ELD 060 — Zulfikar Pass from the Bank of the Hari Rud

• Collection Afghan Boundary Commission, photograph ABC 113: same place.
• 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. 477: 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.”
• 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 p. 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. On the northern cliff of the pass are two white pillars, defining the spot where the Afghan Boundary Commissioner commenced the erection of pillars.”

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