ELD 061 — Zulfikar Pass, from Karez Elias

• 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. 335: letter to Mrs CW Owen (dated 8 Nov 1885), “[…] It is very hot here as they have pitched the camp down in a hollow. A party goes off tomorrow to arrange with the Russians where our camp at Zulfikar is to be pitched. […]”; p. 337: letter to Mrs CW Owen (dated 9 Nov 1885), “There is absolutely no chance of getting even milk or eggs here for the whole country is a huge desert.”; p. 337: “10 Nov [1885] […] After breakfast left at 10am 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. 477: engraving of the Zulfikar 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 Zulfikar 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, C.E. (1888): Northern Afghanistan or Letters from the Afghan Boundary Commission, p. 71: general description of Karez Elias.
• Adamec, L.W. (1975): Herat and north-western Afghanistan, p. 251: Karez Ilias, “[…] situated near a reedy marsh of about one acre in extent, and occupied in 1885 by an Afghan frontier post of four sowars, distant 12½ miles south-east from Zulfikar.”; pp. 436-438: Zulfikar, p. 437: “From the eastern end of the eastern defile, roads branch to the right to Karez Ilias and to the left up the Kangruali basin to Kangruali and Adam Ulan. Both roads are good. I had reached these cross-roads on a previous occasion, coming from Karez Ilias; and from the Karez Ilias ravine my road had traversed an extensive plain to the low gap or saddle at the west end of the Dhangli Dagh ridge, whence a gentle descent had led me to this point. […]” (Peacocke, 1885).
• 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.”.
• 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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