celebrated as the famous ‘Ex-calibur’, the sword of Arthur, and the tradition is, that the pass was cleft by a blow whit it given by the Khalif.”
• M.H.L. (1886): La Russie et l’Angleterre en Asie centrale, p. 108: the Russian occupation of the Zulfagar defile in February 1885.
• Lansdell, H. (1887): Through Central Asia, Diplomacy and Delimitation of the Russia-Afghan Frontier, p. 624: “The boundary line was to be drawn from the Hari-Rud to the Oxus across the hilly country, which bounds on the south the low flat deserts of Turkmenia, and was to begin at Zulfikar. […] The pass, when approached on the Afghan side, is four hundred yards wide, with precipitous sides rising from four to five hundred feet. It is from two to three miles long, and soon narrows, being at one point not more than thirty yards broad, where, the sides continuing precipitous, the place could be easily held by a few braves against a large force. The ravine with its two openings could easily be made practicable for artillery, but it does not appear to be of very great military importance.”
• Maitland, P.J. (1888): Records of Intelligence Party ABC, Vol. 1, pp. 248-250 (March 1-3, 1885): detailed description of first visit to Zulfikar; f.p. 248: sketch of Zulfikar.
• Yate, A.C. (1887): Travels with the Afghan Boundary Commission, f.p. 290: engraving of the Zulficar Pass.
• Yate, C.E. (1888): Northern Afghanistan or Letters from the Afghan Boundary Commission, pp. 75-76, and 89: general description of the Zulficar Pass.
• Adamec, L.W. (1975): Herat and north-western Afghanistan, pp. 436-438: Zulfikar.
• Adamec, L.W. (1981): Meshed and northeastern Iran, p. 688: Zulfikar, “An Afghan frontier post on the eastern Khorassan border, on the right bank of Hari Rud about 13 miles southeast of Zurabad. It is a squalid village of about 250 houses, situated at the foot of the remarkable cliffs of Dehaneh-i-Zulfikar or the Zulfikar pass, concerning which the legend runs that ‘Ali cleft it with his forked sword.”.
• Moran, N.K. (2005): Kipling and Afghanistan, pp. 87-89: setting of the first border post by the British commission at the Zulfikar Pass; p. 88: engraving also published in The Illustrated London News, (1886/1), January 9, pp. 36-37.

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