KANDAHAR, the second city in Afghanistan, situated in 31° 37' N. and 65° 43' E., 3,400 ft. above sea, 37o m. N.W. from Herat. The Indian railway system extends to New Chaman, within some 8o m. of Kandahar. Immediately round the city is a plain, highly cultivated and well populated to the south and west ; but on the north-west barren, and bounded by a double line of hills, rising to about 1,000 ft. above its general level. To the north-west these hills form the watershed between the valleys of the Arghandab and the Tarnak, until they are lost in the mountain masses of the Hazarajat. On the south-west they lose themselves in the sandy desert of Registan. To the north-west stretches the road to Kabul. The best known road from Kandahar to India leads to the foot of the Kwaja Amran (Khojak) range, on the far side of which from Kandahar lies the valley of Peshin. The passage of the Kwaja Amran involves a rise and fall of some 2,300 ft., but the range has been tunnelled and a railway now connects the frontier post of New Chaman with Quetta. Several roads to India have been developed through Baluchistan, all dominated from Kandahar. Pop. (with suburbs) c. 6o,000.
Kandahar is approximately square-built, with a wall of about 3.4 m. circuit, and from 25 to 3o ft. high, and is ft. broad. Outside the wall is a ditch so ft. deep. The city and its defences are entirely mud-built. The four main streets cross each other nearly at right angles, the central chouk being covered with a dome. These streets are wide and bordered with trees, and are flanked by shops with open fronts and verandas. There are no buildings of any great pretension in Kandahar, a few wealthy Hindus occupying the best houses. The tomb of Ahmad Shah is the only attempt at monumental architecture. This, with its rather handsome cupola, and the twelve minor tombs of Ahmad Shah's children grouped around, contains a few good specimens of fretwork and of inlaid inscriptions. The four streets of the city divide it into convenient quarters for the accommodation of its mixed population of Du ranis, Ghilzais, Parsiwans and Kakars, numbering in all some 30,00o souls. Of these the greater proportion are the Parsiwans.
There are 1,600 shops and 182 mosques in the city. The mullahs of these mosques generally have considerable power. The walls are pierced by the four principal gates of "Kabul," "Shikar pur," "Herat" and the "Idgah," opposite the four main streets, with two minor gates, called the Top Khana and the Bardurani respectively, in the western half of the city. The Idgah gate
passes through the citadel, a square-built enclosure with sides about 260 yd. long. The flank defences of the main wall are insuffi cient ; indeed there is no pretence at scientific structure about any part of the defences; but the site of the city is well chosen for defence, and the water supply (drawn by canals from the Arghan dab or derived from wells) is good.
About 4 m. W. of the present city, stretched along the slopes of a rocky ridge, and extending into the plains at its foot, are the ruins of the old city of Kandahar, sacked and plundered by Nadir Shah in I 738. From the top of the ridge a small citadel overlooks the half-buried ruins. On the north-east face of the hill forty steps, cut out of solid limestone, lead upward to a small, dome-roofed recess, which contains some interesting Persian inscriptions cut in relief on the rock, recording particulars of the history of Kandahar, and defining the vast extent of the kingdom of the emperor Baber.
Kandahar is the most important trade centre in Afghanistan.
No manufactures or industries are peculiar to Kandahar, but the long lines of bazaars display goods from England, Russia, Hindustan, Persia and Turkestan. The customs and town dues to gether amount to a sum equal to the land revenue of the Kandahar province, which is of considerable extent, stretching to Pul-i Sangin, 10 m. south of Kalat-i-Ghilzai on the Kabul side, to the Helmund on the west, and to the Hazara country on the north. Although Farah has been governed from Kandahar since 1863, its revenues are not reckoned as a part of those of the province. The land revenue proper is assessed in grain, the salaries of government officials, pay of soldiers, etc., being disbursed by barats or orders for grain at rates fixed by government. The greater part of the English goods sold at Herat are imported by Karachi and Kan dahar in view of the facility of the British railway to Chaman, and a very large trade in fresh fruit now comes to India and is specially catered for by special refrigerator trains. The imports consist chiefly of English goods, indigo, cloth, boots, leather, sugar, salt, iron and copper, from Hindustan, and of shawls, carpets, barak (native woollen cloth), postins (coats made of skins), shoes, silks, opium and carpets from Meshed, Herat and Turkestan. The exports are wool, cotton, madder, cummin seed, asafoetida, fruit, silk and horses.