path: root/74127-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74127 ***






                                   FROM
                         THE INDUS TO THE TIGRIS

              A NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY THROUGH THE COUNTRIES
                  OF BALOCHISTAN, AFGHANISTAN, KHORASSAN
                            AND IRAN, IN 1872

                              TOGETHER WITH
                 _A SYNOPTICAL GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY OF
                           THE BRAHOE LANGUAGE_

                             AND A RECORD OF
          _THE METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS AND ALTITUDES ON THE
                   MARCH FROM THE INDUS TO THE TIGRIS_

                                    BY
                       HENRY WALTER BELLEW, C.S.I.
                        SURGEON BENGAL STAFF CORPS
    _Author of a “Journal of a Mission to Afghanistan in 1867-58,” and
           a “Grammar and Dictionary of the Pukkhto Language.”_

                                  LONDON
                   TRÜBNER & CO., 57 & 59 LUDGATE HILL
                                   1874

                  [_All rights of publication reserved_]




PREFACE.


The steady progress of Russian conquest in Turkistan during the past
half-century, and, during late years, the rapid advance of her frontiers
in the direction of India, have raised the States of Central Asia to a
position of importance in the eyes of European politicians higher than
they ever before occupied.

The accounts published from time to time by venturesome travellers in
those regions have informed us of the barbarism and bigotry of their
peoples—of the anarchy and weakness of their Governments—and of the
growing decay and approaching dissolution of the polity that holds them
together by the bonds of a common religion and common interest. And now
the military operations against Khiva at present in course of prosecution
by Russia, whilst opening up that country to the influences of European
civilisation, promise to unfold to that power a field of enterprise that
must, I believe, culminate in her paramount ascendancy over all the
region draining to the valley of the Oxus. This is a prospect full of the
weightiest moment to ourselves in India, and one that furnishes matter
for the gravest consideration of our statesmen. Much has been already
written on this subject from different points of view, and much remains
to be written; and doubtless the public journals will keep alive the
discussion of the question. But let us be careful lest, while straining
at the gnat of Yárkand, we swallow the camel of Herat.

Since the region intervening between the Asiatic possessions of Russia
and England now claims the attention of the several Governments
concerned, and is by the current of progressing events brought
prominently before the notice of the politicians of Europe generally,
any recent information regarding these countries cannot fail to prove
of interest to the general reader. With this conviction, therefore,
I venture to set before the public an account of the incidents and
experiences of a journey made across this region during last year—from
the Indus to the Tigris.

In explanation of all shortcomings as to matter and defects as to style,
I have to remind the reader that the narrative has been written at odd
hours, between the duties of an onerous charge in the principal frontier
station of India, without leisure for generalisation, or opportunity for
reference to authorities.

Further, I am constrained by the force of circumstances to commit my
manuscript to the care of the publisher, without the advantage of
correcting the proof-sheets in their passage through the press.

                                                                  H. W. B.

PESHAWAR, _18th April 1873_.




CONTENTS.


                                                                     PAGES

                            INTRODUCTION.

  Appointment of Mission to Sistan and Tehran—Influence of
  British and Russian civilisation—Historical Associations—The
  “sick man” of Asia—Physical features of the region
  traversed—Climate and inhabitants                                   1-17

                             CHAPTER I.

  Departure from Multán—The Chenáb and the Indus—_Tria juncta in
  uno_—Interesting fact for naturalists—Shikárpúr—Jacobabad—A
  plundered _káfila_—Afghan effrontery—Interesting
  rencontre—Barshori—Sinjarani—Odhána—False
  alarm—Gandáva—Kotra—Disorderly baggage ponies—Pír
  Chhatta—Muhammadan credulity                                       18-39

                             CHAPTER II.

  The Míloh Pass—Nah-langa Tangí—The Khánzai Brahoe—Pír
  Lákha—The Pír and the dragon—Scene of assassination of Sherdil
  Khán—Khozdár—Roadside memorials—The Brahoe—Brahoe gratitude—The
  Záwah defile—Scanty supplies                                       40-71

                            CHAPTER III.

  Súráb to Calát—Reception by the Khán—The Court of
  Calát—Description of Calát—Mundi Hájí—An efficacious charm—Our
  hostess and the mirror—Mastung—Military honours—Nishpá
  Pass—Shál Kot—Native custom                                       72-100

                             CHAPTER IV.

  The Kákarrs—The Náib and the Malik—The Afghan Commissioner—The
  Peshín valley—The Tarins—A numerous relationship—Kojak
  Pass—Topographical survey—Barghanah Pass—Sháh Ahmad,
  Durrani—Wool exports—Sardár Mír Afzal Khán—Afghan chivalry—A
  startling object—American clocks                                 101-132

                             CHAPTER V.

  Kandahar—Afghan cookery—Visit to a gold-mine—Process of
  extraction—Antique porphyry bowl—City of Kandahar—Mausoleum
  of Ahmad Sháh—Discontent of the inhabitants—Oppression of the
  Government—Pyrotechnical display—Travellers’ notes—The Saggid’s
  experience—Departure—Sardár Núr Muhammad Khán—Kandahar to
  Ballakhan                                                        133-166

                             CHAPTER VI.

  Salt-pits—The Saggid on the English press—Búst—Ancient
  ruins—The Argandáb—Extensive jangal—Hazárjuft—Afghan
  stolidity—The Helmand—Khanishín—Abdullah Khán—Colonel Táj
  Muhammad                                                         167-202

                            CHAPTER VII.

  Rúdbár—The Garmsel—Ján Beg—Change of post-route—The plain of
  Sistan—An Afghan welcome—Sardár Ibráhím Khán, the murderer
  of Dr Forbes—Sardár Ahmad Khán and Mardán Khán—Sharíf Khán—A
  primitive ferry—Nasírabad—Windmills                              203-236

                            CHAPTER VIII.

  Meeting with Sir F. Goldsmid—Banjár—Ruins of Pesháwarán—History
  of Sistan—Its limits—Watershed—Language                          237-271

                             CHAPTER IX.

  Kol Márút—Mythical inscription—Khyrabad—Lásh—News
  of Lord Mayo’s death—Calá Koh—Singular acoustic
  phenomenon—Duroh—Husenabad—The Sarbesha plateau—Birjand—Trade
  and products—District of Gháyn—Historical sketch                 272-308

                             CHAPTER X.

  Birjand to Ghíbk—Depopulation of inhabitants—Sihdih—Persian
  rights of perquisite—Gháyn—The Hájí’s advice—Change of
  route—A noisy dispute—Precautions against the Turkmans—Dashtí
  Pyáz—A harmless fright—Bijistan—Widespread suffering—Persian
  veracity—Persian cruelty                                         309-357

                             CHAPTER XI.

  Mashhad—Procession through the city—Interviews with the
  Prince-Governor—Gratifying reception—Description of the
  city—Its industry and trade—Plain of Mashhad—District of
  Nishabor—Untrustworthiness of Persians—Sabzwár—An old
  institution—Pilgrims—Motley spectacle—Shahrúd—An old
  acquaintance                                                     358-397

                            CHAPTER XII.

  Treatment of Persian soldiers—Lásjird—Our
  Mirakhor—His _savoir faire_—The “Portals of
  delight”—Tehran—Destitution of the inhabitants—Arrangements
  for return—Shukrullah Beg—A retrospect—Interview with the
  Governor of Kirmánshah—Effects of the famine—Frightful
  scenes—Hamadán—Kangawár—Besitun—Kirmánshah                       398-439

                            CHAPTER XIII.

  An enormous caravan—The Khaleva
  tribe—Karriud—Zuháb—Difficulties as to passport and
  escort—Their removal—Marauding Khaleva—Turko-Persian
  frontier—Quarantine—Sad disappointment—Bukhariot pilgrims—Their
  opinion of Russian influence in Central Asia—Flight of
  locusts—A captive chief—The hermit and his disciple—Attack by
  Arab robbers—Their repulse—Baghdad—Down the Tigris               440-472

                              APPENDIX.

  A.—SYNOPTICAL GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY OF THE BRAHOE LANGUAGE      473-493

  B.—RECORD OF METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS AND ALTITUDES ON THE
     MARCH FROM THE INDUS TO THE TIGRIS, THROUGH BALOCHISTAN,
     AFGHANISTAN, SISTAN, KHORASSAN, AND IRAN                      494-496




FROM THE INDUS TO THE TIGRIS.




INTRODUCTION.


Towards the close of 1871, Major-General F. R. Pollock (now Sir Richard
Pollock, K.C.S.I.) was deputed by the Government of India on a political
mission to Sistan, and I was selected to accompany him. I left Peshawar
on the 12th December, and joined him at Lahore, where our arrangements
for the journey were made. In Sistan we joined Sir Frederick Goldsmid’s
mission, and proceeded together to the Persian capital. Thence I returned
to India with the camp and establishment taken with us.

It is not the purpose of this work to enter into any detail of the
objects of the mission, nor in any way to refer to the political events
connected with it—preceding or succeeding; and I have been careful in
the following pages to avoid allusion to or discussion of the politics
of the countries we visited, inasmuch as they are now the subjects of
consideration to the several Governments affected by them, and are,
besides, questions foreign to the nature of this publication.

But as it is seldom than Europeans have an opportunity of visiting much
of the country embraced within the limits of the journey of this mission,
I have thought that a popular account of our experiences would not be
unacceptable to the British public; particularly since the region covered
by our travels, apart from its own special claims upon our interest, is,
I believe, destined ere very long to attract the most serious attention
of European politicians and statesmen.

And this because the civilisation of the West is advancing with such
steady progress towards the East, that it must sooner or later penetrate
to the countries that have hitherto successfully excluded its influence.
On the Asiatic continent, at least, its advance is from opposite
quarters, at different rates of speed, and of very different characters.
The highly organised and intricate system of European civilisation
introduced into India, and now being consolidated within the limits of
the British Empire there, though not without its advantages, has hardly
produced a shadow of effect on the bordering countries lying beyond
the region of its control. It stops short at, and with as clear a line
of definition as, the natural boundaries of the peninsula. Cross the
mountain barrier limiting the plains of India, and you pass at once
from civilisation to barbarism, from order to anarchy, from security to
danger, from justice to oppression. So much from the side of India.

From the opposite quarter advances the growing civilisation of Russia—a
civilisation which, notwithstanding its elements of European science and
art, is still but little raised in its general character above that of
the countries it is so rapidly overspreading, and yet, by consequence,
less opposed to the tastes and the requirements of their newly-conquered
peoples. The steamer, the telegraph, and the railway add consolidation to
the new rule in the annexed countries. Order and security are established
within the newly-conquered area by a sharp and decisive though despotic
military rule; whilst commercial enterprise is encouraged with the
countries lying beyond, and fostered by Government patronage. So much
from the side of Russia.

The region lying between the Russian conquests in Central Asia and the
British Empire in India is now the barrier that separates these two forms
of civilisation. It cannot always remain so. It must sooner or later
succumb to the one form or the other; and for this reason it is that the
region claims from us a more than ordinary interest, and, I may say,
sympathy too, by way of reparation for the wrong we inflicted in the
Afghan war—a wrong the fruits of which are yet abundant, as anybody who
has served on our north-west frontier can testify.

The narrative contained in the following pages will, it is hoped, convey
a correct picture of the general nature of the country included between
the Indus and the Tigris, illustrate the chief points in the character of
its peoples, and exemplify the state of the society in which they live.
With respect to the last, I may here say, in anticipation, that tyranny
and insecurity, oppression and violence, reign everywhere all over the
country. It was our lot, on entering this region, to meet a caravan
that had been attacked and plundered by tribes in revolt against their
chief. It was my lot, on leaving the region, to meet another caravan that
had been attacked and plundered by tribes in rebellion against their
sovereign. And it was yet again my lot, before clear of the region in
which we had successfully run the gauntlet through Brahoe and Baloch,
Turkman and Hamadán, to be brought to bay by Arab robbers, from whom we
escaped I know not how.

As the narrative is confined to a description only of the country
actually traversed, it may be useful here to set before the reader a
general view of the whole region lying between the valleys of the Indus
and the Tigris, by way of introduction to the subject-matter of this
book; and this because the region itself is as interesting on account of
its peculiar physical characteristics as it is attractive on account of
its varied historical associations.

The land of the Medes and Persians, Magians and Zoroastrians, on the
one side, and of the Scythians and Aryans, Buddhists and Brahmists, on
the other—the kingdom of Cyrus and of Darius—the country of Alexander’s
fame—the theatre of Arab conquest and Islamite growth—the scene of
Tartar bloodshed and devastation, and the home ever since of anarchy and
desolation—the hotbed of Mohammedan bigotry—the arena of Shia and Sunni
hostility—and, towards the east, the bone of contention between Persian
and Mughal—later still, the battlefield between Afghan and Persian—the
prize of Nadír—the spoil of his successors—and now the possession of
Kajar and Durrani, of Persian and Afghan, each jealous of other, and each
claiming as frontier what the other possesses.

Such are some of the varied historical associations, past and present, of
the region I shall now endeavour to describe in its physical character
only—a region which, with the exception of its western portion, has long
been a closed country to the European, and a jealously-guarded barrier
against the civilisation of the age. The term of its isolation, however,
is doomed; the time of its freedom draws nigh. For the force of Western
civilisation is irresistible. Through it the enlightenment of the age
must soon shed its lustre upon these benighted regions.

The Crimean war poured its light upon Turkey, and under its influence the
“sick man of Europe” has become convalescent. His neighbour is now the
“sick man of Asia.” He looks wistfully at the remedy of civilisation.
Let us hope he may be persuaded to try it. But if Persia is the sick man
of Asia, what shall we say of Afghanistan, shut up in his own barbarism,
imbued to the core with fanatic bigotry, and steeped in the pride of
nationality? Verily, he is very sick—sick unto death. And he knows it,
yet he refuses, obstinately and suspiciously, the only remedy that can
save his decaying constitution from dissolution. Is he to be left to his
fate? or will the physician appear in good time and patch up his broken
frame? These are questions for serious reflection, because the patient is
our neighbour, and his fate cannot be a matter of indifference to us.

The region whose past history and present condition I have thus briefly
alluded to is comprised within the fiftieth and seventieth degrees of
east longitude, and the twenty-fifth and thirty-fifth degrees of north
latitude. Its length is about twelve hundred miles, and its breadth about
six hundred.

Its most characteristic features are its general elevation, and the fact
that no river from its interior reaches the sea. It forms, in fact, a
great elevated block, interposed between the basin of the Caspian and
the low-lying valley of Turkistan on the north, and the Persian Gulf and
Arabian Sea on the south, and is bounded east and west by the valleys of
the Indus and the Tigris respectively.

The area thus limited geographically, in contradistinction to its
political boundaries, presents some remarkable physical peculiarities,
which may be considered characteristic of the whole region. Its mountain
system, its river system, its deserts, and its plains, all offer special
features for notice.

Its mountains, girding it on all sides, shut it off from surrounding
countries. By their internal disposition they divide the region into two
distinct parts, and form a natural boundary separating three distinct
races—the Persian, the Afghan, and the Uzbak.

Its rivers, owing to this internal disposition of the mountains, are
directed in three different directions. Those of Persia mostly converge
to the south-east of its territory; those of Afghanistan converge to the
south-west of its territory; and those to the north of the mountain chain
that separates these two systems, flow northward to the swamps, tracts
lying between the lower course of the Oxus and the Caspian.

Its deserts, too, by the same internal disposition of the mountains, are
divided into three distinct sets—those of Persia and Afghanistan, lying
one on either side of the mountain range separating these two countries,
and that of Turkistan, lying to the north of the same range, in the angle
formed by the mountains that converge from east and west to produce it.

Its plains present greater variety in extent and direction and elevation,
but are all alike in general character—equally arid, equally void of
trees, and equally covered with pasture plants. All are more or less the
resort of nomads with their flocks and herds, and some are peopled by
fixed communities settled in villages.

I will now describe each of these points in the physical geography of
this region separately, but time and space only permit of my doing so
very briefly and in general terms.

As before indicated, the region between the valleys of the Indus and the
Tigris is an elevated country, propped up on all sides by great mountain
ranges.

On the east, it is separated from the valley of the Indus by the Sulemán
range, which continues southwards to the sea-coast in the Hala mountains
that separate Balochistan from Sind. To the northward it connects,
through the Sufed Koh of Kabul, with the Kohi Baba of Hindu Kush. This
range contains within its ridges many fertile valleys and small plains,
all of which drain eastwards to the Indus. To its west lies the high
tableland of Ghazni, and Kandahar and Balochistan.

On the west, it is separated from the valley of the Tigris by the
range of the Zagros mountains, which northwards, through the hills of
Kurdistan, unite with the Armenian mountains. To the southward it extends
by the mountains of Laristan and Khuzistan to those forming the southern
boundary of this region. The declivity of the Zagros ranges toward the
west. The mountains in this direction drop at once to the plains below,
and, viewed from them, look like a huge buttress wall propping up the
tableland of Persia.[1]

On the south, it is supported against the coast of the Arabian Sea by
the Mushti range of Balochistan, on the one hand, and upon the littoral
of the Persian Gulf by the chain of mountains connecting the Balochistan
range with that of Zagros, on the other. To the east these mountains
support the interior tableland of Afghanistan, against the low rugged
hills of the sea-coast, by the hills and valleys of Makrán; and to the
west, by the hills of Laristan and Fars, they unite with the Zagros
range, and support the elevated interior of Persia against the low-lying
shore of the Persian Gulf. This range is pierced by many passes up to the
interior, and encloses numerous fertile and well-watered valleys.

Towards the north, it is separated from the valley of the Oxus and low
plains of Turkistan by the Hindu Kush range on the side of Afghanistan,
and from the basin of the Caspian by the Alburz range on the side of
Persia.

This northern boundary presents some special features. The two great
ranges approaching from the east and west bend southwards to meet in
the vicinity of Herat, whence they project across the whole country,
dividing the region into the two kingdoms of Persia and Afghanistan, and
separating each from the intermediate region to the north—the country of
the Turkmans and the Hazara, with other cognate Uzbak tribes. Thus the
Hindu Kush, west of Kabul, sends off two principal ranges separated by
the Hari Rúd, or river of Herat. The southern of these ranges is called
Syáh Koh, and breaks up into the mountains of Ghor, which, extending
south of Herat, join the Khorassan mountains emanating from the Alburz
range, and form the watershed between the hydrographic systems of
Afghanistan and Turkistan. That is to say, all the streams to the north
of the Syáh Koh range flow to the valley of the Oxus, or to the low
swampy tracts of Marv and Tajand, between the lower course of that river
and the Caspian, whilst all the streams to its south flow to the Sistan
basin, the receptacle for all the drainage of Afghanistan west of Ghazni.

And so from the opposite direction. The Alburz range west of Mashhad
sends off a succession of lofty offshoots, snow-topped in midsummer,
that traverse the northern highlands of Khorassan in a direction from
north-west to south-east, and enclose between them a number of elevated
plateaux, such as those of Nishabor, Sabzwár, Turshíz, and Tabbas, that
all drain westwards into Persia. The principal of these offshoots is the
Binaloh range of mountains. It separates the plain of Mashhad from that
of Nishabor, and towards the south-east connects with the high mountains
of Záwah and Bákharz, north of Herat. This range forms a watershed
between the drainage converging on to the great salt desert of Persia on
the one side, and that flowing to the swamps of Tajand and Marv on the
other.

Between Záwah and Tabbas the chain of mountains is interrupted by a
narrow arm of the salt desert called Kavír, which at Yúnasi projects
eastward on to the plain of Kháf and Ghorian. But it is continued
onwards by spurs from Bákharz which connect with the mountains of Ghazn
on the one side, and with those of Ghor on the other, a little south
of Herat. Here the Ghazn valley drains into Afghanistan, and onwards
south the two ranges proceed in parallel lines, a strip of desert waste
intervening, till they mingle in the Sarhadd mountains, through which
they connect with the great southern mountain border of this region—the
border previously described as extending from the Sulemán range across
Balochistan and the southern provinces of Persia to the Zagros range on
the west.

Of these two parallel ranges, that formed by the projections from the
Ghor mountains extends in detached ridges running mostly north and
south. They enclose amongst them the valleys of Sabzwár or Isapzár, and
Anartarrah, and drain to the Sistan basin by the Harutrúd or Adraskand,
as it is also called. The range passes to the west of the Sistan basin,
of which it forms the boundary in that direction, under the name of Koh
Bandán, and ultimately joins the Sarhadd mountains.

The other range, joined by the spurs from Bákharz, is an extensive
and elevated mountain tract, enclosing numerous plateaux and valleys,
that all drain to the Khusp river, which flows on to the salt desert.
The general direction of the range is from north to south, with spurs
projecting east and west. It connects through the hills of Nih and Bandán
with the Sarhadd mountains.

The mountain barrier thus formed by the emanations from Alburz is the
natural geographical boundary between Persia and Afghanistan, north and
south across the length of their conterminous frontiers. It forms a wide
mountain region called Irani Khorassan, or Persian Khorassan, and abounds
in populous and fertile valleys, full of fruit-gardens and running
streams. Its climate is variable, and its winters severe; but on the
whole it is a very salubrious region, and is everywhere easily traversed
by practicable passes among the hills.

Its inhabitants are a very mixed community. In the southern districts
they are mostly Ilyats, from different stocks, with some Persians settled
in the principal towns, and all under the rule of local chiefs of Arab
descent. In the central districts,—Tún, Tabbas, and northern parts of
Ghazn,—there are many Baloch and Tartar families mixed up with the
general population. To the north of these, in Záwah and Bákharz, the
people are mostly Karai Tartars and Hazárah Uzbaks; and in the northern
districts, Nishabor, Sabzwár, Burdjnurd, Khabúshán, &c., they are
entirely Kurds.

