The northern rampart or buttress of that upland is the Tir Band-i-Turkistan, the western flank of which is turned by the Murghab River as it makes its way northward. So that there are several ways by which Afghan Turkistan may be reached from Herat. Setting aside the Hari Rud route to Bamian or Kabul, which would be a difficult and lengthy detour for the purpose of reaching Balkh, there is the route we have already mentioned _via_ Korokh, Naratu, and Langar, and thence over the Band-i-Turkistan, or down the Murghab. But there is another and probably the most trodden way, _via_ the Kashan to the Murghab valley at the junction of the Chaharshamba River, and up that river to the divide at its head, passing over into the Kaisar drainage, and so, either to Andkhui and the Oxus, or to Maimana and Balkh. This was the route made use of generally by the Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission, and the existence of ancient tanks (called "Haoz") and of "robats" (or halting-places) at regular intervals in the Kashan valley, testifies to its use at no very ancient date.
The entrance to the Chaharshamba valley is very narrow, so narrow as to preclude the possibility of any large town ever having occupied this position; but it opens out as one passes the old Kila Wali ruins where there is ample space for the old capital of Tocharistan to have existed. On the north, trailing streams descend from the Kara Bel plateau (a magnificent grass country in summer and a cold scene of windy desolation in winter), and their descent is frequently through treacherous marshes and shining salt pitfalls, making it exceedingly difficult to follow them to the plateau edge. To the south are the harder features of the Band-i-Turkistan foothills, the crest of the long black ridge of this Band being featureless and flat, as is generally the case with the boundary ridges and revetments of a plateau country. Over the Chaharshamba divide (at about 2800 feet) and into the Kaisar drainage is an introduction to a country that is beautiful with the varied beauty of low hill-tops and gentle slopes, until one either by turning north, debouches into the flat desert plains of the Oxus at Daolatabad, or continuing more easterly, arrives at Maimana, the capital of the little province of Almar, the centre of a small world of highly cultivated and populous country, and a town which must from its position represent one or other of the ancient trade centres mentioned by Idrisi. Here we leave behind the long lines of Turkman kibitkas looking like rows of black bee-hives in the snow-spread distance, and find the flat-roofed substantial houses of a settled Uzbek population, with flourishing bazaars and a general appearance of well-being inside the mud walls of the town.