Previously to his start on the Gomul reconnaissance Broadfoot had the opportunity of reconnoitring much of the country to the south of Ghazni bordering the Kandahar-Ghazni route. He had, therefore, a very fair acquaintance with the people with whom he had to deal, and a fairly well fixed point of departure for his work. His methods were the time-honoured methods of many past generations of explorers. He took his bearings with the prismatic compass, and he reckoned his distance by the mean values obtained from three men pacing. Consequently, he could not pretend, in such circumstances as he was placed (being hardly able to leave his tent in spite of his disguise), to complete much in the way of topography; but his clear description of the ground he passed over, and the people he passed amongst, furnishes nearly all that is necessary to enable us to realise the practical value and the political difficulty of that important line of communication with Central Afghanistan.
From Ghazni southwards to Pannah there is nothing but open plain. From near Pannah to the Sarwandi Pass, which crosses the main divide (the Kohnak range) between the Helmund and the Indus basins, there is much of the ridge and furrow formation which distinguishes the north-western frontier, the alignment of the ridges being from N.E. to S.W., but the Gazdarra Pass over the Kattawaz ridge is not formidable, and the road along the plain of Kattawaz is open. In Kattawaz were groups of villages, denoting a settled population, and as much cultivation as might be possible amidst a lawless, crop-destroying, and raiding generation of Ghilzais.
"Kattasang, as viewed from Dand" (on the northern side) "appears a mass of undulating hills, and as bare as a desert; it is the resort in summer of some pastoral families of Suliman Khels." Approaching the main divide of Sarwandi by the Sargo Pass two forts are passed near Sargo, which sufficiently well illustrate the characteristics of perpetual feud common to clans or families of the Ghilzai fraternity. The forts are close to each other; one of them is known as Ghlo kala (thieves' fort), but they are probably both equally worthy of the name. The inhabitants of these forts absolutely destroyed each other in a family feud, so that nothing now remains. Their very waters have dried up.