From the above description it will be seen that the Hindu Kush and Alburz
ranges combine to form the Khorassan mountains that separate Persia
from Afghanistan; that Herat, and the country north of their point of
junction, is geographically separated from both, and connected by its
hydrographic system with the valley of the Oxus; that in the vicinity
of Herat the continuity of the Khorassan hills is interrupted, south of
Bákharz, by an arm of the salt desert of Persia; and also that, with
Herat as a centre, the three divergent mountain ranges—viz., those of
Alburz, Ghor, and Ghazn—separate three distinct peoples—the Persians,
the Afghans, and the Turkmans, with Uzbaks and other cognate tribes.

I draw attention to this last point, because the natural configuration
of the country explains the facility with which, from time immemorial,
the predatory tribes of the lower Oxus valley have been enabled to harass
the Persian frontier unchecked with their annual marauding inroads and
slave-hunting expeditions, and because also history has marked out this
locality as the point of ingress towards the east for all northern
invaders; for Herat towards the north, and with it Mashhad, is open to
both Khiva and Bukhára.

The mountain barriers that I have mentioned as geographically bounding
the region lying between the Indus and the Tigris, have by their interior
disposition determined its hydrographic system in a remarkable manner,
on either side of the great Khorassan range separating Afghanistan from
Persia.

The Sulemán range, as already mentioned, is a wide mountain tract,
enclosing within its hills many valleys and hills which all drain
eastwards to the Indus. Its declivity is towards the east, whilst to the
west it slopes gently on to the elevated plateaux of Afghanistan.

To the north, this range connects with the Sufed Koh east of Ghazni, and
at this point commences that great watershed that separates the drainage
of the Indus from that of the Helmand. It runs in a southerly direction,
inclining to west as far as the Bolán and the tableland of Calát, whence
it strikes westward towards the Mushti range, separating the great desert
of Balochistan from Makrán.

To the north of this watershed, Sufed Koh connects through the highlands
of Ghazni with the Kohi Baba of Hindu Kush. From this range starts the
Syáh Koh of Hazárah, which stretches west to Herat, and forms the
watershed between the valley of the Oxus on the north, and the Sistan
basin on the south. From Herat it extends southward by Sabzwár and Bandán
to Sarhadd, where it joins the western spurs of the Mushti range, and
thus completes the circle of the hydrographic system of Afghanistan.

With the exception of the drainage of the Ghazni river, which collects in
the Abistada marsh, and the drainage of the Calát tablelands, which flow
to the desert north of the Mushti range, all the rivers within the area
indicated flow towards the Sistan basin, at the south-western extremity
of the Kandahar plain, though they do not all reach it. All the rivers
and rivulets from the eastward and southward flow to the stream of the
Helmand, whilst those of Sabzwár and Ghor flow in separate streams, all
to meet in the Sistan basin. So it is in the Afghanistan half of the
region; and a similar system, though on a much less extensive scale,
is found to hold in the Persian half. Thus all the streams between the
Alwand range of Hamadán on the west, and the Alburz on the north-east,
converge to the south-east corner of the Persian tableland, where they
expand themselves on the surface of the great salt desert north of
Kirmán. At least, such is the case if any reliance is to be placed on
the statements of my Persian informants, whose testimony I am willing to
believe from my own observations as to the general course of the streams
and the lie of the land; for I have not seen this shown on any map. The
river Khusp of Birjand, the Yúnasi river, the Kál Shor of Nishabor and
Sabzwár, the Kál Abresham and others on to Tehran, all flow direct on
to the salt desert, and the streams crossed on the road from Tehran to
Hamadán all flowed in the same direction.

The great salt desert of Persia, called the Daryáe Kabír, or “the vast
sea,” extends all along the western side of the Khorassan hills, from
Nishabor in the north to Kirmán in the south, and sinks to its lowest
level in the latter direction, opposite to the Sistan basin, on the other
side of the intervening mountain range. So that the water systems of the
two countries converge towards each other, and at some remote period
probably formed lakes or swamps on either side of the mountain range
dividing them, where it joins the great southern border of the region.

The water system of the country, to the north of this dividing range,
belongs to the hydrographic system of Turkistan, and is beyond the
limits of the region I am describing. Its rivers all flow towards the
lowest part of the desert tract lying between the lower course of the
Oxus and the Caspian, and there end in the swamps of Tajand and Marv.
The principal of these streams are the Murgháb, the Hari Rúd, and the
river of Mashhad. With the exception of the Helmand and Farráh Rúd in
Afghanistan, none of these streams always reach their destination.
They only do so in periods of excessive flood; usually their waters
are dissipated by evaporation, absorption by the porous soil, and by
diversions for purposes of irrigation, long before they can reach their
terminal receptacles.

The deserts of this region between the Indus and Tigris are in a measure
connected with its water system. They present vast tracts of elevated
sandy wastes, perfectly void of water and vegetation except on their
skirts. Each division of the region has a desert of its own. That of
Persia has been before mentioned as stretching north and south across
the eastern portion of that country. The desert of Afghanistan extends
east and west across the western half of its southern border, from the
highlands of Calát to the mountains of Sarhadd, south of Sistan. It
is called the Regi Sistan or Regi Balochistan—the sands of Sistan or
Balochistan—and extends from the Mushti range of mountains on the south
up to the plain of Kandahar on the north, where it ends in a high coast
of desert cliffs. This elevated border is called _chol_, or “dry land,”
and forms a belt ten or fifteen miles wide, on which is found a rich
winter pasture for the cattle of the nomads who here make their winter
quarters.

There is also a desert tract to the north between the Caspian and Oxus;
but it differs from the deserts of Persia and Afghanistan in an important
particular. Its surface is a firm gravel, broken into undulations, and
covered with a more or less rich pasture of aromatic herbs, and water is
found in some of the hollows on its surface.

The plains of this region are all elevated plateaux of greater or
less extent, and more frequently the latter. They are all covered
with excellent pastures of rich aromatic herbs and hardy plants, and
are the natural home of the asafœtida and wormwood, and, in the more
elevated tracts, of the rhubarb. Most of them are watered by brisk
little hill-streams, or by those artificial subterranean conduits called
_kárez_, and are more or less populous; villages, fruit-gardens, and
cultivation following the course of the streams, and nomad camps covering
the pastures during the summer months.

In Balochistan, these plateaux rise in steps one above the other between
the hills up to the tableland of Calát. North of this they fall in steps
to the Kandahar plain, which itself sinks towards the south-west to the
Sistan basin. In Persia they rise in a similar gradation from the shores
of the Persian Gulf and basin of the Tigris up to the tablelands of the
interior, where they sink again gradually to the lowest part of the salt
desert in the south-east portion of the country.

Such, in general terms, are the main features of the region between the
Indus and the Tigris. Its climate, as may be imagined, is as varied as
the surface of the country. It partakes of the temperate character of
an Alpine climate in the northern mountain tracts, whilst in the lower
desert tracts it equals in heat the torrid plains of India during the
summer months. But in winter it is everywhere cold; in the mountain
regions rigorously so, whilst on the wide plains and deserts it is
equally severe by reason of the strong north winds that sweep the country
for months.

On the whole, the climate, with its many variations, may be considered
salubrious and favourable to life. Its inhabitants certainly are
physically amongst the finest of the human race, notwithstanding the
inferior fare and barbarous mode of life that are the lot of a large
proportion of them, in Afghanistan particularly. In this country the
signs of departed prosperity and plenty are everywhere met with. From
Ghazni westward, all along the valleys of the Tarnak and the Helmand,
down to the basin of Sistan, the whole country is covered with the ruins
of former cities, obliterated canals, and deserted cultivation—all
assigned to the devastation of the Tartars under Changhiz and Tymúr in
the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries.

The country has never recovered the havoc created by these curses of the
human race. Since the destruction of the Arab rule overthrown by them,
the country has known no stable government, and has been a stranger to
peace, order, and prosperity alike. But it has within itself all the
material elements of prosperity. What it wants are a firm government and
a just rule. With these once more established over it, there is no reason
why the country should not again recover its former state of prosperity
and plenty. Its mountains contain a store of unexplored treasure, and its
plains an only half-developed wealth.

Of its inhabitants I need add little here, as to describe them fully
would fill a volume. Suffice it to say, that those of Persia and
Afghanistan alike contain representatives of various Tartar races thrown
into this region by the successive waves of invasion from the north,
as well as representatives of earlier known peoples pushed on into it
from the south-west, mixed up with the ancient inhabitants of the land.
Thus in Persia, with the ancient inhabitants, who are mostly settled in
the large towns and cities, are found various tribes of Mughals, Turks,
and Kurds, together with Arabs, Armenians, and Jews. A fourth of the
population, which may be estimated at six millions, consists of wandering
tribes, generically known as _ilyát_, a term which signifies “the
tribes,” and corresponds with the _úlús_ of the Afghans. In the _ilyát_
are comprised all sorts of tribes, Arab and Ajam, that is to say, of Arab
origin and of Persian or foreign origin, or, in other words, tribes who
have come into the country at different times from the west and from the
north.

In Afghanistan, with its province of Balochistan, both included in the
country of Khorassan, are the original Tajiks of Persian origin, the
Afghans or Pukhtúns (the dominant race), and the Hazárah of Tartar
invasions, together with Kazzilbash Mughals, and Uzbaks and Turks of
various tribes, Hindkis and Kashmiris, and others of Indian origin,
all in the northern tracts. In the southern are Brahoe and Baloch, of
different origin and diverse speech; the Dihwár or Tajik, of Persian race
and tongue, and a mixture of different tribes, such as Jats of Sind,
Hindus of Shikárpúr, and a few mongrel tribes of nobody knows where.

In our passage through the Brahoe country I collected the material for
a concise grammar and vocabulary of that language. It will be found in
the Appendix. I had hoped to have been able to add similar grammars
and vocabularies of the Baloch and Sistan dialects; but the adverse
circumstances of our sojourn in these countries prevented my acquiring
a sufficient knowledge of their languages, and I find that the data
collected are much too scanty to permit of my making the attempt, though,
from what I did gather, I believe both are closely allied to the Persian.




CHAPTER I.


We left Multán by the morning train on the 26th December 1871, and after
a ride of near an hour, alighted at Sher Sháh Ghát on the river bank.
Here we took leave of our kind host, Colonel Stuart Graham, Commissioner
of the Division, and embarked on board the river steamer _Outram_. By
noon we had loosed our moorings, and the _Outram_, wedged in between
two unwieldy flats lashed to her one on either side, was fairly started
down-stream of the river Chenáb.

We had hardly proceeded two hours when we were brought to a stand-still
by “something” wrong with the engine. Whatever this mysterious
“something” may have been, it necessitated our mooring alongside the
river bank for the rest of the day. A stout plank thrown across from one
of the flats served to communicate with the shore, which is here a dead
level of loose sand, evidently a recent deposit by floods. The banks
here are very low, so too is the stream between them at this season,
as we soon discovered, to the no small trial of our patience. They—the
banks—are of loose sand, flush with the general surface of the plain as
far as the eye can reach on either side. They are perpetually sucking up
moisture from the stream washing them, and then, becoming overweighted,
subside into the river, to be restored again in the succeeding year’s
floods.

By seven o’clock next morning we had cast off from our moorings, and
were drifting down mid-stream, fairly started for a good day’s run. But
we had hardly proceeded half-an-hour when a smart bump announced our
stoppage by a sandbank. A little delay presently revealed the unpleasant
fact that the _Outram_ with her flats was jammed in a shallow channel
with only two and a half feet of water. Anchors were thrown out, first
on one side, then on the other; the engine was backed astern, and then
turned ahead. The _Outram_ was hauled first this way and then that;
she was worked now backwards and again driven forwards; and so on in
alternation for upwards of seven hours. Finally, about three o’clock, our
unwieldy _tria juncta in uno_ was wriggled out of the strait into free
water four feet deep.

But we were not yet clear of our difficulties. A few hundred yards
farther on we were again stranded on a sandbank; and not being able to
get off it at sunset, anchored for the night in mid-stream, having during
the day increased our distance from Multán by four miles more than it
was on the previous evening. We did not get fairly off this bank till
noon of the following day. And so we went on, with like obstructions
daily, entailing more or less delay, till we reached Bakrí at sunset
of the 30th. Here next morning we transhipped to the river steamer _De
Grey_, the cargo being transferred during the night, and making a good
start, arrived at Cháchá, a little below the junction of the Chenáb with
the Indus, on the morning of the second day of the new year. Here our
only fellow-traveller, the Rev. T. V. French, of the Church Missionary
Society, left us for Baháwalpúr.

The _De Grey_ fared only a little better than the _Outram_. We
experienced many delays from shoal water and narrow channels, and
at sunset of the second day ran on to a sandbank. The shock of the
concussion caused one of the flats to break away from its attachments
and crush against the stern of the steamer. The whole night was employed
in securing the flat and working the steamer off the bank. By eight
o’clock next morning we got off into free water, and making a good day’s
run, at sunset moored for the night at Rodhar, a little hamlet of reed
huts close on the river bank, and about forty-eight miles above Sakkar.

During the day, we saw immense numbers of water-fowl of all sorts. Ducks
in great variety, coolan, wild geese, herons, cranes, and paddy-birds
were the most prominent in point of size and numbers. Porpoises hunted
up and down the stream, alligators on the sandbanks lazily basked in
the sunshine, and wild pigs cautiously issued from the thick coverts
on either side for a wallow in the shallows and puddles bordering the
river’s stream.

In one of these shallows, formed by an overflow of the river, we
witnessed a curious sight—an interesting fact for the naturalist. A
large fish floundering about in the shallow water had attracted the
attention of a buzzard flying overhead. The bird made one or two stoops
at the fish, when a jackal, looking on from the edge of the jangal, came
forward to contest its possession. He boldly went some twenty paces into
the water, and after a sharp struggle seized the fish and brought it to
land. Here he laid it on the sand to take breath and look around, and the
buzzard, seizing the opportunity, again made a stoop at the fish, but was
driven off by the jackal, who made a jump into the air at him. This was
repeated two or three times, after which the jackal, taking up his prize,
with head aloft proudly trotted back to his covert. The fish appeared to
be at least twenty inches long.

We left Rodhar early next morning, and proceeded without obstruction. We
passed a number of small hamlets close on the river bank on either side.
They were composed of reed cabins supported on slender poles eight or ten
feet high. Each cabin was a neat pent-roofed box, about ten feet long by
six wide, and as many high at the sides. They belonged to Sindhí Jats,
who live by fishing, cutting wood for fuel, and by tending cattle.

The country here is wooded close to the water’s edge by a thick jangal
of Euphrates poplar, tamarisk, and mimosa, and here and there are
great belts of tall reeds, eighteen to twenty feet high. The approach
to Sakkar is very fine and unique of its kind. It presents a charming
contrast to the dead level of the scenery on either side the river above
it as far as Multán. The island fortress of Bakkar in mid-stream, with
the many-storied houses and lofty palm groves of Rorhí, on one side,
and the high rocks and sunburnt town of Sakkar on the other, are the
characteristic features of this peculiar spot. We steamed through the
channel between Rorhí and Bakkar, and then, making for the opposite
shore, moored under the town of Sakkar at about one o’clock. It thus took
us nearly eleven whole days to perform the journey by river from Multán
to Sakkar. In the hot season, when the river is in full flood, the same
journey is usually accomplished in one third of the time.

Cattle for our baggage and camp equipage having been collected here by
previous arrangement, we left our servants to follow with them, and at
half-past three set out for Shikárpúr in a buggy kindly placed at our
service by Captain Hampton, Superintendent of the Panjab Steam Flotilla.
At Mangráni, the half-way stage, we mounted camels sent out for us, and
in four hours from Sakkar, arrived at Shikárpúr. The road is excellent
throughout, and laid most of the way with long reed grass to keep down
the dust. The country is flat, crossed by many irrigation canals, and
covered with jangal patches of tamarisk and mimosa. In the last five
miles from Lakkí to Shikárpúr, cultivation is general, and large trees
become more abundant.

In the morning our obliging host, Colonel Dunsterville, Collector of
Shikárpúr, took us for a drive to see the place. In the public gardens
called Shákí Bágh is a small menagerie and the Merewether pavilion. The
latter, built after the design of those useless decorated structures
one sees at English watering-places and pleasure gardens, is a striking
object, absurdly at variance with all its surroundings. But it is
characteristic of our prejudices and tastes in matters architectural. We
unaccountably neglect the encouragement of the oriental architecture,
with its elegant designs, elaborate detail, and durable material, for the
nondescript compositions, incongruous mixture of colours, and inferior
material of the public buildings and monuments we have spread all over
the country. We seem to forget that what is suitable to the climate,
conformable to the scenery, and acceptable to the tastes of the people
of Europe, may be the reverse in each instance when introduced into this
country without modification or adaptation to its circumstances. The town
of Shikárpúr is clean for an oriental city, and wears an air of quiet and
prosperity. The environs are well stocked with large trees, such as the
_ním_ (melia azadirachta), _sirras_ (acaciaelata), _sissú_ (Dalbergia
sissoo), palm, &c., and the roads are everywhere covered with a layer
of reeds to keep down the dust. The people are clad in bright-coloured
garments, and appear a very thriving commercial community. The bazaar is
covered with a pent-roof, and has a cool look, which alone must be a boon
in this hot climate. There is a very useful charitable dispensary here,
and a jail for five hundred prisoners. I observed that the convicts were
clad in fur jackets (_postín_), a luxury very few of them ever possessed
in their free state.

We left Shikárpúr at two o’clock, and drove to Sultán di Gót, where we
found camels awaiting our arrival. The one intended for my riding took
fright at the buggy, tore away from his nose-ring, and, luckily for
me, escaped into the jangal. This I say advisedly; for had the frisky
creature been recaptured, I could not have declined to ride him, and the
consequences might have been anything but agreeable. I was unaccustomed
to this mode of travelling, and knew little about the handling of a
camel. Had he bolted with me on his back, there is no knowing where he
would have stopped, and the jolting—well! it is lucky I escaped the
chance of its consequences.

After a short delay, a pony having been procured from the village, we set
off, and at half-way passing the staging bungalow of Humáyún, arrived at
Jacobabad at seven o’clock. The road is excellent, and is bordered by an
avenue of large trees nearly the whole way, and is crossed by several
irrigation canals. Jacobabad is the headquarters of the Sindh Irregular
Force, and is a flourishing frontier station, luxuriant in the vigour of
youth. It was laid out, planted, and watered, not a score of years ago,
by the talented officer whose name it commemorates, on a bare and desert
tract, near the little hamlet of Khangarh, on the very verge of the
desert. It affords a striking example of what the energy and judgment of
a determined will can effect.

Our servants with the camp equipage did not arrive at Jacobabad till
daylight of the next day. We halted here a day to complete the final
arrangements for our journey across the border, and to decide on the
route we were to take.

The affairs of Balochistan had for some time been in an unsettled state,
owing to differences that had arisen between the ruling chief and some
of his most powerful feudal barons. Matters had grown worse, and, at
the time of our arrival here, several of the tribal chiefs were in open
rebellion, and had taken the field against the Khán of Calát, over
whose troops, it appears, they had gained the advantage in more than
one encounter. Owing to these disturbances, the direct and ordinary
route through Balochistan by the Bolán Pass was closed. There were two
alternative routes, namely, that by Tal Chhotiyálí, to the north of the
Bolán, and that by the Míloh Pass to its south. The first is described
as an easy road, and has the advantage of leading direct into the Peshín
valley; moreover, it is a route hitherto untraversed by Europeans. But
these advantages and desiderata were annulled and counterbalanced, as
far as we were concerned, by the perilous nature of the route in the
vicinity of Mount Chapper, occupied by the lawless and savage tribe of
Kákarr, notorious robbers, who are restrained by the fear of neither God
nor devil, and much less of man. The Míloh Pass route, although nearly a
hundred and ninety miles longer than that by the Bolán, was consequently,
thanks to the sound judgment of Sir William Merewether (for which we
subsequently found good reason to be grateful), decided on as the road
for us to proceed by.

Our camp having gone ahead at daylight, under escort of two native
commissioned officers and forty troopers of the Sindh Irregular Horse,
we set out from the hospitable mansion of Sir William Merewether,
Commissioner of Sindh, at nine o’clock in the morning of the 8th January
1872, and clearing the station, presently entered on a vast desert plain.
At about three miles we crossed the line of the British frontier, and
at two miles more reached Mumal, the first habitation in the territory
of the Khán of Calát or Kelat. It is a collection of eighteen or twenty
mean hovels, the occupants of which were the personification of poverty
and wretchedness. Here we bade adieu to Captain R. G. Sandeman, Deputy
Commissioner of Dera Gházi, who, with a party of Mazári horsemen,
accompanied us thus far, and mounting our camels, set out at a swinging
trot across the desert towards Barshori, thirty miles distant, turning
our backs upon civilisation, and hurrying into the regions of discord and
barbarism. We were accompanied by Pír Ján, son of Muhammad Khán, the Khán
of Calát’s agent at Jacobabad, and eight of his horsemen.

