British writer Rudyard Kipling's 1890 poem The Ballad of the King's Jest begins with this stanza:
When spring-time flushes the desert grass,
Our kafilas wind through the Khyber Pass.
Even today, caravans and tourists usually travel through the Khyber Pass only in spring and summer.
Well known invasions of the area have been predominantly through the Khyber Pass, such as the invasions by Darius I and Alexander the Great and also include Genghis Khan and later Mongols such as Duwa, Qutlugh Khwaja and Kebek. Among the Muslim invasions of South Asia, the famous invaders coming through the Khyber Pass are the Turks such as Mahmud Ghaznavi, Muhammad Ghori and the Turkic-Mongols. Finally, Sikhs under Ranjit Singh, in 1798 captured the Khyber Pass. Hari Singh Nalwa, who manned the Khyber pass for years became a household name in Afghanistan.
