Kohat

KOHAT, a town and district of British India, in the North West Frontier Province. The town is 37 m. south of Peshawar by the Kohat Pass, along which a military road was opened in 1901. The population in 1931 was 34,350, including 9,25o in the canton ment. It is the military base for the southern Afridi frontier as Peshawar is for the northern frontier of the same tribe, and it lies in• the heart of the Pathan country.

The

DISTRICT OF KOHAT has an area of 2,703 sq.m. It consists chiefly of a bare and intricate mountain region east of the Indus, deeply scored with river valleys and ravines, but enclosing a few scattered patches of cultivated lowland. The eastern or Khattak country especially comprises a perfect labyrinth of ranges. The Miranzai valley, in the extreme west, appears by comparison a rich and fertile tract. The frontier mountains, continuations of the Safed Koh system, attain in places a considerable elevation, the two principal peaks, Dupa Sir and Mazi Garh, just beyond the British frontier, being 8,26o and 7,940 ft. above the sea respec

tively. The Waziri hills, on the south, extend like a wedge between the boundaries of Bannu and Kohat, with a general elevation of less than 4,000 ft. The salt-mines are situated in the low line of hills crossing the valley of the Teri Toi, and extending along both banks of that river. The deposit has a width of a quarter of a mile, with a thickness of 1,000 ft.; it sometimes forms hills 200 ft. in height, almost entirely composed of solid rock-salt, and may prob ably rank as one of the largest veins of its kind in the world. Petro leum springs exude from a rock at Panoba, 23 m. east of Kohat ; and sulphur abounds in the northern range. In 1931 the population was 236,273. The frontier tribes on the Kohat border are the Afridis, Orakzais, Zaimukhts and Turis. All these are described under their separate names. A railway runs from Kushalgarh through Kohat to Thal, and the river Indus is bridged at Kushalgarh.