The desert is a wide smooth surface of hard dry clay, as level as a
billiard-table, and bare as a board. Not a single pebble, nor even a
blade of grass, was anywhere to be seen. The caravan track lying before
us was the only distinguishable feature on the dull surface of bare
clay. After travelling thus for about two and a half hours, we sighted
two lofty mounds set together in the midst of the desert, with shrubby
bushes fringing pools of water at their bases, all remarkably clear and
distinct. “That,” said Pír Ján, “is the _Lúmpáni áb_, or ‘the lustre
of the minstrel’s water,’ so named from the tradition of a travelling
_Lúm_, or ‘minstrel,’ who, seeing such abundant signs of water, emptied
the cruse under whose weight he was toiling, and perished in the desert
from thirst.” As we approached nearer, the illusion disappeared, and
the semblance dissolved to the reality—two heaps of clay on the sides
of a dry well-shaft, a few scattered saltworts, and a patch of soda
efflorescence. This was the most perfect _sihráb_ (magic water) or mirage
I had ever seen. We rested here awhile, to allow the baggage to get on
to our camp ground; but after half-an-hour, finding the midday sun too
hot, we remounted our camels and resumed our track across the desert, and
overtook the baggage a little way short of Barshori, where we arrived at
sunset.

Here we found a large káfila scattered over a considerable surface of
land about the village. As we passed by towards some clear ground on
the further side of the village, we were surrounded by a noisy crowd
of Afghans, who, with the utmost volubility and excitement, poured out
a confused jumble of complaints and laments, and begged an immediate
inquiry and redress for their grievances. Everybody speaking at once,
the confusion of sounds prevented our understanding what was said; so
we dismounted from our camels, and General Pollock directing the crowd
to disperse, retained a few as spokesmen for the rest. We presently
learned that the káfila had been attacked in the Bolán above Dádar by
Mulla Muhammad, Ráisání, chief of Sahárawán, who, with others, is in
open revolt against the authority of the Khán of Calát, and that they
had fought their way through, with the loss of six men killed, fourteen
wounded, and a hundred and fifty camels with their loads captured by
the enemy. Whilst listening to these accounts, eight wounded men were
brought forward. I examined and did what I could for them at the time.
They were all severely wounded, six by gunshot and two by sword-cut. I
was turning away, when a blustering fellow, loudly cursing the barbarity
of the robbers, set an old woman in my path, and removing her veil,
exclaimed, “Look here! they have not even spared our women; they have
cut off this poor woman’s nose with a sword.” The miserable creature’s
face was shockingly eaten away by disease. I raised my eyes from it to
the speakers’, and was about to speak, when I was forestalled by the
bystanders, who merrily said, “Take her away; that dodge won’t do, he
knows all about it.” The effrontery of the whole proceeding was Afghan
throughout.

The káfila, we were told, consisted of twelve hundred camels and eighteen
hundred followers from Kandahar. The merchandise comprised a varied
stock, such as wool, dried fruits, raisins, choghas, barrak, pashmína,
specie, and jewels. The value of the whole was estimated at nine laks
of rupees, of which about two laks had been plundered in the Bolán.
Directing our informants to make their representations to the authorities
of Jacobabad, we passed on to our own camp.

We were seated on our cots, watching the erection of our tents, when our
attention was diverted to four men cautiously approaching us from the
direction of the káfila. Their leader was a venerable greybeard, and by
his side walked a delicate youth. As they neared us I observed, “Surely,
I know those people;” when the elder, hastily glancing around to satisfy
himself that he was unobserved by the káfila people, hurried forward,
fell at my feet, then quickly rising, took my hands in his own, kissed
them, and pressed them to his forehead, uttering all the while a rapid
succession of prayers and congratulations on his good fortune in meeting
me.

“Saggid Mahmúd of Sariáb, what has brought you here from Ghazni?”
inquired I, after the customary interchange of salutations, so cordially
initiated by himself. “Hush!” said he, in a low voice, turning to my
ear. “We are going on a pilgrimage to Karbalá by Bombay, Basrah, and
Baghdad, but are obliged to call it Makha for fear of the bigoted
heretics composing our káfila. Yes,” continued he, in a louder tone, “we
are going the _haj_ to Makha. You see, poor Cásim is no better, though
he has carried out all your directions, and finished all the bottles
of that excellent medicine you were so gracious as to give him. It was
really a most potent medicine, and acted quite like a charm. Cásim was
nearly cured by it, and was fast recovering the use of his arm, when our
messenger returned from Peshawar with your gracious epistle promising to
send that magic chain for him, if I sent him back for it a month later.
I did send him, but he never returned, and poor Cásim rapidly losing
ground, soon became as bad as ever he was before he took your medicine.
God’s will be done. We are all His servants. You did your best for us,
and God prosper you.”

I must here digress a little to inform the reader of the circumstances
of my former acquaintance with our pilgrim friend. Just two years ago,
in the commencement of 1870, Saggid Mahmúd, bearing a recommendatory
letter from the Amir of Kabul, came to me at Peshawar for professional
advice regarding his son. I found the lad was afflicted with tubercular
leprosy and a paralysed arm, and learned on inquiry that his sister and
some cousins also were afflicted with leprosy. Like most natives of
these parts my patients believed, or professed to believe, that I had
only to feel the pulse, administer some physic, and prescribe a regimen,
to ensure a speedy recovery. And great was their disappointment on my
telling the old man that, as far as I was concerned, his son’s disease
was incurable. They had travelled upwards of three hundred miles for a
cure, and it was hard they should return without some sort of attempt
towards the attainment of so desirable an issue. So I took the case in
hand, and treated the lad for some months with little or no benefit.
At length, the hot weather approaching, they returned to their home at
Ghazni, with a large supply of medicine. In the following year Saggid
Mahmúd wrote to me for a fresh supply of medicine and the galvanic
battery I had employed on his son at Peshawar. The medicine I sent him
by his messenger, and promised to get him a galvanic chain if he would
send for it a month or so later. His messenger never came, and the chain
remained with me.

On my leaving Peshawar for the journey before us, I packed the galvanic
chain (it was one of Pulvermacher’s) in one of my boxes, on the chance
of an opportunity offering to forward it to Ghazni. I now informed our
visitors of this, and opening the box, produced the case containing
the chain, and handed it over to Saggid Mahmúd, congratulating him on
the good fortune that had enabled me to present it personally. He was
completely taken aback at finding I had really got the chain for his
son, and taking it in both hands, exclaimed, “This is wonderful! Who
would have believed it? You are all true and just people, and deserve
to be great. It is for such sincerity that God prospers you.” With many
expressions of gratitude and prayers for our safe progress, our visitors
took their leave. Six months later we met this old man again at Shahrúd,
as will be hereafter related.

Barshori is an open village of about eighty houses on the edge of a
dry water-course. Its inhabitants are Mánjhú Jats, and appear to be
comfortably off. There is a good deal of corn cultivation around,
judging from the wide extent of corn-stalks. Water, however, is limited
in quantity, and very inferior in quality. It is derived from a number
of small shafts, upwards of a hundred, sunk in the bed of the drainage
channel above mentioned, and is very turbid and brackish. The road to the
Bolán Pass _viâ_ Bágh and Dádar goes off northwards from this, and that
to the Míloh Pass by Gandáva goes off to the west.

We left Barshori at nine o’clock next morning and proceeded westward
over a wide level plain intersected by a number of dry superficial
water-courses. The general surface is a bare, hard clay similar to
the desert traversed yesterday, but here and there we found traces of
cultivation, and at distant intervals came upon scattered patches of
thin jangal. At about half-way we passed Kikri, a collection of twenty
or thirty huts of Mánjhú Jats some little way to the right of the road;
and at five miles farther on passed through Bashkú, a flourishing village
of about two hundred houses, surrounded by jujube, mimosa, and tamarisk
trees. It stands on the edge of a deep and wide water-course, in the dry
bed of which we noticed a long series of wells. At a mile and a half
further on we came to Sinjarani, and camped; the distance from Barshori,
thirteen miles. Sinjarani is an open village, similar in size and
situation to Bashkú. Both are inhabited by Sinjarani Jats, and in both
we found the house-tops and courts piled with stacks of _júár_ (Sorgham
vulgare), the tall leafy stalks of which furnish an excellent fodder for
cattle. The water here is very turbid, but not brackish. The wells, of
which there are about two hundred in the water-course, are mere narrow
shafts sunk in the clay soil. Water is tapped at about ten cubits, and
oozes up in a thick muddy state in small quantities of a few gallons only
to each well.

We started from Sinjarani at seven A.M. on the 10th January, and at
eight miles came to the village of Odhána, one hundred houses. At about
a mile to the south of it is the Kubíha hamlet, of fifty houses. Both
were attacked and plundered less than a month ago by the Brahoes, at the
instigation of Mulea Muhammad, Ráisání, and Allah Dina, Kurd, who, with
Núruddín, Mingal of Wadd, are in revolt against the Khán of Calát. They
are now deserted except by two or three miserable old men, who came
forward to tell us their pitiful tale. We dismounted at Odhána and went
over its empty and desolate homesteads. The work of plunder had been most
effectively done. The houses were empty, heaps of ruin, and nothing but
bare walls remained standing. The doors and roof timbers had been carried
away, and the corn-bins emptied. Some of these last were left standing in
the courts. They resemble those seen in the Peshawar valley, and consist
of tall wicker frames plastered within and without with a coating of clay
and straw. The top is closed with a movable cover of the same material,
and they are raised above the ground on short pedestals. They are
impervious to rain and the ravages of rats, and are well adapted to the
storing of grain. At the lower edge of the bin is an aperture fitted with
a plug of rags. Through this the daily quantum of grain is withdrawn, as
it is required for the mill. We found all empty. The whole village had
been completely sacked, many of the people had been carried off, and the
rest dispersed after being stripped of everything. The Brahoes did not
even spare the women their mantles, nor the men their trousers, nor did
they allow a single head of cattle to escape them.

At about three miles further on we came to another village of the same
name. It too had been plundered, and was now deserted. Beyond this our
path crossed a bare desert surface on which were the traces of a flood
of waters. The plain itself cut the horizon, and resembled a great
sea glimmering in the vapours of the mirage. As we were crossing this
desolate tract our attention was drawn to a crowd of gigantic figures
moving against the southern horizon. Our companion Pír Ján stopped his
camel and begged us to rein up. He looked very grave, said the appearance
was suspicious, marauding Brahoes were known to be about, and that was
just the direction in which the rebel Mingals might be looked for. He
parleyed a while with his horsemen, then scrutinised the figures, then
he parleyed again, and again scrutinised them, and so on for eight or
ten minutes, himself and his men all the while capping their muskets,
slinging their swords, and tightly securing their turbans in readiness
for attack. Meanwhile the figures kept changing their positions and forms
in the vapoury glare of the mirage. They were in turn pronounced to be
horsemen, then camels at graze, then footmen, and finally cattle at
graze. In this uncertainty Pír Ján directed one of his horsemen to gallop
forward and solve the mystery. He did not, however, seem to see the
advisability of the proposal, and whilst professing ready acquiescence,
merely pranced his horse about within close reach of our party. By this
time the figures emerged from the mirage, and we counted eight horsemen
and two camels, making straight towards us. Pír Ján now sent forward
three of his horsemen at a gallop towards them, and they in turn sent a
like number to confront them. Our three then reined up, and so did the
others, at about five hundred yards apart. Then a single cavalier from
each side advanced, they approached together, stood a few moments, and
then both galloped off to the party who had so alarmed us, and who were
at a stand-still like ourselves. Presently the other two of our horsemen
galloped off to them. “It’s all well,” exclaimed Pír Ján, with a relieved
expression of countenance; “they are not enemies.” A little later our
horsemen rejoined us, with the intimation that the authors of our
diversion were not Mingals, only Magassis, a friendly tribe of Baloch, on
their way to Bágh. So we went on, and the Magassis crossed our track some
hundred yards behind us.

Beyond this desert tract the country is traversed by several irrigation
canals, and presents signs of very considerable cultivation right up
to Gandáva. At this season the whole country is dry, but during the
summer rains it is inundated by the Nárí river, which rises in the hills
about Dadur, and spreads its floods broadcast all over the desert tract
extending from Gandáva to Jacobabad. Most of this water is allowed to run
waste, and from want of care much is lost by evaporation. Under a settled
government there is little doubt that most of this desert tract could
be brought under cultivation, for the soil appears very good, and the
facilities for irrigation during the summer months are at hand. But both
are sadly neglected all over the Kachi _pat_, the designation by which
the great desert tracts of Kach are known.

Gandáva, the capital of Kach, is a decayed-looking town, and its
fortifications are fast crumbling into ruin. It is the winter residence
of the Khán of Calát, whose mansion is situated in the citadel, which
overlooks the town from the north. The town has an extremely sunburnt and
desolate appearance. The summer months here are described as excessively
hot, and unbearable to all but natives of the country. During this season
a poisonous hot wind, called _juloh_, prevails over the plain of Kach,
and destroys travellers exposed to its blast. It proves fatal in a few
hours, by drying up all the moisture of the body, and the skin of those
killed by it appears scorched and fissured, and putrefaction at once
takes place.

We rested here during the heat of the day in the Khán’s garden on the
south of the town, to allow our baggage to pass on. The garden is a
neglected wilderness of all sorts of trees crowded together, but to us
proved a grateful retreat for the shade it afforded. In its centre are
a couple of fine pipal trees (_Ficus religiosa_), and around them we
recognised the mango, jujube, sweet lime, vine, date-palm, apricot,
cordia myxa, banhinia variegata, sizygium jambolanum, and acacia siris.

Proceeding from Gandáva, we left Fatupúr, conspicuous by its lofty domed
tombs, to the left, and passing through a thick jangal of capparis,
salvadora, and acacia, amongst which were scattered small patches of
bright green mustard, came to the Garrú ravine, a wide drainage channel
with a sandy bed, covered with a thick belt of tamarisk trees. Beyond
this, at eight miles from Gandáva and thirty from Sinjarani, we came to
Kotra, and camped at sunset.

This is a collection of four villages close to each other, the residence
of the members of the Iltáfzai family, whose head is the ruling Khán
of Calát. They are surrounded by stately trees and productive gardens,
watered by a brisk stream from a spring at Pír Chhatta. Some of the
houses here appear very neat and comfortable residences. Altogether the
place wears an air of prosperity, and is out-and-out the most picturesque
and flourishing place we have seen since we left Jacobabad. Kotra is
the _entrepôt_ of the trade between Balochistan (Calát and Makrán) and
Shikárpúr.

We arrived at Kotra just as the sun had set, and our baggage was yet
far behind. After selecting a site for our camp, and waiting some time
for its arrival, misgivings crept over us as to our evening meal, for
it was already eight o’clock, and no signs of our baggage being near at
hand were visible, and unpleasant suspicions of having to go supperless
to bed forced themselves on our mind. All length I hinted to our
companion Pír Ján—who, by the way, proved a very inefficient and indolent
cicerone—that, in the event of our servants not coming up in time, he
might be able to get us something to eat from the village before it
became too late. He took the hint, and, after some delay, in the interim
of which our camp arrived, at nearly nine o’clock, his messenger returned
from the village with a bowl of mutton, stewed in its own broth, and some
bannocks, which he said had been sent from Mír Khyr Muhammad’s house,
with that Iltáfzai chiefs compliments, and excuses for not being able to
see us this evening, a pleasure which he hoped to enjoy in the morning.
We forthwith set to work with our fingers on the mutton, and ladled up
the broth with successive spoons formed of shreds of bannock, which went
the same way as their contents, until the fast “setting” grease of the
cooling mess suddenly persuaded us that we had sufficiently taken off the
keen edge of our appetites, and we gladly turned from the coarse bowl and
soiled rag on which it stood. Though grateful for the entertainment, I
must say I was disappointed in this experience of Baloch hospitality. Any
Afghan peasant would have done the honours not only with better grace and
substance, but spontaneously.

Whilst our tents were being pitched in the dim light of approaching
night, a couple of rampant _yábús_, or baggage ponies, not satisfied
with a march of thirty miles, broke away from the rest, and made an
unwarrantable assault on our two Baloch mares—beautiful gazelle-eyed,
gentle creatures—as they quietly stood, with saddles and bridles
unremoved, waiting their turn to be picketed. There was immediately a
grand row; the mares kicking and squealing desperately, and the _yábús_
rearing and roaring as the horses of this country only can. A dozen men
rushed to the rescue from all directions, with shouts, threats, and
imprecations. In two minutes all four bolted out of camp, and tore wildly
out of sight into the jangal.

We got some men from the village to go in search of them during the
night, and our departure was delayed till noon of the next day, pending
their recapture. The animals were brought back none the worse for their
mad career over such rough country as that between Kotra and the adjacent
hills, but their gear was a good deal damaged, and one saddle was lost.
From Kotra we marched to Pír Chhatta, nine miles. The path winds through
a jangal of wild caper, mimosa, and salvadora to the Míloh ravine, on the
bank of which we found a collection of twelve or fourteen booths of the
Kambarání and Syáni Brahoe, who are occupied as camel-drivers between
Calát and Shikárpúr. Their dwellings were mere sheds of tamarisk branches
covering a loose framework supported on slender poles, and altogether
appeared a very inefficient and temporary sort of shelter. I noticed
that the women, though equally exposed to the weather, were much fairer
and comelier than the men. Their dress was as rough and simple as their
dwellings. A long loose shift of coarse cotton, with loose sleeves, was
the only dress of some of the women; one or two of them wore besides a
small sheet or mantle thrown loosely over the head and shoulders. The men
wore capacious cotton trousers, gathered in at the ankle, and over these
a short shirt with wide sleeves; round the head were wound a few folds of
a twisted turban. Grazing about their settlement were a number of pretty
little goats, the smallest I ever saw, hardly twenty inches high.

After following the dry pebbly bed of the ravine for a little way in a
southerly direction, we turned out of it to the right at a conspicuous
dome over the grave of Mír Iltaf, the uncle of the present Mír of
Kotra. By it flows a brisk stream, which, on its way to Kotra, turns
three or four water-mills, the sites of which are marked by clumps of
date-palm, jujube, and pipal trees. From this point we turned towards
the hill range, along which we had been travelling in a parallel course
from Gandáva. They wear a wild, dreary, and inhospitable look, and the
country at their skirt is rugged, and mostly bare of vegetation. At about
four miles from the tomb, crossing two or three ridges of conglomerate
rock, and the little stream winding between and round them _en route_,
we came to the palm grove of Pír Chhatta, and camped on an open turfy
spot amongst the trees, and near the spring-head of the stream above
mentioned. The soil here is a powdery clay, white with efflorescent
salines, and even the turf is stiff with white encrustations of soda
salts. At the spring-head is a hermit’s cell, and close by, suspended on
the boughs of a tree, is a peal of about thirty small bells, which the
_faqír_ rattles every now and then to wake up the mountain echoes.

The spring on issuing from the rock forms a small pool. We found it
absolutely crammed with fish from six to ten inches long. They looked,
I thought, like spotted trout, except that the scales were like those
of the salmon. These fish are held sacred, and most dire consequences
are said to overtake the sacrilegist who should so far forget himself
as to violate the sanctity of the pool of Pír Chhatta by feasting on
its protected fish. We threw a few handfuls of grain into the pool
to propitiate the saint, or his mean representative in the unwashed
and unclad person of the hermit, who seemed no ways pleased at our
unceremonious intrusion on his special domain. The surface of the pool
was instantly a solid mass of fish, struggling for the grain, which
disappeared in a marvellously short space of time. Whilst we thus amused
ourselves, the hermit, probably fearful of our annexing a few of the fish
for dinner, recounted some wonderful instances he knew of the agonised
deaths produced by so rash an act. But he was eclipsed by an attendant
orderly, who gravely assured us that a comrade of his—a trooper of the
Sindh Irregular Horse—had on one occasion, when passing this way, taken
one of these fish, cut it up, cooked, and eaten it. “And what happened?”
angrily asked the hermit. “By the power of God,” he answered, “the wicked
wretch was seized immediately after with the most excruciating pains in
his internals. He rolled on the ground in agony, and repeated _tabas_
and _astaghfirullahs_ (repentances and God forgive me’s) without number,
calling on all the saints and prophets to intercede for him.” “And then
he died!” chimed in the hermit, with a triumphant air. “No,” said the
other; “God is great, and, such is His mercy, he got up and went amongst
the bushes, groaning and moaning with agony. Presently he returned quite
another being, perfectly well and happy, with the fish alive in his hand,
and upbraiding him for his want of faith and veneration, and directing
its restoration to its own element.” “God’s ways are inscrutable,”
said the hermit; adding, with ineffable pride, “our pure prophet heard
his prayers, our blessed saint of this sacred spot interceded for him;
God, the Almighty, accepted his repentance.” Our narrator admitted on
interrogation that he was not an eye-witness of what he had just related,
but he knew several men who were. After this example—and it is one by no
means uncommon amongst Muhammadans in these countries—of audacity and
credulity, we strolled back to our tents speculating upon the mental
organisation of a people who could, without an attempt at question,
accept such absurdities. The blind credulity of the Muhammadan in all
that concerns his prophet and saints, their sayings and their doings,
their precepts and examples, affords an interesting field for inquiry to
the psychologist. Such investigation would, I believe, establish it as a
fact that the obstinate yet passive resistance of Muhammedans to the free
advance of Western civilisation amongst them is owing almost entirely to
the spirit of bigotry created by their religion and cherished by their
literature, for the one is a mere reflection of the other.

There is no habitation at Pír Chhatta, nor are any supplies procurable
here. Our cicerone, Pír Ján, with his usual want of forethought, had
himself made no arrangements for our supplies here, nor had he told us
of the necessity of making any such arrangements, nor, when he found how
matters stood, did he seem inclined in any way to stir himself to remedy
them. So the General summoned him to his presence, and took him sharply
to task for his carelessness. This had the effect of rousing him from
the dull lethargy into which the perpetual repetition of his beads had
thrown him, and he at last stirred himself to see what could be done to
feed our cattle and camp-followers. There was not alternative but to send
back some of our cattle with one of his men to purchase grain, fodder,
&c., at Kotra. The evening was well advanced before they returned. The
night air here was chill and damp, and a west wind setting in at sunset,
reduced the mercury to 59° Fah., which was thirty degrees less than it
stood at during the afternoon in the shade, and forty degrees less than
the temperature of the air at two P.M.




