The Ancient Geography of India. I. The Buddhist Period, including the Campaigns of Alexander, and the Travels of Hwen-Thsang c5.s1.t4.6

c5.s1.t4.6

Of Guzaristân, on the Helmand, I am not able to give any further information, as that part of the country has not yet been visited by any European. Ghazni itself is too well known to require any particular description, but I may note that it must have been in a very flourishing condition in the seventh century, as Hwen Thsang estimates its circuit at 30 *li*, or 5 miles. At the present day the circuit of the walled town is not more than one mile and a quarter. Vigne calls it an irregular pentagon, with sides varying from 200 to 400 yards in length, strengthened by numerous towers. He adds,* that "the Afghans boast much of the strength of the walls and fortifications of Ghazni." But Ghazni has always been famous in the East as a place of strength and security; and for this very reason it received its name of Gaza, an old Persian term for a "treasury." It is described in some crabbed lines of the ‘Dionysiaca’ of Nonnus, who lived about A.D. 500, and also in the ‘Bassarica’ of Dionysius, who lived not later than A.D. 300. Both of them refer pointedly to its impregnability. Dionysius calls it,—