ummulitic limestone and the south mainly of a dark purple
sandstone. The best tree-growth is therefore on the north side.

~Peshawar, Kohat, and Bannu.~--Across the Indus the Peshawar and Bannu
districts are basins ringed with hills and drained respectively by the
Kabul and Kurram rivers with their affluents. Between these two basins
lies the maze of bare broken hills and valleys which make up the Kohat
district. The cantonment of Kohat is 1700 feet above sea level and no
hill in the district reaches 5000 feet. Near the Kohat border in the
south-west of the Peshawar district are the Khattak hills, the
culmination of which at Ghaibana Sir has a height of 5136 feet, and the
military sanitarium of Cherat in the same chain is 600 feet lower. On
the east the Maidani hills part Bannu from Isakhel, the trans-Indus
_tahsil_ of Mianwali, and on the south the Marwat hills divide it from
Dera Ismail Khan. Both are humble ranges. The highest point in the
Marwat hills is Shekhbudin, a bare and dry limestone rock rising to an
elevation of over 4500 feet.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: They are held to be of Turkish origin.]

CHAPTER III

RIVERS

~The Panjab Rivers.~--"Panjab" is a Persian compound word, meaning "five
waters," and strictly speaking the word denotes the country between the
valley of the Jhelam and that of the Sutlej. The intermediate rivers
from west to east are the Chenab, the Ravi, and the Bias. Their combined
waters at last flow into the Panjnad or "five rivers" at the south-west
corner of the Multan district, and the volume of water which 44 miles
lower down the Panjnad carries into the Indus is equal to the discharge
of the latter. The first Aryan settlers knew this part of India as the
land of the seven rivers (_sapla sindhavas_), adding to the five
mentioned above the Indus and the Sarasvati. The old Vedic name is more
appropriate than Panjab if we substitute the Jamna for the Sarasvati or
Sarusti, which is now a petty stream.

[Illustration: Fig. 11. Panjab Rivers.]

~River Valleys.~--The cold weather traveller who is carried from Delhi to
Rawalpindi over the great railway bridges at points chosen because there
the waters of the rivers are confined by nature, or can be confined by
art, within moderate limits, has little idea of what one of these rivers
is like in flood time. He sees that, even at such favoured spots,
between the low banks there is a stretch of sand far exceeding in width
the main c