CHAPTER II.


We marched from Pír Chhatta at half-past seven next morning. After
crossing a few marly banks, snow-white with saline encrustation, we
entered a long narrow defile, bounded on the right by high hills of
bare rugged rock, and on the left by a low shelf of conglomerate; a few
stunted bushes of salvadora, jujube, and mimosa were scattered here and
there amongst the rocks, and the surface, everywhere rough and stony,
was one mass of marine fossils. At four miles we emerged from this
defile into the Míloh Pass, which opens on to the plains a little to the
south of where we camped at Pír Chhatta. Where we entered it, the hills
diverge, and enclose a wide boulder-strewn basin, through which winds
the Míloh rivulet in three or four shallow streams, that reunite at the
outlet of the pass.

The Míloh Pass, by us called the “Mooleah Pass,” is so named, I was told
by our attendants, on account of the blue colour of the hills. They may
look so at a distance, but are anything but blue on close inspection.
At all events, the natives call them so, and hence the name; their
pronunciation of the Hindustani _nilá_, “blue,” being _míloh_.

Beyond this basin—every pebble and every rock in which is full of
madrepores, ammonites, belemnites, oysters, and other marine fossils—we
entered a very narrow and winding gorge between perpendicular walls of
bare rock, two or three hundred feet high. Flowing down its pebbly
passage is a strong and brisk stream, which is crossed nine times in the
transit. From this circumstance the passage is called _Nah-langa Tangí_,
or “the strait with nine crossings.” The water we found very cold, and
about sixteen inches deep. On either side, up to a height of nearly six
feet, the rocks are streaked with the water-lines of the hot-weather
floods. These floods are described as coming down very suddenly after
rains upon the hills in the interior: their violence and velocity are
irresistible; and the raging torrent carries with it huge boulders,
uprooted trees, and cattle caught in its flood.

So sudden are these floods, and often when there are no signs of
rain at hand, that natives never camp in the bed of the stream, but
always on the shelving banks that are found in different parts of the
pass. The Nah-langa Tangí is about three and a half miles long, and
conducts into a great basin in the hills. The scenery here is the
wildest that can be imagined. The surface is strewed with huge rocks,
and traversed by shelving banks of conglomerate and shingle; here and
there are thick belts of tamarisk trees, amidst which the Míloh rivulet
winds its tortuous course; around rise rugged hills of bare rock,
the strata of which are snapped and twisted and contorted in a most
violent and irregular manner. At the outlet of the gorge the strata are
perpendicular; beyond it, they present every kind of contortion; and in
some spots were noticed to form three parts of a circle. In some of the
hills, the strata were horizontal, and dipped to the westward at an angle
of about forty degrees; in others, but in a hill due west of our camp at
Kúhov, the inclination was toward the eastward.

From this basin our path led along some shelving banks of shingle to
a small flat called Kúhov. We camped here on some stubble-fields of
Indian-corn and sesame, having marched twelve miles. There is no
village here, but there are several small strips of corn-fields on the
ledges bordering the bed of the rivulet. In a secluded nook amongst
the hills close to our camp we found a temporary settlement of Zangíjo
Brahoe, dependants of the Mír of Kotra. There were about twenty-four
booths, ranged in two parallel rows. They were formed of palm-leaf
mats, spread upon a light framework supported on sticks, and had a very
flimsy appearance, and certainly provided the minimum amount of shelter.
They are here called _kirrí_, and the only merit they possess is their
portability. Their occupants were extremely poor and dirty, but they
appeared healthy and happy, and are certainly hardy. During the cold
weather they move about amongst the lower valleys and glens with their
cattle and flocks, and in the spring move up for the summer months to the
higher tablelands about Calát.

On the line of march we passed a káfila of eighty camels, laden with
dates from Panjgúr to Kotra, under charge of a party of Bizanjo Brahoe,
most of whom were armed with sword and matchlock. The camels were of a
small breed, but very handsome and clean-limbed; some of them were nearly
of a white colour. We found no supplies were procurable at Kúhov, not
even forage for our cattle. Our conductor, Pír Ján, however, had been
roused to a proper sense of his duties by the reprimand he got yesterday,
and our requirements were consequently anticipated and provided for
beforehand.

Our next stage was sixteen miles to Hatáchi. The path, leading at first
south and then south-west, winds along the pebbly bed of the pass, and
crosses its stream several times _en route_. The rise is very gradual,
and the hills approach and diverge alternately, forming a succession of
basins connected together by narrow straits. About half-way we came to
a long strip of sprouting corn in the midst of a great belt of tamarisk
jangal, which occupies the greater, portion of the pass. This patch
of cultivation is called Páni Wánt, “the division of the waters;” and
scattered about amidst the fields are a few huts of the Músiyáni Brahoe,
dependants of the chief of Zehrí.

Beyond Páni Wánt we passed through a narrow gap between lofty walls of
perpendicular rock, in laminated horizontal strata, much fissured and
weather-worn, and entered the wide basin of Jáh—that is to say, wide
compared with the rest of the pass. Here too there is a good deal of corn
cultivation, and along the foot of the hills in sheltered nooks were some
small encampments of the Chanál Brahoe.

Amongst the fields are observed solitary little mud huts of neat,
and, for these parts, substantial build. They belong to the Hindu
grain-dealers of Kotra, who come up here each harvest to select the
grain in liquidation of advances made to the cultivators during the cold
season. Formerly this land was laid out in rice crops, but this has been
put a stop to by the Kotra Mírs, as it interfered with the irrigation of
their lands on the plain.

We passed a káfila here of fifty camels laden with dates from Panjgúr
to Kotra, under charge of Bizanjo Brahoe. With this káfila, as with the
one passed yesterday, were three or four fine young negro lads. The
Brahoe were all armed, and clad in thick camlet coats; they wore the
national cap, and altogether looked a very independent and hardy set of
fellows. Beyond Jáh we passed through a tamarisk jangal, and rose on
to a wide shelving bank that stretched up to the foot of the hills on
our right. Here we camped at Hatáchi, the largest habitation we have
seen since leaving Kotra. It consists of some twenty-five or thirty
mud huts scattered over the surface. The inhabitants are very poor and
ill-favoured, and the men especially very dark and ugly. Some of the
young women I saw were comely; and I was surprised to see several with
undoubted African blood in their veins, to judge from their cast of
countenance and frizzly hair.

Our camp was pitched on some small flats covered with the stubble of
_júár_ crops, and hard by was a collection of six or seven _kirrí_ or
booths belonging to the Khánzai Brahoe. They have adopted this proud
title because the Khán of Calát is married to a daughter of their tribal
chief. The benefits of the alliance do not seem to extend beyond the
empty honour of the title, for a poorer and more miserable set of people
we have not yet seen in his territories. The villagers, too, who brought
our supplies into camp were in no better plight. Several hideous old
women, who carried loads of wood and straw for our camp, were only half
clad, and apparently less fed. Poor creatures! theirs is truly a hard
lot; they are the mean drudges of the community, are despised by the
men, and evilly entreated by the younger and more fortunate members of
their own sex. Whilst these wretched people were toiling under their
loads, a number of young men, who, judging from outward appearance and
circumstances, were little if at all exalted above them in social status,
seated themselves about the skirts of our camp and idly viewed the
spectacle.

The situation of Hatáchi, in the midst of these rugged and barren hills,
may be described as a pretty spot. As we saw it, the place is almost
deserted; but in the spring months it is alive with the camps of the
migratory Brahoe, moving with their families and flocks up to the higher
plateaux of the Calát tableland. There is a shrine or _ziárat_ here,
dedicated to the memory of Bahá-ulhacc, the saint of Multán. It is only
noteworthy on account of the conspicuous clump of palm and other trees in
the dark shades of which it is concealed.

Our next stage was sixteen miles to Narr. For about seven miles the road
winds through a wide belt of tamarisk jangal, to the south of which, in a
bend of the hills, is the Farzán-ná Bent, or “the cultivation of Farzán.”
A few scattered huts of the Hindu grain-dealers of Kotra were seen here
and there, but there is no permanent habitation here.

Beyond this we passed through a narrow gorge into the Pír Lákha basin,
which we entered near the domed tomb of that name. It was built about
a century ago, in the time of the first Nasír Khán, Baloch, and is
already in a state of decay. Around it are a number of humble graves, the
depository of the remains of departed Brahoe of this part of the country.
They are tended by some _faqírs_, whose families are housed in very neat
and comfortable quarters hard by—to wit, two commodious huts, surrounded
by corn-fields, and shaded by some lofty date-palm and jujube trees.

Pír Lákha is about half-way between Hatáchi and Narr, and is approached
through a narrow passage between perpendicular walls of rock, that rise
in sheer precipices to a height of 150 to 200 feet. I was turning my
head first to the right and then to the left, noting that the strata on
the one side were horizontal, and on the other vertical, when one of the
escort, riding behind me, and from whom, during the march, I had been
making inquiries as to the people and country we were passing through,
unexpectedly exclaimed, “And there’s the dragon!” “Where?” said I,
eagerly, not at the moment quite sure but that some frightful monster
was peering at us over a ledge of rock. “There,” said he, pointing to the
blank wall of rock on our left, which formed the southern boundary of
the passage; “don’t you see it running up the rock?” “No,” I answered,
staring full force in the direction indicated; “I see no dragon. What is
it like? Is it moving or stationary?” Here my friend, as I could see by
the laugh in his eyes, was moved with inward mirth at the not unnatural
misunderstanding on my part in taking his words in their literal
acceptation. He controlled the expression of his merriment, however, and,
with a serious countenance, explained, “I don’t mean alive dragon, sir;
God preserve us from him!” Somewhat disappointed, “Then you should have
been more precise,” I irresistibly interposed. “But, sir,” said he, in
justification, “it is called the ‘dragon of Pír Lákha,’ although it’s
only his trail; and there it is, clear as noonday, on the face of the
rock.”

And so the dragon resolved itself into the reptile’s trail only, and
the trail in turn proved to be merely a vein of white quartz running
obliquely across the face of the rock. An inquiry into the history of
the dragon naturally followed this _denouement_; and here is my Brahoe
informant’s account, much in his own style of narration:—

In olden times, a great red dragon used to haunt this defile. He was
the terror of the wicked as well as of the just, for he devoured them
alike, such as came in his way, without distinction; and when he could
not seize men, he laid in wait and entrapped their sheep, and goats, and
cattle. Owing to his insatiable appetite, and his continued depredations,
the country was depopulated; and so widespread was the terror of this
monster, that wayfarers ceased to travel by this road. At length the
holy man whose shrine lies yonder undertook to rid the country of this
bloodthirsty tyrant’s oppression. Pír Lákha planted his _takya_ or cell
on the spot now occupied by his mausoleum; and so great was the sanctity
of his character, and so powerful the protecting influence of God
Almighty, that the dragon voluntarily came to pay homage to the saint,
and, in place of offering violence, besought his favour with the utmost
submission and tender of service.

The Pír made the dragon repeat the _kalama_ or Prophet’s creed, and
converted him to the true faith, to _Islám_; and giving him his liberty,
commanded him not to oppress God’s creatures, and that the Almighty in
His mercy would provide for him. And so it was the dragon disappeared,
and the country became free, and the saint’s memory perpetuated in the
shrine that bears his name. Pír Lákha is the most popular saint of the
Brahoe in this part of the country, and his sanctuary is held in the
highest reverence by all the tribes around, who constantly resort to it
to offer up their prayers and supplications, and to beseech the saint’s
blessing, particularly since the catastrophe connected with the dragon’s
trail, which, we have just seen, gave such confirming proof of his merits
and supernatural powers. It was in this wise: In the early days, when
people began to forget the debt of their gratitude to the saint for the
great boon conferred by him on them, were careless in the performance of
their vows, and neglected to support the servitors of his shrine, they
were aroused to a proper sense of their obligations by the reappearance
of the dreaded dragon in his former haunts, and with his accustomed
violence. The first to feel the weight of his oppression was the
_tumandár_, or “chief of a camp,” of migratory Brahoe who used to winter
in the vicinity.

It was in this manner: His favourite wife, who was young, handsome, and
well connected, was blessed with no offspring. This was a sore trial to
her, and for several years she offered up her petitions at the saint’s
shrine as the camp passed it on their way to and return from the summer
grazing grounds. At length, making a special pilgrimage to the shrine,
she prayed earnestly for the saint’s intercession that it might please
God to give her a son, and vowed to give the priest in charge a cow on
her prayer being granted. The saint through the priest informed her that
her prayer was heard, and, please God, the desire of her heart should be
gratified. She went away happy in mind, and in due time was rejoiced by
the birth of a son. But, her desire gratified, she forgot her vow, and
even failed to offer up her prayers and thank-offerings at the shrine
on passing it to the summer pastures, and the like carelessness did she
show on the return therefrom in autumn. Next spring, as the camp marched
through the gorge on its accustomed journey, the dragon, watching his
opportunity, dashed into the midst, seized the boy from its mother’s
arms, and disappeared with it over the hills, leaving that white track of
its body as a memorial on the rock.

Such in substance was the Brahoe’s story. It explains, at all events,
the comfortable circumstances of the _faqírs_ attached to the service
of the mausoleum of Pír Lákha. In such a country, the lot of these
people—the priesthood—is really enviable. They are respected and trusted
by all classes, they enjoy free grants of land for their support, and
receive besides tithes and other offerings; they are not affected by
tribal feuds, nor are they obliged to interfere in the politics of the
people; and altogether they are the most comfortable and well-to-do of
the community. Yet they possess no special merits: generally they are
but little better educated than the mass of the common people, and are
indebted for their good fortune more to hereditary right than anything
else.

Beyond Pír Lákha the defile turns sharp to the north, and then bends
round to the west and south, where it expands into the little basin of
Hassúa. Here we found some small patches of corn cultivation, and a few
huts of the Jám Zehrí Brahoe. Here too we met a káfila of sixty camels
laden with wool and madder from Calát to Shikárpúr, under charge of Zehrí
Brahoe, amongst whom were a couple of African slaves. We also met a small
party of Samalári Brahoe driving a few asses and bullocks to Kotra for
a supply of grain for their families somewhere in the hills close by.
They appeared very poor people, like the rest of the Brahoe we have seen
on our journey. What little corn this country produces is bought up at
harvest-time by Hindu merchants, and taken down to Kotra, where it is
again retailed by them to the peasantry. By this arrangement the tribes
are pretty much in the hands of the Hindus, and they in turn of the
chiefs.

Beyond Hassúa we passed through a small gap and entered the basin or
valley of Narr, and turning off to the left away from the Míloh stream,
camped on some open ground at the foot of the hills to the south. There
is no village here, though there is a good deal of cultivation in
scattered patches. Here and there, too, in the nooks of the hills, we
found some small camps of Jám Zehrí Brahoe. They seemed very poor people,
possessed of few goats and fewer cattle. Water, fuel, and camel forage
are abundant here, but forage for man and horse are unprocurable.

In this march we found no fossils, as in the lower part of the pass; but
the hills, though wider apart, are just as bare and inhospitable. The
succession of basins or valleys enclosed by them, however, are more
thickly wooded with tamarisk.

At Narr, the Míloh Pass may be said to end in a wide basin, from which
narrow valleys lead off to the north and to the west. They bring down the
drainage from the hills between Khozdár and Calát The main valley runs
northward to Zehrí and Nichára, and down it flows the main stream of the
Míloh rivulet.

As we entered the Narr basin from Pír Lákha, a solitary tree standing
in the midst of a small patch of young corn on the right of the road
was pointed out to us as the scene of the assassination of Sherdil Khán
in May 1864. He had usurped the government from the present chief,
Khudádád Khán of Calát, and was enabled to hold out against him for some
time owing to the defection of Sher Khán, the commandant of Khudádád’s
regiment of mercenaries, who with his men joined the pretender. After a
while Sher Khán, with the proverbial fickleness of these people, became
dissatisfied with his new master, and sought to get restored to the
favour of the chief he had deserted. As the best means to this end, as
well as by way of repairing the injury he had done the rightful chief,
he caused the rebel to be shot by one of his men as they were marching
to oppose some of the troops sent against them. Sherdil, on being hit,
lost control over his horse, and the startled animal, dashing off across
country, threw his rider at the tree mentioned, where he presently died
in the arms of a fellow-rebel, Sardár Táj Muhammad Khán. Sher Khán with
his mercenaries then returned to his allegiance, and joined Khudádád Khán
in his retreat at Kach.

Our next stage was thirteen miles to Gorú. We crossed the Narr basin in
a southerly direction over a rough pebbly surface, and at about four
miles left it by a narrow winding gorge that opens on to a rough and
wild tract between the hills. In the gorge are a few pools of water in
the bed of a pebbly channel that conveys the drainage of these hills to
the Míloh rivulet; it comes down from the southward along the foot of the
hills bounding the valley in that direction; our route diverged from it
and followed the skirt of the hills bounding it to the north. At about
half-way on this march we passed a _gaur-band_, or “Gabardam,” built
across the outlet of a small gully in the side of the hills to our right.
It is a very solid and substantial wall of dressed stones, rising from
one to two feet above the surface of the ground, and conspicuous from its
dark colour contrasting with the lighter hues of the rocks around. Our
companions could tell us nothing of its history more than that, like many
similar structures in different parts of the country, it belonged to the
period when the country was inhabited by pagans. The hills here are very
precipitous and wild; their slopes are dotted all over with little black
specs, said to be bushes of the juniper, here called _hápurs_; the lower
ridges are covered with a coarse grass that grows in tufts, and is called
_húwe_; it is said to be a very nourishing fodder for cattle.

Our camp at Gorú was pitched on a slaty ridge close to three or four
small wells sunk in the gravelly soil. The water is reached at about
twelve feet from the surface, and is very good. During the day immense
flocks of goats and sheep came to be watered here; they appeared to me
to be of a very diminutive breed. They were tended only by a few boys,
from which circumstance we concluded there must be some Brahoe camps in
the vicinity, though we saw no habitation or sign of cultivation in the
whole march from Narr, excepting only a few booths of the wandering
Lúrí. These people are a kind of gipsy, and are found in all parts of the
country in scattered parties of a few families each. They are a distinct
race from the Brahoe and Baloch, and are occupied as musicians, potters,
rope makers, mat weavers, pedlars, &c. They own no land, never cultivate
the soil, and are looked on as outcasts.

The night air of Gorú proved sharp and chill, and towards daylight a hard
frost set in. From this we marched eighteen miles to Khozdár, the route
mostly westward. At a short distance from our camping-ground we came upon
the cultivation of Gorú, and farther on passed the hamlet of the same
name, at the foot of the hills to the left of the road. The huts are now
empty, their tenants being camped in the nooks of the surrounding hills
with their cattle and flocks, for the facility of pasture and water,
neither the one nor the other being at this season procurable at Gorú.
There is a very extensive cemetery here, whence the place derives its
name (_gor_ = grave). The graves are neatly raised tombs built of loose
stones, the resting-places of defunct Zehrí Brahoe, who occupy all the
hill country round about. At four miles on from Gorú, the road passes
over some rough ground, and drops on to the Khozdár valley, the most open
piece of country we have seen since leaving the plain of Kach. It bears
a very dreary and wintry aspect, and along its northern borders shows no
signs of habitation or cultivation or water. In the opposite direction,
however, are seen a collection of villages called Zedi, with their
gardens and fields, along the course of the little streams draining the
southern part of the valley.

At two or three miles from Khozdár, we were met by Major Harrison,
Political Agent at the Court of Calát. He came out with a party of forty
troopers of the Sindh Horse, and conducted us to his camp, pitched close
to the fort of Khozdár, where he gave us a most hospitable welcome;
whilst the General’s arrival was announced and re-echoed amongst the
surrounding hills by a salute of eleven guns fired from a couple of old
cannon drawn up outside the fort. The canonneers, of whom there were
nearly twenty engaged in the operation, were a wild and dirty-looking set
of fellows, with long matted hair, and every sort of dress and undress
except uniform.

The little fort is a new structure of mud, only recently completed. It
holds a garrison of sixty Brahoe militia, and half a company of regular
infantry, and is armed with the two guns above mentioned. It is well
situated for the purpose it is meant to serve, viz., to protect the
caravan routes centring in this valley through Nal from Kej and Panjgúr
on the west, through Wadd from Bela and Sonmiáni on the south, through
the Míloh Pass from Kotra, Gandáva, and Shikárpúr on the east, and
through Bághwána from Súráb and Calát on the north.

On the plain near the fort are the ruins of two contiguous villages,
between which winds a small stream on its way to some corn-fields beyond
them. The place has a very dreary look, and the climate at this season is
decidedly bleak. The southern portion of the valley is well cultivated
and peopled, and during the summer, so we are told, is one sheet of
corn-fields. This valley, in fact, with those of Nal, Bághwána, Súráb,
and Calát, are the principal corn-growing districts in this country. The
elevation of Khozdár is about 3850 feet above the sea, and about 3700
feet above Gandáva on the plain of Kach. The later figure represents
the rise in the land between the two places, a distance of ninety-three
miles by our route through the Míloh Pass, and gives an ascent of nearly
forty feet in the mile.

The Míloh Pass is easy for cattle, is well watered, and has an abundant
supply of fuel in the tamarisk jangal throughout its course. Forage for
cattle is scarce in winter, but there is a sufficiency of this in summer
for caravans and the cattle and flocks of the Brahoe, who find ample
space for camping on the shelving banks of the stream, in the succession
of basins occupying the course of the pass. Beyond the pass, at Narr, the
tamarisk jangal and water supply both cease.

