frequented routes

Varhely is conspicuous for its dirt even among Wallachian villages, yet once it was a royal town. It is built on the site of the famous Sarmisegethusa, the capital of ancient Dacia. In Trajan's second expedition against Decebalus, King of the Dacians, he came from Orsova on the Danube by the same route that forms the highroad of this day--the same I had traversed in my way hither. It is curious to reflect how nation succeeding nation tread in each other's footsteps, through the self-same valley, beneath the shadow of the old hills. Here they have trudged, old Dacian gold-seekers, returning from the daily labours of washing the auriferous sands of the mountain streams; here, too, have tramped victorious Roman soldiers--Avars, Tartars, Turks, and other intruders. A long and motley cavalcade has history marshalled along this route for two thousand years and more!

—Andrew F. Crosse: Round About the Carpathians.

Valleys, passes, and gorges which have served many times throughout history as routes of invasion hold a special fascination. Like the Khyber Pass:

George Molesworth, a member of the British force of 1919, summarised: "Every stone in the Khyber has been soaked in blood."

I would like to know the context of that quote. Was Molesworth just making an hyperbole about the particular war in which he participated, or was he actually referring to all the blood spilled there over the centuries?

In the latter sense, the quote conveys a certain sense of world-weariness, of the oppressive weight of an extended past, that wouldn't be out of place in a piece of Dying Earth fiction.