Pishūn

Pishūn, a district of Southern Afghanistan, just north of Quetta, which has been governed by a political agent of the Governor-general of India since 1878. The British occupied it on account of its great strategical importance: it is the meeting-place of several roads, practicable for troops but not for wheeled carriages, leading from Sind and Punjab to Kandahar. The district—area, 3600 sq. m.; elevation, 5000 feet—consists of alluvial valleys separated by ranges of hills, the whole sloping south-west, and surrounded by mountain-chains that reach in north and south 11,000 feet. The people, partly settled, partly nomad, grow wheat, barley, maize, millet, lucerne, water-melons, and musk-melons, and trade in horses to India. Pop. 60,000. A branch of the Indus valley line traverses the principal valley.