In all our route from Pír Chhatta to Khozdár we observed a series of
roadside memorials, emblematic of the national customs of the Brahoe.
They are of two kinds, commemorative of very opposite events, and are
met with in a very distant ratio of frequency in consequence. The one
is called _cháp_, and commemorates the weddings amongst the migratory
Brahoe. The other is called _cheda_, and serves as a memorial of those
who die without issue amongst the clans.

The _cháp_ is a perfect circle, described on the ground by a series
of stones set together flat in its surface; the centre is marked by a
single stone of from one to two feet in length, set upright on end. The
diameters of these circles range from ten to thirty feet, and hundreds
of them cover every flat piece of ground on the line of road followed by
the Brahoe in their annual migrations from the high to the low lands.
Some of the _cháps_ we observed were of a different structure from the
figure just described. Instead of a single upright stone in the centre,
and a circumference marked by stones laid flat, the whole surface of the
figure was closely set with stones laid flat on the ground, forming a
circular pavement, from the centre of which projected the single stone
set upright. From the circumference of the circle projected a long arm
in a straight line running to the north in those we saw. This projection
is about thirty feet long, and terminates in a large stone set upright
as in the centre; its width is about two feet, and it is formed, like
the circle, of stones set close together and flat on the surface of the
ground.

[Illustration: SKETCH PLAN OF THE CHÁP CIRCLES.

A. The highroad across a plain.

B. _Cháp_ circles of different kinds, as described in the text.

C. A _mosjid_ or mosque, marked off on the ground by stones just as are
the _cháp_ circles.]

These figures, we were told, are made on the actual sites on which have
been danced the reels accompanying the festivities that form an important
element in the ceremonies attending a Brahoe wedding. The centre stone
marks the place of the musician, and the circumference that of the
circle of dancers, who pirouette individually and revolve collectively
in measured steps, keeping time with the music, to which the while they
clap their hands. This clapping of hands is here called _cháp_, and hence
the name of the figures. Sometimes the sword-dance is substituted for
the other, and only differs from it in brandishing naked swords in place
of clapping hands. The dance resembles the _ataur_ of the Afghans. The
sketch on p. 55 shows the form of the _cháp_.

[Illustration: SKETCH PLAN OF THE CHEDA.

A. Highroad round a hill ridge.

B. _Cheda_ pillars on plain and on rock.

C. _Cháp_ circles.]

The _cheda_ is a pillar (called _tsalai_ in Pushto) of from eight to
twelve or more feet high, with a diameter of from three to four or more
feet. It is neatly built of loose stones closely set in a cylindrical
form. The top is convex or dome-shaped, and from its centre projects a
single upright stone. The basement is a small square platform of stones,
slightly raised above the surface of the ground. These structures are
generally raised on some projecting rock overlooking the road, or on some
slight eminence on the plain. At one or two spots we saw four or five
close together, but generally they are only met at distant intervals,
and singly. In general appearance they resemble miniature _topes_ of the
kind seen in some parts of Yúsufzai and the Peshawar valley. They are
erected to the memory of clansmen who have died without issue; and it
is the custom for the surviving relatives to celebrate the anniversary
of such mournful events by donatives to the family priest and a feast
to the clan. Where practicable, the customary offerings and ceremonies
are performed round the monument itself; and for this purpose their
observance is generally deferred to the time when the camps in their
annual migrations halt in their vicinity. The sketch on p. 56 shows the
form of the _cheda_.

In all our route from Kotra, we saw very few of the people of the
country. Including Hatáchi and Gorú with the few camps we passed, the
population we found in this tract of country did not exceed two hundred
families, if indeed it reached that number. Our companions, however,
assured us that the hills were swarming with them, that every nook had
its camp, and every valley its patch of cultivation. It may be so, but we
saw no signs of any such populousness. In fact, the nature of the country
does not admit of any large number being able to support themselves upon
it, for the hills yield but the scantiest pasture, whilst the valleys
offer a very small surface capable of cultivation. This conclusion is
supported by the appearance and circumstances of the people and cattle we
did see. They may be described in two words—poor and hungry.

The Brahoe are an interesting people, of whose history little is known.
They are true nomads, and wander about the country in their respective
limits, with their families and flocks, changing from the high lands
to the low according to the seasons and pastures. In this respect they
resemble some of the Afghan tribes. Some of them, however, are fixed in
villages as cultivators of the soil. They are divided into an infinity
of clans, or _khel_, such as Mingal, Bizanjo, Zangíjo, Kambarání, Zehrí,
Ráisání, Kurdgálí, Rikkí, Samulárí, Hárúní, Nichárí, Rodání, Gurganání,
and many others. Their camps are called _tuman_, and the head man of each
_tumandár_.

They differ from the Afghan, Baloch, and Jat of Sindh, by whom they are
surrounded, in general physique and physiognomy as well as in language.
Their manners and customs, too, are said to differ in many respects from
those of the people around them, though, in the matters of robbery and
murder, a family resemblance pervades them all.

The Brahoe is of middle height, or below it, and of swarthy complexion;
the face is broad, with high cheek-bones, and adorned with beard and
mustaches of neither long nor thick growth; the head is covered with a
shock of long matted hair, generally jet black; the eyes are black and
keen. The body is compactly framed and clean-limbed. Altogether, the race
is active, hardy, and enduring. The Brahoe language differs entirely
from that of the Afghan, the Baloch, and the Jat, though it contains
many Persian and Indian words. The numerals are the same as the Persian,
except the first three, which are _asit_, _irat_, _musit_, respectively;
but the pronouns are entirely different, and bear no resemblance to
those of the other languages; the forms of conjugation and declension,
too, are distinct and peculiar. On the march I collected a vocabulary of
about eight hundred words, and a few sentences, to show the structure of
the language. These, with a skeleton grammar prepared at the same time,
will be found in the Appendix. The Brahoes are altogether illiterate. I
could hear of no book written in their language, nor could I get a single
specimen of their writing.

An amusing incident occurred whilst collecting words for the vocabulary,
and it may serve as a suggestive illustration of the state of society
amongst the Brahoes. I asked my Brahoe camel-driver, through the medium
of Persian, of which he understood a little, what was his word for
arsenic. He appeared somewhat disconcerted, and made no reply, and I
inquired whether he had understood my question or not. “Yes,” said he,
with a serious look, “I know what you mean. I have heard of it, but have
never seen it. It is only known to our chiefs and great men.” “And what,”
I asked, “do they say about it?” “People say,” he replied, with grave
innocence, “that it is a magic medicine, and that great men keep it as a
protection against their enemies.” He had no idea of the manner in which
it was used, but he knew from popular report that it was a mysterious
medicine which preserved great men from the machinations of their enemies.

We halted a day at Khozdár with our kind hosts, Major Harrison and Dr
Bowman, in order to rest our cattle, and on the 18th January marched
sixteen miles to Kamál Khán, one of the principal villages in the plain
or valley of Bághwána. Major Harrison accompanied us with an escort of
Sindh Horse, Dr Bowman remaining with the camp at Khozdár.

Our route was northward, up the pebbly bed of a wide and shallow drainage
channel, towards a gap in the hills. The road winds for some miles
between low ridges and hills of bare rock by a gradual ascent, and at
half-way brought us to the Chikú Koh _kauda_, or “gap,” a low watershed
marking the boundary between the Khozdár and Bághwána valleys. We here
found the path somewhat obstructed by the remains of a stone breastwork,
built four years ago by the rebel chief Núruddín, Mingal, when he took
the field against the Khán of Calát, to contest the possession of the
village of Kamál Khán. The breastwork and barricades had been only
partially destroyed, and their _débris_ had been left to encumber the
road, just as they did at the time the defences were demolished—a
characteristic instance of oriental apathy and negligence.

From this point we passed down a gentle slope on to the plain of
Bághwána, and crossed a wide extent of cultivated land to the village of
Kamál Khán, where we camped near a small stream of clear fresh water,
which comes from a spring in the hills two miles off.

Kamál Khán is a good-sized village, or rather, it consists of two
villages close together, which contain in all some four hundred houses.
Across the plain, at the foot of the hills to the north, are seen some
other villages surrounded by leafless trees. The surface is generally
cultivated, and divided into little fields, the sides of which are banked
up with earth, so as to retain rain-water.

The elevation of this valley is about 4530 feet, as indicated by the
aneroid barometer. In summer, when the gardens are in full foliage and
the crops are ripening, it must be a pretty place in this waste of hills,
and is said to possess an agreeable climate, notwithstanding the bare
heat-radiating rocks that encompass it about. At this season, however,
it wears a dull, dreary, and bleak look—its winter aspect—and has a raw,
cold climate, of which we were made sensible by the prevailing state
of the weather, for the sky was overcast with clouds, and a cutting
north-east wind penetrated to our very bones. The plain itself appears
a bare flat, without either villages or trees, and towards the east
presents a great patch snow-white with saline efflorescence.

During the afternoon we received a visit from the chief men of the place.
Amongst them were Sardár Mír Muhammad, Mingal of Wadd, a stanch friend
and supporter of the Khán of Calát in these times of sedition and revolt
by which he is beset. He was accompanied by Abdul Aziz Khán, Náib of
Qwetta, and two intelligent-looking young lads, sons respectively of the
Sardár of the Sansunni and the Mammassání, or Muhammad Hassani. They were
all very plainly clad, and remarkably simple in their manners. About
them was none of that ceremony and etiquette, in the observance of which
independent orientals are so punctilious; indeed, their bearing was more
like that of subjects than of independent chiefs. The two former were old
men, with nothing noteworthy about them; but the two lads were remarkably
bright-eyed and intelligent youths of eighteen or nineteen years, and so
alike, they might have been brothers. Their features were very striking,
and different from any we had yet seen; they may be described as a
combination of the very widely separated Jewish and negro physiognomy,
and reminded me of the Ethiopian figures one sees represented in the
Egyptian sculptures.

After our visitors had retired, I heard a voice outside the tent
inquiring where the _Farangi Hakím_, or “European doctor,” was to be
found. The man spoke with a harsh and impetuous voice, and I, curious
to see him and know his errand, stepped out and announced myself to a
wild-looking Brahoe with the scar of a sword straight across the nose
and one half of the face. “But,” he replied, making a rapid survey of
me, “you are not the man I want. Where is the doctor of Khozdár? Is not
he here?” “No, he is not here,” I answered; “we left him at Khozdár.”
“Well,” he rejoined, turning brusquely to depart, “I want nothing from
you. It was him I came to see.” “Perhaps,” I said, motioning him to stop,
“I can do for you what you require of the Khozdár doctor.” “No,” he
replied, stepping away with as much haste as he had come; “I only came
to thank him for his kindness to me, and for curing this wound across my
face;” and before I could ask another question, the impatient Brahoe was
off on his own business.

I now learned from Major Harrison that he was a trooper in the service
of the Khán of Calát, and was engaged against the rebels in the battle
fought some few months ago near Gorú in the Khad Mastung valley. In the
charge against the enemy he received a sword-cut across the face, by
which the nose and upper lip were severed, and fell down in front of the
mouth, hanging only by a thin shred of the cheek. Recovering from the
shock, the trooper at once sheathed his sword, and securing the divided
parts as they were with the end of his turban passed across the face and
fastened in the folds above, rode straight off the field on the road
to Khozdár. After a ride of upwards of seventy miles he arrived at Dr
Bowman’s camp, and was at once received under that gentleman’s skilful
care. The satisfactory result, and the accident of our journey this way,
produced this pleasing instance of Brahoe gratitude and trust in the
skill of European doctors. The man, on hearing of the march of our camp
from Khozdár, had come in from a distant village to thank his benefactor,
and not finding him, hurried away to reach his home before nightfall.

It is a too commonly expressed opinion amongst us in this country that
the natives have no sense of gratitude for benefits conferred or for
favours received. But this, I am persuaded, is a wrong conclusion; and
its injustice is proved by the above-described incident, which is only
one of many similar instances that have come to my personal knowledge,
and a further reference to which here would be irrelevant to the purpose
of this book.

_19th January._—From Bághwána we marched twenty-six miles to Lákoryán.
Leaving Kamál Khán, we followed a small stream over a succession of
fields of young corn, just sprouting above the surface, and then, passing
some walled pomegranate gardens fringed with willow-trees, entered
amongst low hills set close together on either side of an intervening
drainage gully. At about three miles we came to the spring-head of the
little stream we had followed from camp. The spring issues at the foot
of some bare rocky bluffs, and forms a small pool round which grow some
eight or ten date-palms, conspicuous as being the only trees in the
vicinity.

From this point we turned to the right, and proceeding due north over
some very rough ground, dropped into a narrow ravine between high banks
of bare rock; and following it some distance, emerged upon the wide
plateau or tableland of Loghai, the village of the same name standing
away to the west. In the hills to the south-west, near the village of
Ferozabad, are the Khappar lead-mines. They are said to give employment
to about two hundred men.

There are no trees visible on the Lohgai plateau, nor is there any
jangal, but the surface is thinly sprinkled with a very stunted growth of
the camel-thorn (_Rhazzia stricta_, _Withiana congulans_), two or three
kinds of salsola, and a coarse grass growing in tufts. Here and there,
too, are some patches of cultivation.

From this we passed through some low rocky ridges on to a similar but
more extensive tableland, divided by low ridges of rock into the plateau
of Mughali, Tútah, and Záwah. We started from Kamál Khán at 7.50 A.M.,
and arrived at the entrance to the Záwah defile at 10.10 A.M., thus,
reckoning the pace of our horses at four miles an hour, making the
distance about nine and a half miles.

We halted here for breakfast, on the edge of a little stream of brackish
water, whilst the baggage went on ahead. Close by is a ridge of bare rock
without a particle of vegetation on it, and along its base are the traces
of a very ancient village. The foundation walls are very massive, and
built substantially of dressed stone; the surface everywhere around is
covered with bits of red pottery.

At 1.10 P.M. we mounted our camels, and left Záwah by a narrow winding
defile, down which flows the thready rivulet on which we had halted.
After proceeding up the defile some distance, we passed over some very
rocky ground by a rough track, and rose suddenly to the crest of a ridge
of hills running north and south. Descending a little from this, we reach
the tableland of Jiwán. This is an open plateau, and, unlike the others,
is thickly covered with pasture herbs and bushes, amongst which are
interspersed small isolated patches of ploughed land. We saw no villages,
however, nor any signs of a camp in the vicinity, though our native
escort assured us that there were hundreds of _tumans_ hidden away in the
nooks and hollows of the mountains, to which the Brahoe retire at this
season, with their flocks, for shelter from the cold winds that blow over
the open country.

Traversing this plateau, we crossed a deep ravine, opposite a cavern
excavated in its high bank of shingle, and known as Duzdán ná Khond, or
“the robber’s retreat.” Here my camel showed signs of fatigue, and became
so shaky on his legs, that I became apprehensive of some misfortune,
and, to avoid the chance of breaking my neck against the rocks, relieved
him of my weight, and mounted my horse, which was being led along close
behind us. The severity of the weather and the want of his accustomed
forage, combined with the roughness of the roads and our land marches,
had told unfavourable upon the poor brute, and it was as much as he
could do to keep up with our party till we reached Kandahar. Here the
milder climate and several days’ rest brought him round to his former
self, and he afterwards carried me down to Baghdad, where he passed into
the possession of the camel’s best friend—an Arab.

Beyond the ravine we crossed a ridge of rocky hills by a very rough
and narrow path, and emerged upon the Lákoryán tableland, an enclosed
plateau that rises considerably up to the hills on the north and west.
We passed a good deal of cultivation on our route across it, and at 4.30
P.M. camped—or rather, waited for our camp, for the baggage did not come
up till 7.30 P.M., by which time it was quite dark—near a spring at the
foot of the hills to the north-west. There is no village nor other sign
of habitation here, except a small enclosure containing a few roofless
huts, a few hundred yards from the spring at which we have taken up our
position for the night. We passed a large _gaur-band_ on the plateau, and
at the foot of the hills towards the north-east saw a great collection of
them. It was too late for us to go and explore them; but, from what we
could see, they appeared to mark the site of some ancient city. The dark
lines of their massive walls are very conspicuous against the lighter
colours of the hillside.

Whilst waiting the arrival of our tents, we collected some dry bushes
of the camel-thorn and some kinds of salsola, and made a fire to warm
ourselves, and point out our whereabouts to the baggagers, who were yet
some way behind, for to the repeated shouts and calls of our party there
came no response.

There are no supplies procurable here, and the water is very limited in
quantity, and, though not brackish, of decidedly inferior quality. By
previous arrangement some fuel and fodder had been collected here for
our party, but the supply fell very far short of our requirements. The
fodder was distributed in small quantities amongst the troopers of our
escort, and the fuel—the few faggots there were—was mostly appropriated
by our cook. Along the raised banks of some fields near the enclosure
above mentioned were six or seven circular vaulted pits excavated in the
ground. They are used as storehouses for grain or straw or chaff, and are
entered through a small hole at the top. This aperture is only slightly
raised above the level of the ground, and is covered by a lid plastered
over with mud cement until required to be removed. These grain-pits were
examined in the hopes that they might enable us to increase the rations
served out to our cattle; but, to our disappointment, they were all found
empty, like the country itself.

During the night a steady soaking rain set in; and as it continued in
the morning, there was some question as to whether we should be able to
proceed on our march. But the point was soon settled when we found the
impossibility of procuring any provisions here either for man or beast.
So we struck our tents, and at 8.40 A.M. set out on our march of twenty
miles to Khán Calá of Súráb, and a most trying and disagreeable march it
proved. As we left camp, heavy mists hung over the country, and obscured
everything from view beyond a couple of hundred yards or so, whilst a
thin drenching rain, that presently changed to sleet and then to snow,
descended very perseveringly upon us. Fortunately for us, the soil here
is a coarse gravel, with only a small admixture of earth, and our cattle
consequently got over it without hindrance.

After riding half-an-hour in a north-westerly direction, we turned
northwards into a narrow gap in the hills, and beyond it came to the
Anjíra plateau, and at 10.10 A.M. halted at a _sarae_ near its north end,
for shelter from the rain and for breakfast. In the gap we passed amongst
a number of very fine and extensive _gaur-band_. They are the largest we
have seen, and, from their position and appearance, were probably built
as defensive works. Two or three of these massive breastworks were on the
plain a little in advance of the ridge of hills separating Lákoryán from
Anjíra, but most of them were built across gaps between the prominent
peaks of the ridge. On the Anjíra side of the ridge, on some level ground
to the right of the road, we found a large collection of very substantial
walls, of from two to eight feet high. They appeared like the remains
of an ancient town. Owing to the inclement weather we did not stop to
examine them.

Near the _sarae_ is a little stream, which carries the drainage of this
plateau down to the Míloh rivulet, which it joins somewhere near Narr;
and on a turfy bank a few hundred yards off is a solitary hut, with an
adjoining walled enclosure. In the latter stands a masonry pillar, about
ten feet high, and of recent construction. The monument, our companions
informed us, is built on the spot where the corpse of the late Nasír
Khán, brother of the present chief of Calát, was washed previous to
conveyance for burial in the family sepulchre, he having died here on his
way to the capital.

Whilst here, the rain ceased, and the sky cleared for a while, and we got
a view of the country around, and a more dreary and inhospitable-looking
prospect it would be difficult to find out of Balochistan. To the north,
above the lower ridges bounding the plateau in that direction, was
seen the snow-topped Harboí mountain, and it was the only feature that
relieved the general ruggedness of the bare hills around. The plateau
itself, like that of Lákoryán, is covered with saline efflorescence, and
supports only a thin growth of pasture herbs. Away to the north-east we
spied a few leafless trees around a small hamlet, and by it observed a
flock of sheep, tended by a couple of shepherds. Nearer at hand the plain
was covered by a wide extent of cemetery, thickly crowded with graves,
whilst solitary tombs were here and there scattered over the general
surface, and only attracted attention by the shreds of rag floating in
the breeze from the poles supported in the pile of loose stones that
covered them.

At noon we mounted our horses and proceeded on our way, the clouds again
lowering and threatening more rain, by which, indeed, we were very soon
overtaken in the form of a storm from the north-west. We had crossed a
succession of ridges and gullies, the rocks of which were green, blue,
and red-coloured sandstone, amongst masses of lighter hue full of fossil
ammonites, oysters, and other marine shells, and emerged on a wide
plateau called Khulkná Khad, where we were exposed to the full force of a
numbing north wind and blinding drifts of snow.

We made our way across this bleak plateau as best we could, and passed
_en route_ a weather-bound káfila of sixty camels, with wool from Núshkí
for Karáchí. The camels with their pack-saddles on were let loose to
graze on the wormwood, camel-thorn, and saltworts, which here covered
the surface more thickly than we had anywhere seen; whilst the drivers,
having piled the loads in the form of a circle, and spread felt cloths
across from one load to the other, crouched for protection from the
weather under the shelter thus afforded. A few of them stepped out to
view us as we rode by, and fine manly-looking fellows they were—all
Afghans.

