Herat.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XVIII, Issue 1680, 11 May 1885, Page 3

Herat.

Herat of the present day, according to Colonel OiodekoiT, a Russian writer, is as big as Tashkend ; not less than •jO,OOO inhabitants. By its building it ranks second to Meshed, in Central A sia. Its streets are crooked, narrow, and dirty. The town is defended by a btick wall 24 ft high, with a small ditch in front of it. At the foot of tho wall there are a number of houses, which are included in the city. The wall has no armament ; nothing to remind one of a European fortified place, no isolated forts, nr anything of tho kind. In its actual state Herat is unable to defend itself from a European army. About one mile to the north city there areof commanding heights, from which tho etiy can be shelled in no tunc - in fact,

iaiil in ashes, in the centra of the city is an artificial eminence. A citadel is built on it; its walls are 24ft high, in front of the wall is a deep ditch, full of water, overgrown with tall reeds. The wad is very much mined, and the buildings in the citadel are crowded and clumsy. Its importance in the eyes of the Afghans must be gathered from the fact that, before the late war, the Afghans had 2d battalions disposed in and around the city, and only sent nine battalions a wav to the frontier of India, leaving l(i battalions and 40 guns there during the entire war.