ABSTRACT
The border parallels the river northward to its intersection with the Afghan-Soviet border, and the river continues northward until it ends in an outwash plain at Tejin, west of Merv, in the Turkmen S.S.R. Amir Abd ur-Rahman finally succeeded in consolidating the state of modern Afghanistan in the latter part of the nineteenth century, by a combination of political and military actions, and by an aggressive program which resettled segments of his own Mohammedzai Pashtun and other tribes in the fertile steppe lands north of the Hindu Kush. Herat province in western Afghanistan ranks sixth in land area and seventh in population in the country. Respect for learning and literacy is deep and strong in the history of Herat and of Afghanistan in general. Oral narrative in Afghanistan is, truly, an ‘ocean of story,’ in which various floras and fauna flourish, and in which the collector must learn to swim.