Beyond this we crossed a low ridge of hills by a narrow and rough
strait, at the entrance to which we noticed a number of perfect _cháp_
circles, and four or five _cheda_ pillars—one of which, to the right
of our path, occupied a very conspicuous position on the ledge of a
prominent rock—and then entered on the wide and undulating tableland of
Azákhel and Súráb, on which are several villages and fruit-gardens, and
more cultivation than we have anywhere seen in this country as yet; in
fact, we here reached an inhabited region. Our path skirted the hills to
the east, and led past a roadside shrine called Lulla Sulemán ná Kher.
The head of the tomb is marked by four or five long poles, to which are
fastened numberless shreds of cloth, stuck upright in a heap of loose
stones, samples of the rocks of the surrounding mountains, and on the top
of them lie a number of horns of the wild goat and wild sheep. I stopped
to examine these, and amongst the stones found a fine fossil convoluted
conch, which I told an attendant trooper I wanted, and he, without
hesitation, took it up and brought it into camp, and I subsequently sent
it to Peshawar with some horns and other specimens from Kandahar, as
I shall have occasion to mention hereafter. I did not see any granite
amongst the stones on this shrine, and hence conclude that there is
none in the adjacent hills, for the pile is formed by contributions of
devotees from all the surrounding country.

Away to the right from Sulemán ná Kher we saw the villages and gardens of
Ghijdegán and Dhand, and farther on, passing the collection of hamlets
known as Nighár, at 2.45 P.M. arrived at Khán Calá of Súráb, where we
were very glad to find shelter in a dirty little hut vacated for us, and
thaw our frozen limbs. The last six miles of our march were most trying
from the intense cold and driving snow, and completely numbed us, so
that we could not have held out against it much longer. The north wind
is most piercing, and cuts to the very bones. It is called _Shomál bád_,
or “north wind” _par excellence_, by the natives, and is dreaded as
extremely dangerous, often proving fatal by numbing the powers of life.
The villagers expressed astonishment at our travelling in such weather,
and some of our Khozdár escort chimed in with, “It’s only the Sáhibs who
ever think of doing such things; and when they go forward, we must follow
them. Surely there is a special providence that presides over their
protection.”

In truth, our native attendants suffered severely. The hands, feet, and
faces of several of the troopers of our escort of Sindh Horse became
swollen, puffy, and painful, but they held out manfully to the end. Not
so our Khozdár attendants; they succumbed to the weather even before we
had accomplished half the march, and this is the more remarkable, as they
were travelling in their own country. They one by one wrapped up their
faces in the capacious folds of their turbans so closely that there was
barely room for them to use their eyes, and gathering their loose cloaks
about them, sat their horses more like bundles of clothes than horsemen.
Having thus resigned themselves to their fate, they gradually fell away
from our party, and took shelter in the first villages we came to.

We ourselves were not without showing evidences of the effects of the
wintry blast. The snow freezing upon our mustaches and beards had
stiffened them, so that talking became a painful exertion; we therefore
proceeded in silence, with our heads set down against the howling wind
and driving snow, and presently dropped away from one another—the General
here, Major Harrison there, and I elsewhere—each following his own pace
to the village ahead of us. My feet were so numbed that on dismounting
I did not feel the ground, and consequently nearly fell, and it was some
minutes before I could freely use my limbs.

Our baggage did not come up till 7.30 P.M., and both men and cattle were
much exhausted, but plenty of food and warm shelter soon revived them.
Three or four of our baggagers went off with their mules to the nearest
villages we came to, and did not rejoin our party till the next morning.
With the exception of one muleteer, who deserted with the cloak and fur
coat we provided for him, none of our party were much the worse for the
exposure.




CHAPTER III.


Súráb is a populous valley, very fertile, and freely watered by many
little streams from the mountains. Its elevation is about 5910 feet at
Khán Calá, and consequently its winter is a rigorous season. It now
wears a most dreary aspect, but in summer it is said to be bright with
corn-fields and gardens in full force. At that season, too, the Azákhel
and Khulkná Khad plateaux are covered with the busy camps of the Mingal
Brahoe, who are now dispersed amongst the lower hills of Nal and Wadd.

The migratory life led by these people is one more of necessity than
of choice it seems; for their hills are so bare, that they produce no
timber fit for building purposes, nor forage sufficient for the support
of the flocks, whilst much of the soil of the plateaux is so gravelly and
impregnated with salines as to be unfit either for cultivation or for
building the domed huts so common in Kandahar and many parts of Persia;
and, besides, though last mentioned, not the least difficulty is the
general scarcity of water everywhere. Since we left the Míloh rivulet at
Narr, we have not seen a single stream one could not easily step across
dryshod.

Towards midnight the wind subsided, the clouds dispersed, the stars shone
out, and a hard frost set in. Fortunately we were all warmly housed in
the village, and did not suffer from it; and this is as much as I can
say for it on that score. In other respects, our domicile was none of
the most agreeable, for though tired and sleepy by the day’s exertion
and suffering, it was impossible to get either rest or sleep. The fire,
lighted in the centre of our little hut, filled its single unventilated
chamber with blinding clouds of suffocating smoke. We no sooner escaped
these troubles by lying close on the ground, when our attempts to sleep
were at once dissipated by another form of torment, to wit, the fierce
attacks of multitudes of the most vicious fleas and other vermin of that
sort. They literally swarmed all over the place, and allowed us no rest
throughout the night. I could only exist by repeatedly going out and
breathing a little fresh air, which at daylight I found to be 23° Fah.
It must have been colder during the night, though it did not feel so,
probably owing to the subsidence of the wind.

_21st January._—Whilst the baggage was being loaded, I examined some
faggots of the fuel that had been collected here from the adjacent
hills for the use of our camp, and recognised the following plants,
with their native names following each, namely:—Juniper (_hápurs_),
ephedra (_náróm_, the _hóm_ of the Afghans), wild almond (_harshín_),
wild olive (_khat_, the _khoan_ of the Afghans), wild peach (_kotor_),
and salvadora oleoides? (_piplí_). The last is said to be poisonous to
camels, though not to goats and sheep. On the Anjíra plateau I obtained
specimens of the following plants, viz.:—Caper spurge (_ritáchk_),
peganum (_kisánkúr_), artemisia sp. (_khardarno_), caroxylon (_righit_),
camel-thorn (_shenálo_), withiana congulans (_panír band_), and a species
of lycopodion (_kásákun_).

We set out from Súráb at 10.45 A.M., and proceeded due north over an
undulating plateau with hills on either hand. The soil was spongy with
efflorescent salines, and the surface was covered with a thick growth
of aromatic wormwood. A strong and keen north wind blew against us the
whole day. On starting, I went off the road a little to get a couple
of blue pigeons I had seen alight on a ploughed field. The cold was so
intense, by reason of the wind, that my fingers, although encased in
thick woollen gloves, were at once numbed, and I could only carry my gun
by shifting it constantly from hand to hand. Presently the pain became
very acute, and lasted for more than half-an-hour, whilst I rubbed the
hands together to restore the circulation. The poor pigeons must have
had a hard time of it battling against the relentless blasts of Boreas;
and the fate that transferred them from the bare clods of a wintry
wind-scoured field to the warm recesses of a well-seasoned “blaze-pan” (a
very excellent kind of travelling stewpan) was, after all, not so cruel a
one as it might have been had some hungry hawk forestalled me.

After marching an hour, we passed Hajíka hamlet under the hills to the
right; and still continuing over a wide pasture tract, at 1.20 P.M.
arrived at Gandaghen Sarae, and camped under the lee of its walls for
protection from the wind, our escort finding shelter in its interior.
There is a large pool of water here, fed by a sluggish spring oozing
from under a ledge of conglomerate rock, only slightly raised above the
general level of the country. We found it frozen over. Our escort, after
watering their horses here, galloped them about for a quarter of an hour
or more, to prevent spasms from the combined effects of wind and water,
and not from the fear, as I supposed, of any ill effects from the water
itself, which was very brackish.

Gandaghen is thirteen miles from Súráb, and there is neither water, nor
tree, nor habitation, nor cultivation on the road between them. Hajíka
was the only village we saw, and it lay some miles off the road. The
weather was clear and sunny, with a blue sky, but the air was biting
cold, and the north wind quite withering. At 9 P.M. the thermometer fell
to 16° Fah., and at daylight stood at 10° Fah. At this place two more
of our mule-drivers deserted with the warm clothing we had provided for
them; they were both Pathans of Kandahar.

Our next stage was fifteen miles to Rodinjo. The morning was bright
and sunny, but bitterly cold, with a keen north wind. Our tent awnings
were frozen stiff as boards, and could not be struck till near 10 A.M.,
for fear of the cloth snapping. The morning sun, however, thawed them
sufficiently for packing, and by 10.35 A.M. we were fairly started on the
march. We followed a well-trodden path over the pasture land of Mall, and
at about half-way came to the camping-ground of Damb, where is a small
pool of brackish water at the foot of a detached mound.

I struck off the road in company with our _mihmandár_ (conductor and
entertainer), Mulla Dost Muhammad, in hopes of getting a hare, of which
animals he assured us there were untold numbers in the wormwood scrub
covering the plain. We had ridden some distance without seeing a single
living creature, or any signs of one except the shell of a tortoise (here
called _sarkúk_), and the shrivelled skin of a hedgehog or _jájak_,
as it is here called. My companion was telling me that the egg of the
tortoise was used by the Brahoe, whipped up with water and smeared over
the postules, as a remedy to prevent pitting from small-pox; and I was
just making a mental note to the effect that an ordinary hen’s egg might
be used with equal advantage under similar circumstances, when a hare
dashed out across our path. I was holding my gun, a double-barrelled
breech-loader by Dougall, resting against the shoulder at the moment,
but it was instantly down at the “present,” and fired, but no puss
was to be seen. “You have missed,” said the Mulla; “her hour of death
(_ajal_) has not arrived.” “I am not sure of that,” I said; “I heard a
squeak, and am going to see;” so saying, I dismounted, and giving him my
pony to hold, moved forward to examine the bushes, the while adjusting
a fresh cartridge. I had hardly advanced forty or fifty paces, when I
instinctively “ducked” to a sudden, sharp, rushing sound, _wsheeooh_,
close over my head, and caught sight of a great bird alight at a bush
some forty or so yards ahead. To step aside and fire straight upon him
was the work of an instant, and then running up, I found a great black
eagle sprawling over the hare, whose stomach was already torn open. Both
were secured to my saddle-straps, and the pony, taking fright at these
unaccustomed bodies dangling against his flanks, set off at full speed
across the plain towards the rest of the party, whom we overtook at
Damb. The hare formed a welcome addition to our _blaze_, and the black
eagle (_siyáh waccáb_) forms the largest specimen amongst the bird-skins
I collected on this journey. The stretch of the wings from tip to tip
measured very nearly eight feet.

Beyond Damb we halted half-an-hour at a pebbly ravine skirting a low
ridge, to let the baggage get on, and then proceeding over an undulating
country similar to that already traversed, arrived at Rodinjo at 2.20
P.M., and camped under the lee of the _sarae_ outside the village for
shelter from the wind. This is a neat little village of about 180
houses. Many little hill-streams run over the surface, which is widely
cultivated. There are some very fine white poplar and willow trees here,
and two or three small apricot orchards. The elevation of Rodinjo is 6650
feet above the sea.

_23d January._—The cold during the night was severe. At daylight the
mercury stood at 14° Fah., and between seven and eight A.M. rose to 22°
Fah. Our servants were so numbed and stupefied by it that we could not
get them to move till they had had some hours sunning. We got away at
11.10 A.M., and proceeded northwards over an undulating plain bounded
on the east and west by low hills. The width of the plain is about six
miles, and its surface presents nothing but an unvaried scrub of wormwood
growing on a soft, spongy, and gravelly soil. Neither village, nor
tree, nor camp, nor, except a few very widely separated little patches,
cultivation is to be seen, nor is any water to be found on it.

After marching an hour we came to a ridge of magnesian limestone, at the
foot of which a small well is sunk in the rock. Beyond this we entered
a narrow gully, winding between high banks of gravel and shingle, and
rose up to a gap from which the valley of Calát, and the Mírí or palace,
dominating the town at the end of a subsiding ridge of rock, lay before
us. The scene was wild and dreary, and all nature seemed withered by the
chill of winter.

From the gap we went down a long declivity between low ridges, and
passing under the walls of the Mírí, and round the fortifications of
the town, crossed the largest rivulet we have seen in the country, and
alighted at a house prepared, or, I should properly say, emptied, for our
reception, in a garden a mile to the north of the town, our arrival being
announced by a salute of eleven guns from the citadel—distance, thirteen
miles. A little way down the slope from the gap above mentioned, we
were met by an _isticbál_, or ceremonial reception party, headed by Mír
Karam Khán, a handsome youth of some eighteen years, with glossy black
curly ringlets hanging over his shoulders. He is a nephew of the Khán’s
(sister’s son), and though so young, already looks worn out and enervated
by too early and too free an abuse of the pleasures prized by Eastern
potentates. He was gaily dressed, and mounted on a powerful and spirited
horse, richly caparisoned with silver-mounted trappings. But the whole
effect of this _grande tenue_ was marred by his timid seat and awkward
clutches every now and again, as the horse pranced, at the high pommel of
the saddle, which rose up in front as if it had been purposely put there
for the rider to hold on by.

He was attended by Mír Saggid Muhammad, Iltáfzai, a cousin of the Khán’s,
and was followed by a party of twenty-five or thirty horsemen—the most
ragged and motley troop I ever saw. There was the Persian and the Pathan,
the Brahoe and the Baloch, the Sindhí and the Sídí, each clad in his own
national costume and armour, but the poorest of its kind, and all mounted
on very inferior, weedy, and unkept ponies. They gradually dropped off
from us as we passed under the town.

Two hours after our arrival, we donned our uniforms and went to call
on the Khán at the Mírí. The cold was withering, and a keen north wind
cut us to the very bones. The ground was frozen hard, and snow-wreaths
lay under the shade of the walls. Our path led across a brisk rivulet,
flowing in a wide pebbly channel—the same we had crossed a while ago; and
then past some walled fields to the town itself, which we entered by a
gate leading into the main bazaar—a poor and decayed collection of shops
ranged on each side of a filthy street. From this we went up a steep and
slippery ascent, very narrow, and flanked by high walls. Dismounting at
the top, we groped our way through a dark winding passage, strewed with
all sorts of filth and litter, and redolent of the nastiest smells, and
suddenly arrived at the door of the Khán’s reception room, where we
found him standing to receive us.

We shook hands all round, with the usual complimentary phrases, and at
once entering the room, were conducted to a row of chairs placed at its
upper end. Khudádád Khán, the chief of Calát, and Major-General Pollock
occupied the two central seats, and Major Harrison and myself those
on either side. On the floor in front of us were spread two dirty old
Persian carpets, separated by a space in which was placed a great dish
of live charcoal. At the edge of the carpets, to the right and left, sat
a number of court officials, and at the further end fronting us stood
the Khán’s bodyguard, a dozen of the most unshorn, ragged, and ruffianly
set of cut-throats it would be possible to collect anywhere. No two
were clad or armed alike, and each looked a greater scoundrel than his
neighbour. Where the Khán collected such a unique set of villains I
cannot understand. I never saw anything to equal their barbarous attire
and rascally looks anywhere.

One more personage remains to complete the picture of the Khán’s court
as we found it on this memorable occasion, for I never think of that
cold ride without a shiver running through my limbs. Crouched up against
the wall to the left of our row of chairs was a portly individual with
a jovial fat face and a sleek beard, which would have been white had he
but treated it to a little soap and water. He shuffled about under the
bundle of clothes—neither clean nor new—that mostly concealed his figure,
as from time to time he joined in the conversation as one in authority
and in the Khán’s confidence. This was Wazír Walí Muhammad, aged seventy
years, the most sensible man in Calát, the Khán’s truest friend, and a
stanch ally of the British Government, of which his experience runs
through the past and present generation. He was a friend to Masson when
he visited this place in 1831, and he was present when the town was
taken, eight years later, by the force under General Willshire, the
chief, Mihráb Khán, being killed in the defence, with four hundred of his
men.

The present chief, Khudádád Khán, is about thirty-eight years of age. He
has a vacant and at times silly look, and his conversation is trifling.
He does not convey the impression of being a man of any weight or
ability, and is said to spend most of his time amongst his women. During
our visit his two sons were introduced. They were pretty children and
richly dressed. The eldest, Mír Mahmúd, was aged seven years, and the
other, Mír Shahnawáz, was aged three years.

Such is the composition of the court of Calát. The reception room in
which we were assembled is a very mean and neglected chamber. The roof
is low and the walls—they had been whitewashed, but apparently very long
ago—were cracked in a dangerous manner, and altogether the place wore a
very poor and untidy look. The north and west sides of the chamber were
occupied by a succession of latticed windows, from which there is a fine
prospect of the whole valley and its villages and gardens. This is the
one redeeming point in the whole palace, which is only a jumble of huts
piled together one above the other to a great height above the rest of
the town, of which it forms the most prominent object as seen from a
distance.

It is not usual for the Khán to winter here, owing to the severity of the
climate. His winter residence is in the milder climate of Gandáva where
he has a palace. This year he is kept here by the rebellion of his barons.

We took our leave, and returned to our quarters by the route we came,
and very glad to get under shelter again, for our close-fitting uniforms
were ill calculated to protect us from such cold, which is here greater
than we have anywhere experienced. During the night the thermometer must
have sunk to zero outside, for next morning it stood at 8° Fah. in a
court full of servants and cattle, and warmed by several little fires.
By my aneroid barometer I estimated the elevation of Calát at about 6750
feet above the sea. Hard frost prevailed all the time we were here.

We halted here the next day, and at four P.M. the Khán, attended by his
son, Mír Mahmúd, and nephew, Mír Kuram Khán, came to return our visit. He
was richly dressed, and rode a fine Baloch horse caparisoned with gold
trappings; but he is altogether wanting in deportment, and impressed me
even more unfavourably than he did yesterday.

He is the head of the Kambarání family, who claim Arab descent, and
profess to come originally from Aleppo. This family has held the
government for several generations, and is now reckoned as the royal
tribe amongst the Brahoe, though they themselves are neither Brahoe
nor Baloch. The Kambarání take wives from both tribes, but they give
their daughters to neither, though all are Sunni Muhammadans. In the
days of their prosperity, the Kambarání chiefs ruled over the whole of
Balochistan as independent despots, owning only nominal allegiance to
the Afghan monarchy established by Sháh Ahmad, Durrani. At that time, as
now, Balochistan comprised six principal divisions, viz., Kach, Gandáva,
Jhálawán, Calát, Sahárawán, Makrán, and Las Bela. Only the four first of
these divisions now acknowledge the authority of the Calát chief. Las
Bela is independent under a _quasi_ tributary chief; whilst Makrán is
divided between Persia and a number of petty local chiefs, whose tenures
possess no stability owing to their intestine feuds and rivalries. The
endurance of the rule of the present chief of Calát, too, does not appear
very secure, owing to the prolonged rebellion of some of his principal
barons.

The Khán’s visit was not a very long one, nor very entertaining. He
repeated the same queries with which he assailed us yesterday. “How
old are you?” “Are you married?” “How many children have you?” and so
forth. “How many teeth have you?” only was wanting to bring the list of
impertinences to a climax. My gun was produced for his inspection, and
the General’s gyroscope was set in motion for the amusement of his son.
He handled the gun awkwardly, and examined it perfunctorily, without a
trace of interest, as if the attempt to understand its mechanism were
quite a hopeless task. The wonderful performances of the gyroscope drew
forth some exclamations of astonishment, and when, by an erratic dash, it
startled an old gentleman sitting on the floor into a sudden somersault
in his haste to escape its attack, it produced a decided impression,
not quite free from suspicions as to its being some infernal machine,
the real purposes of which we kept secret. “Or else,” said one of the
attendants to his neighbour, as the Khán took his departure, “why should
they carry such a thing about with them? Did you feel its weight and
force as it spun?”

In the evening, after our visit yesterday, the Khán sent us a _zújafát_,
or cooked dinner of several native dishes. This evening he sent us tea,
sheep, fowls, eggs, butter, flour, &c., for our servants; and the Wazír
Walí Muhammad, who enjoys the reputation of being a clever gastronomic,
sent us a rich and varied assortment of dishes, which fully supported
the credit of his specialty. They differed little from the _menu_ which
it is the delight of Afghans to set before their guests.

Calát is the capital of Balochistan, and the summer residence of the
chief. It is a fortified little town, situated on the plain at the
extremity of a low ridge of hills called Sháh Mírán, and contains about
8000 inhabitants—a mixture of Baloch, Brahoe, Jat, and Dihwár, with a few
Hindu families. The town is indescribably filthy, and wears a thoroughly
decayed look. It is the largest town in the country, and the valley in
which it stands is the most populous. There are several villages and
fruit-gardens crowded together on the upper part of the valley near the
town. They produce excellent apricots, plums, peaches, and other fruits,
which are dried and exported. The mulberry and _sanjit_ (_oleagnus_) are
common here. The graceful foliage of the latter adorns the water-courses,
of which there are a great number in all directions, from hill-streams
and the subterranean conduits called _kárez_.

Great care and attention is paid to the culture of these gardens. They
are entirely in the hands of the Dihwár, a Persian-speaking people, who
here correspond to the Tajik of Afghanistan, and, like them, are Sunni
Muhammadans. In fact, there is not a Shia in the country, and the sect is
abominated with truly religious hatred. Lucerne (_ushpusht_) is largely
grown here as a fodder crop, and yields five or six or even eight crops
a year, under careful irrigation and manuring. I saw some men digging
up the roots of the plant as food for their cattle. They are long and
fibrous, and are considered very nourishing food for cows and goats, &c.
Beetroot too is grown here, and tobacco in small quantity.

In the gardens here we found numbers of thrushes, starlings, and
magpies. We also saw the red-billed crow and the golden eagle. The magpie
(here called _shakúk_, and at Kabul, _kalghúchak_) is of the same colour
and character as the English bird, but smaller in size. The villagers
here were friendly, and free from the arrogance of the Afghan. They
appeared a peaceable, industrious and thriving community.

