Between Oxus and Jumna

Although my Readers Union edition is a small book, it is small print, and densely written. Toynbee is an academic, we writes in a way which is, at times picturesque and able to conjure imagery, but at other times is bogged down in geographical complexities. Two quotes at either end of the spectrum follow.

P53For fifty years past, I had been studying this chapter of the world's history in books and on maps. Here, at Istalif, I had been able to take it all in at a glance; and that one glance had told me more than my fifty-years' book-work had.P138The view from the Amadarra rest-house must be one of the loveliest in the world. The fortified crag on which the rest-house stands overhangs the take-off of the Malakand Canal from the Swat River. The canal runs south, through a tunnel under the Malakand Pass, to generate hydro-electric power and to make the fortune of Mardan by irrigating its once parched plain. The river vanishes west-wards into a gorge, to collect the waters of the Panjkora and then break out of the mountains to Abazai. Above the gorge the Swat River meanders in many channels; and it has so much water to give that, even in June, the valley is still green.

P142The river was obstreperous, but looked fordable. Surely one could cross it along the ledge where the road ought to have been. I had rolled up my trousers and was taking off my shoes when the Nawab's retainer made a representation.‘Sir', he said, ‘you are quite hot with walking in the sun, and the water of this river is icy cold; it comes from snow, just up there. If you wade in it, straight from your hot walk, you will catch a chill; your stomach will be upset in the night; and when what will the Nawab say to me?'The retainer had played a trump card; for it is no joke for any subject of the Nawab's to incur the Nawab's displeasure. I hesitated, and instantly the retainer's partner, Common Sense, showed her hand. I was seventy-one; it was 6.00 pm; the next stretch of the road, beyond the Mena River, was steep; and the total climb, within those next ten miles, must be at least 4000 feet, for the Mena ford could not be more than 6000 feet above sea level, if it was that. Yes, my opponent held all the cards; I had lost the game; I admitted defeat, and turned back.