The Geographical Journal (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society): Volume IX, No. 4 [‎214r] (98/172)

THE SOUTHERN BORDERLANDS OF AFGHANISTAN.
415
severe, registering 116° Fahr. in our tents. We marched as before,
always at night, and now were able to get little or no rest by day, for
the “ Bad-i-sad-o-bistroz,” t.e. the wind of 120 days, bad now sprung
up, and blew with hurricane violence day after day the whole day long,
blowing down our tents, and smothering us in sand. This charming
wind gets up every year about May, and blows without ceasing from
the north-west for four months. While it lasts, it makes life along the
Helmand valley and the deserts on either side a perfect purgatory.
Right glad were we to at last reach the edge of the desert at Nushki,
and ascend out of the hot wind-swept plain into the cool, refreshing air
of the high mountains west of Quetta. We reached Quetta safely on
May 29, 1896, and there our troubles ceased.
Boundary delimitation and demarcation work was the sole object
and aim of the mission whose wanderings I have now described, but
in the course of it our energetic survey officers, i.e. Captain B. J.
Mackenzie, r.e., during the first year, and G. P. Tate, Esq., during the
second year of the mission, and their staff, besides carrying out the
actual survey work required for boundary delimitation purposes, took
excellent advantage of the opportunities afforded of making a careful
survey of the whole country through which we passed, on a scale of
2 miles and 4 miles to the inch. I have not the actual figures to refer *
to, but I believe considerably over 30,000 square miles of country were
thus carefully surveyed, much of which was, to all intents and purposes,
new country. Much valuable ethnological information was collected,
and our scientific work included careful meteorological records, and
also large zoological, geological, and botanical collections. Our zoological
collection, thanks to the energy of Surgeon-Captain Maynard, is a very
large one, including several thousand specimens. As might be expected,
from the countless reptiles the desert abounds in, our zoological
collection was largely of reptiles. Among them are many rare species
and many quite new to science. Our old friend, the horned viper,
turned out to be not only a new species, but a new genus. The zoological
and other collections are now being carefully worked out by the officers
of the Calcutta and British museums. Besides a few taken by myself,
the photographs with which this paper has been illustrated were taken
by the following gentlemen, to whom I am much indebted for the loan of
them, i.e. Lieut. K. A. E. Benn, 5th Bombay Cavalry, for those of the
country between Domandi and Cbaman, and G. P. late. Esq., for those
of the country between Chaman and Persia.j"
* This snake has been named the Eristicophis Macmahonn. , f
+ May I be permitted to mention my Dachshund Donnie, who figured in several of
the photographs with which the paper was illustrated. He not only accompanied his
owner Shout the wanderings of the Baluch-Afghan Boundary Commission, but
also accompanied him in 1893 to Cabul with the Durand mission. He has traversed
most of Baluchistan, and almost every portion of India.