_25th January._—We left Calát, under a salute of eleven guns, at 11.10
A.M., and marched twenty-six miles to the village of Mundi Hájí in the
Mungachar valley. Our route was due north down the slope of the Calát
valley. At about the third mile we cleared the villages and gardens, and
going on over corn-fields and across irrigation streams, at the sixth
mile came to the Baba Walí _ziyárat_, a sacred shrine on the further side
of a deep pebbly ravine.

Here we parted from our kind friend Major Harrison, Political Agent at
the Court of Calát (“the fortress,” in Arabic), and stood a few minutes
to view the landscape we had left behind us at the southern extremity
of the valley. Calát, with its lofty citadel and towering palace, stood
forth the most dominant feature in the scene. Below it were crowded
together a number of villages, gardens, and corn-fields, that told of
peace and plenty, despite their present forlorn look under the withering
blasts of an almost arctic winter; whilst the background was closed by a
great snow-clad mountain, on the other side of which is Nichára. Such was
Calát as we saw it, but such, fortunately, is not always its appearance.
The forests of naked twigs and branches that now testify to the severity
of the season will a few weeks hence put forth their buds, and in summer
will be bowed down with the weight of their foliage and fruit. The snowy
barrier above will disappear, and disclose dark belts of the arbor vitæ
and pistacia, whilst the bare plain below will put on its coat of green,
and roll with fields of yellow corn. As described, the summer must indeed
be a delightful season here; and if it is mild in proportion to the
severity of the winter, I can understand the ecstasies with which the
natives expatiate on its delights. Taking a last look at Calát, and a
parting adieu from our friend, we turned and faced the dreary waste of
hill and dale that stretched away before us to the northward.

Our road skirted a low ridge of hills on our left, and led by a
well-beaten path over the pasture ground of Bandúkhí. At the ninth mile
we passed a cross-road leading to the village of Girání on the other
side of the ridge to our left, and beyond it gently descended to the
pastures of Marján, from which we rose on to an undulating upland tract,
leaving the valley to our right, and came to the Laghání Kotal. This is
a rough pass over a ridge of slate and sandstone hills, and conducts
down a long and stony hill-skirt to the plain of Mungachar, which is an
alluvial valley, intersected by numerous _kárez_ conduits, dotted here
and there with villages, and covered with great patches of snow-white
saline encrustations. From the top of the pass we got a good view of the
Chihltan mountain away to the north, and of the Kárcháp range away to the
south-west, both deeply covered with snow; whilst nearer at hand, to our
right front and right, were the lesser hills of Koh Márán and Keláb, just
whitened at their summits.

On descending to the valley, we had to make a long detour to the right,
in order to avoid a wide extent of mire, produced by flooding the fields
from the _kárez_ streams, and only reached Mundi Hájí at the foot of
Bidiring hill at five P.M. This is a little hamlet of six or seven
detached houses; and as the evening air was very cold, and our baggage
not even in sight across the plain (it did not all come up till ten
P.M.), we took shelter in the principal house, which was very willingly
vacated by its tenants for our use.

On our way across the valley we passed the ruins of a village called
Dádar. It was the largest of the ten or twelve villages that are
scattered over the Mungachar plain, and was plundered and destroyed by
the rebel Sherdil Khán some eight years ago, when he ousted the present
Khán of Calát, as has already been mentioned.

Whilst we were waiting the arrival of our baggage, our host, Ummed
Khán, Ráisání, walked in and unconcernedly seated himself on the carpet
he had obligingly spread for us. He was a petty farmer, of simple
unsophisticated manners, and quite charmed us with his good nature,
sensible conversation, and freedom from prejudice. He was explaining to
us the protective virtues of a bag of dust that attracted my attention
as it hung against one of the two props supporting the roof, when the
arrival of our cook with the kitchen establishment was announced, and
he disappeared to provide fuel and water. Having done this, he returned
and favoured us with his company, whilst we disposed of our evening
meal; and we now heard the history of the bag above mentioned. It was
briefly this:—Saggid Maurúsí, the patron saint of this place, and whose
shrine stands on a rocky mound hard by, was a very holy man. During his
life he dispensed charms with a liberal hand for the protection of the
faithful against all manner of evils; and since his death, so great
was the sanctity of his character, the virtues of his charms have been
communicated to the ashes of his tomb. All who seek the intercession
of the saint carry away a little of the dust from his shrine, and keep
it in their houses, to avert the evil eye, and protect the inmates and
their cattle, &c., from sickness or other calamity. The dust is called
_khurda_ and is an undoubted efficacious charm.

Our host having paused in his conversation, I offered him a cup of tea,
which, to my surprise—accustomed as I had been to the narrow prejudices
of Indian caste—he readily accepted, as also some cold fowl. Another cup
of tea and another fowl was offered for the lady of the house, whose
bright eyes were curiously peering at us from the doorway of an opposite
chamber. The husband took them away, and presently a merry laugh of
gratification assured us of the appreciation of the attention. Early next
morning, whilst doing a rough toilet outside, my glass propped against
a wall, I caught the reflection of our landlady straining her eyes from
the opposite side of the court to see what I was looking into as my comb
and brushes performed their usual offices. Turning round, I gratified
her curiosity with a peep at her own comely features in the glass. Her
delight and unrestrained simplicity were most amusing. She held the
mirror in both hands before her, viewed herself in it, posed her head
first on this side then on the other, smiled, frowned, stared, trimmed
her mouth, smoothed her hair, and stroked her nose in succession. She
turned the mirror round and examined its back a moment, and then again
devoted herself to its reflecting surface, and, taking up her baby,
placed its cheek against her own, and viewed both together, and smiled
with innocent satisfaction. It was an amusing spectacle, and in every
particular, excepting the baby, was the exact repetition of what I have
seen a monkey do with a looking-glass. The young woman was so evidently
pleased with the mirror, that I gave it to her, and she ran off inside
the house, no doubt to look at it afresh.

We left Mundi Hájí at 8.10 A.M., and marched twenty-six miles, and
camped at the Kárez Amánullah. The morning air was sharp, and, by the
thermometer, showed nine degrees of frost. Our path led over a narrow
stony upland, covered with artemisia scrub, and bounded on either side
by the hill ranges of Bidiring and Buzi, both of which were tipped with
snow. In two hours we reached the crest of the upland, and by a gentle
slope in another hour reached a roadside shrine on the border of the Khad
Mastung, or Lower Mastung valley.

We halted here awhile to allow the baggage to get on ahead, and meanwhile
examined the horns, of which a great number adorned the shrine. They were
mostly those of the ibex and uriár (or wild sheep), here called _het_ and
_kharr_ respectively, and in Persia _buz_ and _bakhta_. None of the horns
were very large or unusually fine, but I took a couple of each kind as
specimens.

Before us, to the northward, lay a great waste, on which, at about five
miles off, stood the village of Gorú, with wide patches of white soda
efflorescence scattered here and there over the plain. Far away to the
north, the prospect is closed by the snowy mass of the Chihltan mountain,
which separates Mastung from Shál.

After a halt of an hour and a half we proceeded, and passing the
Sháwání cultivation and Gorú cemetery, at 3.30 P.M. arrived at our
camping-ground. The valley dips gently to the northward, and presents a
very dreary aspect. The soil is powdery, and surcharged with salines,
which here and there form great sheets of snow-white encrustation. The
cultivation is very scanty, and all _khushkába_, that is, dependent on
the skies for irrigation. The fields are little square patches, banked up
on all sides to catch and retain what rain showers upon them. Not a tree
is visible on the plain; the Sháwání Brahoe huts are scattered over its
surface in clusters of four or five together, but are mostly situated
along the base of the Chuttok hills bounding the valley to the westward.

At Amánullah we pitched our camp in the hollows of some sandy undulations
of the surface, by way of shelter from the north wind, which swept over
the plain in gusts of chilling force. Hard by, lower down the course
of the _kárez_, are the ten or twelve huts composing the village. They
looked poor hovels, and were quite in keeping with the dreary and wintry
aspect of the country.

We set out hence at 8.30 next morning, and marched nine miles to Mastung,
where we arrived in two hours, and alighted at quarters prepared for
us in the fort. The first part of our route was over the Amánullah
cultivation, and across a deep _kárez_ cut, on to an undulating waste,
beyond which we came to the corn-fields and walled gardens of Mastung.

As we approached Mastung, a flight of blue pigeons settled on a ploughed
field off the road, and I turned off and shot three of them, all very
plump, and with their crops full of grain. Out of curiosity I opened
the crop of one, and counted its contents. They were as follows,
namely:—320 grains of barley, 20 of wheat, 50 of millet, 5 of peas or
pulse, and several other smaller grains I did not recognise. The flight
consisted of upwards of a hundred pigeons, and during the march we had
seen several such flights. From these data, some idea may be formed of
the loss inflicted on the farmer by these birds. One of our escort, who
witnessed the process of investigation above described, expressed great
astonishment, and observed that the birds had met a “justly deserved
fate for robbing the widows’ store.” The meaning of the allusion is,
I presume, that the general out-turn of the harvest being diminished
by the depredations of these birds, the widows’ store would suffer in
proportion.

At two miles from Mastung we were met by a party of fifty horsemen,
headed by Náib ’Abdurrahmán, the governor of the district. He was a fine
handsome man, of quiet and unassuming demeanour, but was poorly clad and
badly mounted. His cavalcade, too, was a sorry collection of both men and
horses. As regards the brute part of the gathering, this is surprising,
for the country here is highly cultivated, and produces abundance of
forage. The Náib conducted us through a succession of walled gardens to
the quarters prepared for us inside the fort, in front of the gate of
which were drawn up twenty files of infantry, with a band of three tin
pipes and two drums, to receive us with military honours. As we came up,
the commanding officer, with a wide sweep of his sword, brought its edge
to the tip of his nose, and holding it there perpendicularly, exactly
between the eyes, shouted, in a stentorian voice, “Generaylee saloot!”
a summons that started a man from each end of the line six paces to the
front, and fixed the rest, with gaping mouths and muskets held at all
slopes, full gaze upon us. We now came abreast of the commanding officer,
who all of a sudden missed the music, the band being intently absorbed
in the spectacle of our procession; but a quick turn, and some violent
gesticulations in their direction, immediately startled the three youths
with the tin pipes into the perpetration of three shrill squeaks, which
were accompanied by a rattle on the drums by their two juvenile comrades
behind.

The General acknowledged the honour with a graceful salute, and we passed
through the fort gate into a succession of narrow winding passages
leading from courtyard to courtyard, all strewn with several inches of
stable refuse and disfigured by dung-heaps, till at length we came to one
larger than the others, though not a whit less filthy, where a guard
of four soldiers drawn up opposite a portal informed us we had reached
our quarters, and a salute of eleven guns announced the fact to the
townspeople.

The interior, happily, was not in keeping with the exterior. The two
rooms of which the house consisted had been swept, and clean carpets had
been laid down for our reception, and, as we entered, fires were lighted
to warm them. Altogether we were agreeably surprised, and found our
lodging, despite the surroundings, a very comfortable shelter from the
wintry blasts outside.

The northern part of the Mastung valley is highly cultivated, and
populous villages, fruit gardens, and corn-fields follow each other in
close succession, and extend in one unbroken stretch for several miles
along the foot of the Hamách and Khark hills, separating the valley from
the Dashtí Bedaulat. The gardens produce the grape, apple, apricot,
quince, almond, plum, cherry, pomegranate, oleagnus, and mulberry.
The pear and peach do not grow here, though they do abundantly in the
adjoining valley of Shál. The fields produce wheat, barley, maize,
millet, pulse, lucerne, madder, tobacco, and the common vegetables,
such as carrots, turnips, onions, cabbages, &c., but not cotton. The
inhabitants are Brahoe and Dihwár, with some Baloch and Afghan families
and Hindu traders.

In summer Mastung must be a delightful residence, both in respect of
climate and scenery. The winter is cold and bleak, but mild in comparison
with its rigorous severity at Calát. Its elevation is about 5600 feet
above the sea, and it is partially sheltered from the north wind by the
hills bounding it in that direction. Its climate is described as very
salubrious, and certainly the healthy looks of its inhabitants support
the truth of the assertion.

Its scenery is very fine in itself, but, compared with the dreary wastes
and rugged wilds of the country to the southward, is quite charming, by
reason of its profuse vegetation and crowded population. The precipitous
heights of Chihltan towering above the valley to the north constitute
the grand feature of the scenery, and at this season, shrouded as the
mountain is in a thick mantle of snow, present a magnificent spectacle
by reason of their massive grandeur and overpowering proximity. Chihltan
is the highest and best-wooded mountain in this country, but it is
very steep and rugged, the trees being scattered in small clumps on
favouring ledges and in deep recesses. The arbor vitæ, pistacia kabulica,
mountain ash, wild fig, and mulberry are the principal trees found on the
mountain. It is said to abound in snakes and pythons, also wild goat and
wild sheep. The wolf, leopard, and hyena are also found in it, but not
the bear.

Towards sunset the sky became overcast with clouds, and thick mists
obscured the mountains from our view.

_28th January._—We set out from Mastung at 7.15 A.M., whilst the signal
gun in the citadel was slowly doling out a salute of eleven guns. The
morning air was cold, dull, and misty, and presaged ill for the day.
We no sooner cleared the gardens around the town, than we entered on a
bare sandy tract of some miles in extent, in the midst of which, like
an oasis in the desert, stands the little hamlet of Isá Khán. Away to
the left were seen the villages and gardens of Fírí, and to the right
those of Pringábád. Our route across the sandy waste was most trying. A
blighting north wind swept down from the hills straight against us, and
drove clouds of sand with blinding force before it. Our escort dwindled
down to three or four horsemen who kept up with us, and they were so
completely muffled up that it was impossible to get them to hear a word
we said, and utterly hopeless to draw them into conversation. Beyond
this sandy waste we entered on a rough ravine-cut gulf in the hills, and
crossing the Mobí rivulet a little below the Khushrúd hamlet—the last of
the Mastung villages in this direction—rose out of its deep ravine on to
a sloping hill skirt, white with wavy wreaths of fresh snow, now frozen
hard by the cold wind. Ascending thus along the base of Chihltan, we
arrived at the entrance to the Nishpá or Dishpa Pass in three hours and
a quarter—distance, thirteen miles. Here we halted under the bank of a
rocky water-course to allow the baggage to come up, and to breakfast off
such cold commodities as our cook had provided for us.

The view of the valley left behind us was completely obscured by dense
clouds of sand driving across the plain, but immediately above us was a
scene sufficient to rivet the attention with awe-inspiring sentiments.
The beetling cliffs of Chihltan, here and there reft of their cumbrous
loads of snow through sheer weight of its mass, rose above us in imposing
magnitude, and, domineering over the lesser hills around, formed a
picture such as is seldom equalled.

A little to the right of the Nishpá Pass is the Toghaghi hill, over the
ridge of which is a _lak_ or pass that conducts direct to the Dashtí
Bedaulat plain. It is very difficult for laden camels, and is mostly used
by footmen only. The Nishpá Pass, between Chihltan and Zindan mountains,
is four miles long up to its crest, to which it winds by a very steady
ascent. Though now covered with snow, we could here and there trace the
road made through the pass in 1839 by the engineers of the British army.
The pass is an easy one.

We reached the crest of the pass in a driving storm of hail and sleet,
and by the aneroid estimated its elevation at about 6000 feet. The
descent from the crest turns to the right down to the Dashtí Bedaulat,
leaving a forest of pistacia trees in a glen away to the left. The forest
is called Hazár Ganjí, from the number of trees—_gwan_ in Brahoeki, and
_khinjak_ in Pushto, being the colloquial names of the pistacia kabulica.

The Dashtí Bedaulat is a singular hill-girt plain, perfectly level, and
perfectly bare. It is, as the name implies, an unproductive waste, and
this from the entire absence of water. It lies at the top of the Bolán
Pass, the road from which skirts its border opposite to our position.
From the Dashtí our road turned northward again, and led down a rough and
stony defile to Sariáb in the valley of Shál. To the left the land is
covered with a forest of _gwan_ trees, and rises rapidly to the foot of
the Chihltan range, and close on our right is the Koh Landi ridge, which
separates us from the caravan road from Sariáb to Saribolán. In front of
us is the plain of Shál. It lies at a considerably lower level, and wears
a very bleak and wintry look, with its leafless gardens and bare fields,
girt around by a mountain barrier topped with snow. At the edge of the
Sariáb lands we were met by the Náib Abdul Latíf and a party of fifteen
or sixteen horsemen—a most ragged and ruffianly set of rascals. We did
not stop for the usual ceremony of compliments, as a shower of hail was,
at the moment of our meeting, driving hard pellets with painful violence
against our faces, but hurried on to the quarters prepared for us in a
small fortified hamlet near the Lora rivulet. We arrived there at 2.45
P.M., after a very trying march of twenty-nine miles, and found the huts
so filthy and close that we had our tents pitched in the court of the
fort as soon as the baggage came up.

In fine weather this march would have been very enjoyable, for the
scenery, of its kind, is very wild and grand. But our experiences have
left anything but agreeable recollections of this part of our journey.
During the first part of the route we were nearly suffocated with clouds
of sand; in the pass we were for the time blinded by driving snows, and
beyond we had to face pelting hail; whilst all the way our limbs were
numbed through by a searching north wind, whose chilling blasts require
to be felt to be properly appreciated.

Next day we marched thirteen miles to Shál Kot, or the Fort of Shál. We
could not cross the Lora direct on account of the bogs and swamps on each
side its course, so had to go back over the last few miles of yesterday’s
march, and make a detour round the southern end of the valley, till we
reached the highroad from Shál to the Bolán.

Attended by a couple of horsemen, I followed the course of the stream for
some distance, in the hopes of getting some wild duck. But the ground
was so swampy and deep in mud, I could not get within shot. After much
searching, my attendants found a spot where we forded the stream with
some trouble, and on the other side I got a few snipe, and then rode off
across the plain, and joined our own party a few miles from Shál.

Whilst shooting down the course of the Lora, I was much amused at the
simplicity of my sole attendant, for his comrade had lagged far behind
to wash himself and horse, both having become mud-begrimed by a fall in
a bog. I was trying to light my pipe with the aid of a burning-glass
I carried in my pocket, but finding the wind was too strong to allow
of my succeeding in the attempt, I called the man up and bid him stand
perfectly still. Then standing to the leeward, I caught a ray over the
tip of his shoulder, and presently effected my purpose. Seeing this,
the man turned and looked aside at his shoulder, and, to settle any
doubts, rubbed it roughly with the opposite hand, whilst he stared a
stare of wonderment at me. I assured him he was not on fire; that I had
got mine from the sun and not from him, and that there was no cause for
alarm; and, so saying, hurried after some wild-fowl I saw alight farther
down the stream, leaving him my horse to hold. I heard him muttering to
himself, and caught the words, “_Toba! toba! chi balá ast?_”—“Repentance!
repentance! what devilry is it?”

On approaching Shál we made a detour to the right to avoid a wide extent
of flooded fields, and passed an extensive graveyard, close to which,
on an open flat of ground, was pointed out to us a walled enclosure,
containing the graves of the Europeans who died here in 1839-40. The
wall is very low, but in good repair, and the sacred spot appears to be
respected by the natives. Not far from it are the remains of Captain
Bean’s house, when he was Political Resident here. Though roofless, the
shell is not very much damaged, and might be easily restored.

In front of the fort gate a military guard was drawn up to do honour to
the General. It consisted of twenty-five men in a single row. As we came
up, the officer in command gave the words in very plain English, “Rear
rank take open order;” a signal at which three men stepped to the front,
and gave the time to the rest in presenting arms, whilst the single gun
in the citadel fired a salute. Entering the town, we were presently
housed in quarters similar to those at Mastung.

Shál is a fortified town, and contains about twelve hundred houses
collected round a central mound on which stands the citadel. The
elevation of the citadel is much above the town, and it is the prominent
object in the valley, but its walls are very poor, and more or less
in a state of decay. By the natives it is called Shál Kot, and by the
Afghans Kwatta, or “the little fort,” whence our Quetta. The valley of
Shál is very similar to that of Mastung, and, like it, drains westward to
Shorawak.

The garrison of Shál consists of one hundred infantry, almost all of
whom are Afghans, with a few other mercenaries. There are besides fifty
horsemen, and a dozen artillerymen for the one gun they have here. These
troops are under the command of the Náib or governor, Abdul Latíf, who
on emergency can collect a force of about five thousand _íljárí_, or
militia, from the neighbouring hills, armed with matchlock, sword, and
shield.

Shál is described as a delightful residence in summer, and is said to
possess a temperate and salubrious climate, in which respect it resembles
the valley of Mastung. The whole valley is covered with villages and
corn-fields and gardens, through the midst of which flows the Lora
rivulet; but the soil is almost everywhere impregnated—with nitre and
soda-salts.

The scenery around is very fine, and affords a wide and varied field for
the pencil of the artist, particularly at this season, when the rugged
heights of the greater mountains are deeply covered with snow. Towards
the east, the valley is closed by the lesser ranges of Siyah Pusht and
Murdár. To the south are the Landi ridge and Chihltan mountain. From the
latter projects the low range of Karassa which sweeps round the valley
towards the Muchilagh range, forming its western boundary; and between
them is a gap that leads into the Dulay valley and plain of Shorawak.
To the north, the valley is overlooked by the great Tokátú peak and
Zarghún range. These last are occupied by the Domarr section of the
Kákarr tribe. They are described as the most savage and hardy of all the
Afghan mountaineers, and have proved quite irreclaimable by either the
government of Kabul or that of Calát. They often give trouble on this
border, and formerly used to plunder the country as far as the Nishpá
Pass, in collusion with their brethren of the Bánzai section occupying
the hills slopes of Shál. They harry the road into Peshín by Tal
Chhotiyálí, so much so, that it is now deserted as a caravan route. This
is the route that was proposed as one we might journey by, when it was
found we could not proceed by the Bolán Pass; but, thanks to the decision
of Sir William Merewether, we were directed into a safer route, and thus
saved from falling into the clutches of these utter savages.

There is a road direct from Shál over the hills between Tokátú and
Zarghún to the Tal Chhotiyálí route, but it is seldom used, owing to the
risks from predatory Domarr, through whose territories it passes. These
people have no large villages, but are scattered over the hills in caves
and sheds with their flocks and sheep. During the winter, they descend to
the lower valleys, where they pass the time in their black tents. They
cultivate only sufficient ground for the supply of their wants, and for
the most part live on the produce of their flocks, such as milk, butter,
flesh, and the inspissated cheese known as _kroot_. From the goats’ hair
they manufacture ropes and the black tents called _kizhdí_, and from the
sheep’s wool they make the thick felt cloaks called _kosai_, which, with
a pair of loose cotton trousers, constitute the whole winter dress of
most of the people. The Domarr are said to muster nearly four thousand
families.

A curious custom is said to prevail amongst them. In the spring and
summer evenings, the young men and maidens of adjoining camps assemble on
the hillsides, and shouting “_Pír murr nadai, jwandai dai_” (“The old man
is not dead, he lives”), romp about till—I suppose on the principle of
natural selection—the opposite sexes pair off in the favouring darkness,
and chase each other amongst the trees and rocks, till summoned home by
the calls of their respective parents. It does not appear that the custom
leads to the contraction of matrimonial alliances amongst the performers,
though to its observance is attributed the hardiness and populousness of
the tribe.

During the afternoon, a messenger arrived from Cushlác with letters from
the Afghan Commissioner for General Pollock, intimating his arrival there
with a military escort for our safe conduct to Kandahar. It is therefore
arranged that we proceed in the morning, apparently much to the relief of
our host, the Náib Abdul Latíf, who seemed apprehensive lest the Afghan
troops should cross the border into the district under his charge on the
plea of meeting us, and thus unsettle the minds of his subjects with the
idea that they were to be annexed to the Kabul dominions, between which
and the territories of the Khán of Calát the Cushlác Lora is the present
boundary.

Originally both Shál and Mastung with Shorawak formed part of the kingdom
erected by Sháh Ahmad, Durrani. They were subsequently made over to Nasír
Khán, chief of Balochistan, in return for his allegiance and maintenance
of a contingent of troops in the interest of the Afghan sovereign.
These districts are still considered by the Afghans as portion of their
country, though they remain under the rule of the Khán of Calát; and in
1864, when Sherdil Khán usurped the government from the present chief,
Khudádád Khán, the Governor of Kandahar made an attempt to reannex
them to his province, but in this he was thwarted by the action of the
British authorities, and the restoration of Khudádád Khán to his rightful
government.




CHAPTER IV.


_30th January._—Snow fell during the night, and this morning covers the
whole plain to the depth of about six inches. We set out from Shál Kot
at 9.10 A.M., under a salute from the fort as on arrival, and proceeded
across the plain northwards to the foot of Tokátú mountain, where we
came to the village of Kiroghar. This is a collection of some sixty
detached huts on the stony hill skirt, and is about seven miles from the
fort. It is occupied by the Bánzai section of the great Kákarr tribe.
They have small colonies all along the hill skirts on the northern and
eastern limits of the valley, and are said to number nearly five thousand
families. They have been settled in these tracts for the past five
generations, but were only properly reduced to the subjection of the
Khán of Calát last year, previous to which they used to cause infinite
loss and trouble by their plundering excursions on the Taghaghi Lak and
Nishpá Pass, between Shál and Mastung. No caravan in those days was safe
from their attacks. Last year the Náib led an expedition against them,
and secured some of their chief men as hostages, and they now confine
themselves to their own limits.

The Kákarr tribe, to which they belong, is one of the most numerous and
powerful of the Afghan clans. They occupy all the hill country between
this and the limits of Ghazni, where their border touches those of the
Waziris and Ghilzais. To the eastward, their territories extend up to
the base of Koh Kassi of the Sulemán range. To the westward, between
Toba Márúf and Tokátú, they share the hill slopes that drain to the
Kandahar plain and Peshín valley with the Achakzai and Spin Tarin tribes
respectively.

The strength of the Kákarr tribe is variously estimated, but they are
probably not less than fifty thousand families. They are mostly a
pastoral people, but some are settled in the valleys of the country as
cultivators of the soil, whilst those to the westward are engaged in
trade, and almost exclusively collect the asafœtida imported into India.
For this purpose their camps spread over the Kandahar plain up to the
confines of Herat.

We stopped a few minutes at Kiroghar to procure guides, for the snow
had obliterated all traces of the road. None of the villagers, however,
seemed at all inclined to help us in the difficulty. The Náib, Abdul
Latíf, took this want of attention on their part as a personal affront,
and very quickly lost control over his temper. His rotund figure
visibly swelled with wrath as he peremptorily summoned the head man
to his presence. Three or four horsemen at once scampered off to one
of the huts, and presently Malik Jalál (the head man), accompanied by
half-a-dozen men, were seen to emerge, and leisurely measure their steps
across the snow to where the Náib stood.

This quiet indifference was more than the Náib could stand. He bounced
about in his saddle in a tempest of anger, and, flashing his bright
eyes from side to side, poured out a torrent of anathemas, and vowed a
sharp vengeance nothing short of annihilation of the dog-begotten breed
of Bánzai. At this moment I happened to inquire from one of the escort
standing near me whether some fine _márkhor_, or wild goat horns, that
adorned an adjoining hut, were the produce of the mountain above us, but
before he could reply, the infuriate Náib’s mandate went forth to bring
them to us; and in less time than it has taken to relate the occurrence,
half-a-dozen of the largest horns were torn from their attachments, and
laid on the snow before us. We hardly had time to examine them before
the head man and his following came up, looking as unconcerned and
independent as their circumstances entitled them to be. There was no
thought on either side of the customary exchange of salutations, nor
was the _salám alaikum_, and its reply, _wa alaikum salám_, uttered.
Instead thereof, the Náib turned on the Malik with a volley of abuse, and
demanded why he was not on the road to meet him. “Where,” said he, “is
the _chilam_? (pipe of friendship). Is this the sort of hospitality you
show to your governor?” The unfortunate Malik was not allowed time to
plead any excuses, but was summarily dismissed, and two of his men pushed
to the front to point out the road. “Dishonoured wretch! dog!” said the
Náib, “go and prepare for my return. I shall be your guest to-night.”
So saying, he ordered a couple of troopers to stay behind and see that
an entertainment suited to himself and retinue was ready against their
return, and our party proceeded forward.

In exchange for a couple of rupees, the owner of the horns willingly
carried a couple of the largest pairs to our camp at Cushlác, and I
subsequently sent them to Peshawar from Kandahar, for the purpose of
comparing them with those of the Himalayan animal. I have since done so,
but without discovering any appreciable difference.

From Kiroghar we proceeded westward along the stony skirt of Tokátú for a
couple of miles, and then winding round the mountain by a considerable
rise to the northward, at about another mile came to a clump of trees at
the spring-head of a strong stream issuing from the side of the hill and
flowing down to the plain behind us.

We halted here awhile to await the arrival of the Afghan Commissioner,
whom we saw in the distance advancing towards us with a troop of cavalry
from the Murghí Pass in our front. Meanwhile the Náib Abdul Latíf took
the opportunity to express his regret that he had not been able to
entertain us more hospitably owing to the rapidity of our movements
and the unfavouring condition of the elements. He assured us of his
admiration of the British Government; that he considered all Englishmen
his friends; and that he was proud to remember his association with
Colonel Stacey and Captain Beam so long ago as 1839-40—names that are
still remembered with gratitude and good-will in many a household in Shál
and Mastung.

Whilst waiting here, I emptied my gun at a couple of red-legged rooks
flying overhead. One of them with outstretched wings came down in a
very graceful and slow pirouette, and fell dead at my feet; the other
glided down very quickly in an oblique line, and fell against the rocks
a hundred yards or so off. I was speculating on the nature of the causes
that produced such different modes of descent, when my attention was
diverted to our Afghan friends.

The cavalry were drawn up in a double line on one side of the road
about five hundred yards off, whilst the Afghan Commissioner, Saggid
Núr Muhammad Sháh—whom I shall henceforth always speak of as “the
Saggid”—accompanied by three horsemen, rode down to where we stood. At
fifty yards he dismounted, and we stepped forward to meet him. As we
raised our hats, he doffed his turban with both hands and made a low bow,
and then replacing the costly Kashmir shawl, he embraced us successively
Afghan fashion with sincere cordiality, repeating the while the usual
string of salutations and complimentary inquiries. This ceremony over, we
mounted, and proceeded up the slope, the Náib Abdul Latíf accompanying us
with only three or four attendant horsemen.

As we came up to the cavalry, they saluted, and then followed in rear of
our procession. They are a very fine set of men, with bold independent
bearing, but with thoroughly friendly looks. They were excellently
mounted, and the general superiority of their equipment quite took us by
surprise. They wore blue hussar-jackets, top-boots, and scarlet busbies,
and altogether looked a very serviceable set of men.

Before we reached the top of the Murghí Pass, about two and a half
miles from the spring, we were caught in a snowstorm, which completely
obscured the hills around, whilst the flakes, adhering to our beards and
clothing, presently gave our whole party a grotesquely uncouth and hoary
look. From the pass we descended through a narrow defile into the Peshín
valley or district, near a couple of fine springs issuing from the rocks
on our right. They are led over the plain in deep cuts for purposes of
irrigation.

I was here so numbed by the cold, that I was glad of an excuse to
dismount and warm myself by a trudge over the snow; so I followed down
the course of one of the water-cuts in the direction of a couple of wild
ducks I had marked down upon it. I had not proceeded far, gun in hand,
when they rose from a pool on the other side of the stream. They both
fell to a right and left shot, at only a few paces from each other. I
was considering how I might get them, when a trooper, who had followed
me, urged his horse forward to a gap in the bank a little way off. The
horse very naturally refused to slide down the gap into the water, and I
told the rider to desist from urging him, remarking that the water was
evidently deep, and he would certainly get wet. But the Afghan’s spirit
was roused by the sport, and he knew he was observed by his comrades.
“My horse can swim, and that shot is worth a wetting,” he said, as he
struck his heels into the horse’s flanks, and forced him into the stream.
The plunge was so sudden, that the horse nearly lost his footing, but
the trooper, cleverly recovering him, brought him out on the further
bank through water half-way up the saddle-flaps, picked up the birds,
and recrossed without misadventure. His spirited conduct excited our
admiration, but amongst his comrades the shot was the theme of applause.
The one was to them a matter of everyday occurrence, the other they
had rarely if ever before witnessed. With us it was just the reverse.
The one was an act seldom necessitated, the other only an ordinary
occurrence. And thus it is that acts are valued out of all proportion to
their real merits by the mere force of habitude, both by governments and
individuals, whether civilised or uncivilised.

At about fourteen miles from Shál we crossed the Cushlác Lora, a small
stream flowing on a pebbly bottom between high banks of shingle and clay.
It marks the boundary between the territories of the Amir of Kabul and
the Khán of Calát.

At this place Náib Abdul Latíf took leave of us, and returned to sup with
his Kiroghar subjects. I can fancy that in him they found anything but
an easily pleased guest. His temper had been ruffled by the morning’s
mishap, and it was not improved by the inclement weather he had been
exposed to in our company, for his beard was frozen into thick tangles,
and a row of pendant icicles fringed the edge of his turban, whilst his
crestfallen features betokened discontent, and an eagerness in his eyes
spoke of a desire to wreak his vengeance on somebody or other. I fear his
Bánzai hosts must have had a trying time of it on this memorable evening.

Beyond the Lora rivulet we came to a company of regular Afghan infantry
drawn up on the roadside. They are a remarkably fine set of fellows,
and were evidently picked men, meant to make an impression on us. They
saluted as we passed on our way to the Saggid’s camp, a little beyond the
Shahjahán village.

Here we alighted at a tent prepared for us by the Saggid, and were
hospitably regaled with tea and refreshments, our host joining us in the
repast. The tent was richly furnished with thick Persian carpets and
Herat felts, and was comfortably warmed by a large dish of live coal set
on a movable platform in the centre. The shelter and comfort provided
for us were most grateful to our numbed sensations and frozen limbs.
We had marched the last five miles in a temperature of 22° Fah., with
driving snow beating against us nearly the whole way, and, but for our
friend’s forethought, must have endured a hard time of it till our own
tents arrived and could be pitched. It was three P.M. before we reached
the Afghan camp, and our baggage did not come up till three hours later,
having marched a distance of sixteen miles over snow.

_31st January._—Halt at Cushlác, weather-bound. The thermometer sunk to
10° Fah. during the night, but this morning the sun shone out in a clear
sky, and brought about a rapid thaw. In the afternoon, however, clouds
again overcast the sky, and at three P.M. snow commenced to fall, and
continued all night, with a keen driving north wind. The fire inside our
tent melted the snow on its roof, and as it trickled from the sides it
formed great icicles upwards of three feet in length, and as thick as a
man’s arm above.

Our Afghan escort is sheltered in neat rows of comfortable little tents
floored with thick felts, on which the men sleep. The horses, too,
are completely encased in great rolls of thick felt clothing, which
effectually protects them from the wind and weather.

_1st February._—At seven A.M. the thermometer stood at 11° Fah. in the
open air. The sky was clear, and a hard frost prevailed. We set out from
Cushlác at 8.35 A.M., and marched eighteen miles to Hykalzai on the plain
of Peshín, the ground covered with snow for most of the way. At two miles
we crossed the Surmaghzi Tangí or pass, a low ridge of red marly mounds,
which, but for the hard frost, would have proved very miry and slippery.

Beyond the pass we descended to the Peshín valley, which here presents a
great open plain of undulating surface, here and there, where free from
snow, showing a red clay soil, much furrowed by the action of water. At
a mile beyond Hydarzai we halted half-an-hour near the village of Yár
Muhammad, at a _kárez_ of the same name, and had a fire lighted to warm
ourselves whilst the baggage passed on. Whilst so engaged, Yár Muhammad
himself, the founder of the village and _kárez_ (water conduit) bearing
his name, with half-a-dozen villagers, came up, and with genuine Afghan
freedom seated themselves amongst us. He was a rough old man, with
blear-eyes and snuff-stained nose. Without taking any notice of us, he
bluntly inquired of the Saggid who and what we were. On being told our
errand, “That’s all right,” he replied; “our book tells us that the
Christians are to be our friends in the hour of adversity; but it’s well
for them that they are travelling this way under your protection.” The
Saggid laughed, and said, “Such are Afghans! they put me to shame;” and
his secretary, to prevent any further disclosures of sentiment on the
part of our visitor, jocosely observed, “You talk too fast, old man: your
speech is understood,” tossing his head in my direction. The old man gave
me a full stare, and inquired where I had learned Pushto. A minute later
he put up his face towards me, asked me to look at his eyes, and give him
some medicine to restore their failing sight.

From this place we proceeded over an undulating tract furrowed by
water-cuts, and crossed from north-east to south-west by a succession of
red clay banks, and beyond them reached the level plain. Here we crossed
a branch of the Surkháb rivulet, and passing the ruins of two extensive
villages, destroyed in 1841 by the army under General Nott, camped midway
between Hykalzai and Khudáedádzai or Khwáezai at 3.10 P.M.

The whole plain is a sheet of snow, from beneath which here and there
crop out red banks of miry clay. The general surface is dotted all over
with numerous clusters of black tents, four or five in each, of the
nomad Tarins. On the plain to the north-east is seen the castellated
mound of Sea Calá or Red Fort, now in ruins. Beyond it are the large
villages of Old and New Bazár, and by them flows the Surkháb or Red
River, a tributary of the Peshín Lora. To the northward the valley is
bounded by the Khwájah Amrán range, which runs north-east towards the
Sufed Koh, which it joins to the eastward of Ghazni. Its several spurs
to the southward have different names, which are, from west to east, as
pointed out to us, Khojah, Arnbí, Toba, and Surkháb. To the north of the
Toba spur is the Sehna Dág or flat of the Sehn section of Kákarrs. It is
described as an elevated tableland covered with rich pastures. Over it is
a road to the Zhob valley of the Battezai Kákarrs. In the Surkháb hills
rises the river of that name, and between it and Tokátú is a low range of
hills, over which is the direct road from this to Dera Gházi Khán by Tal
Chhotiyálí. All these hills, as well as the plain, are now covered with
snow, but in summer they are covered with rich pasture, and swarm with
the flocks and camps of the nomad Afghans of the Tarin and Kákarr tribes.

The Tarin tribe comprises four great divisions, viz., the Abdáls or
Durranis, the Tor Tarins, the Spin Tarins, and the Zard Tarins or
Zarrins. The first occupy Kandahar and the valleys to its north-west.
The second are settled in Peshín, of which they hold four-fifths, and in
the Arghasán district south of the river Tarnak. The Spin Tarins occupy
the Surkháb hills and the valleys at their eastern and western bases.
And the Zarrins are settled in the valley of Zhob and in part of the
Arghasán district. All except the Abdáls are mostly nomads, who retire
with their flocks to the hills in summer, and move down to the plains
for the winter. From their camps which we saw on the plain—and they were
remarkably distinct on its white surface, the tents being all black—their
numbers are nothing like what they are estimated.

Throughout this march the air was extremely cold. Icicles repeatedly
formed on our beards and mustaches, and hung in long pendants from the
necks of our camels. Our hands and feet were painfully benumbed for want
of efficient protection. Several of our Afghan escort, I observed, wore
thick felt casings inside their capacious top-boots.

On the march, before reaching Hydarzai, we passed a couple of _khinjak_
trees over a roadside shrine, at the foot of a low mound. Their trunks
were studded with innumerable iron nails and wooden pegs driven into the
bark—the tokens by which pilgrim-visitors ratify their vows to the saint.

From Hykalzai we marched next day fifteen miles to Aranbí Kárez. Our
route was north-westerly across the plain, at this time everywhere
covered with snow. The surface is marked here and there by the traces
of cultivation, but for the most part is occupied by a thin scrub of
wormwood, saltworts, and camel-thorn. At about half-way we crossed the
Lora rivulet, which flowed in a slow stream twenty feet wide and two
feet deep. Its bottom is soft and sandy, and abounds in quicksands. The
channel of the river is much wider than its actual bed, and is formed by
high shelving banks of clay. Over these are several narrow paths down
to the river. We found them very slippery, and many of our escort and
baggage animals fell in the descent, but without any material injury.

This Lora, or the Peshín Lora as it is called, drains the north-western
portion of the plain, and receives as a tributary the Surkháb, which
drains its eastern tracts. The united streams then flow over the plain
south-westward towards Shorawak, being joined _en route_ by the Cushlác
Lora and the Shál Lora. From Shorawak the river flows northwestward
towards the Helmand, but is lost in the sands of the desert before it
reaches that river. None of the Loras are much utilised for purposes of
irrigation in their own valleys, but on reaching Shorawak their united
stream is almost exhausted by the quantities drawn off from it for the
fields. Shál and Peshín are irrigated by _kárez_ streams and springs from
the mountains, but the former are much more fertile than the latter. In
Peshín one misses the gardens and trees so plentiful in Shál, and finds
instead a wide pasture tract more or less uncultivated, and, in place
of villages, dotted with nomad camps. Most of the irrigated land in
Peshín is in the hands of the Saggids, who have for many generations been
settled in this valley. They pay one-third the produce of their lands in
kind to Government as revenue. The nomad Tarins, who hold the unirrigated
tracts, pay only one-fifth to Government. The soil of Peshín is a red
stiff clay, highly charged with salts of sorts. In the tract between
Aranbí Kárez and Sra Calá quantities of alimentary salt are obtained from
the soil, and sold in the Kandahar market at one and a half to two rupees
per _man_ of eighty pounds. The salt is dissolved in great pits filled
with water. The clear solution is then filled into earthen pots and
boiled down to a granular mass, which takes the form of the pot.

Peshín, owing to its inferior soil, is not a fertile valley, but corn is
grown in quantity sufficient to meet the wants of its people. The seed
is first cast over the surface and then ploughed over. In Shorawak the
seed is sown by means of a kind of drill. It consists of a stiff leather
funnel fixed to the tail of the plough, and furnished with a series of
holes at the bottom. From this the grain drops into the furrow as it is
cut by the plough.

The kangaroo-rat or jerboa, here called _khanrai_, abounds in Peshín,
and is trapped for the sake of its fur. The _dalkafak_, a species of
tree-marten with a short tail, is also found here and in the hills around.

After crossing the Lora, the Saggid left us to pay a visit to his
father’s family at Pitao, a collection of five villages at the foot
of the hills a few miles to the right of our road. His own sister was
amongst them, and as he had not seen them for more than five years, he
could not pass the home of his youth without going to see its inmates.
He was not long about his business, for he rejoined us before we reached
camp; and to our expressions of surprise at his haste, and hopes that he
had not curtailed his visit on our behalf, he replied, “No; I only went
to see my sister, and to come away at once. My uncles, aunts, nephews,
nieces, and cousins there on my father’s side alone exceed two hundred in
number; and, to tell you the truth, I am afraid to go amongst them, for
they always want some token whereby to keep me in their memories.”

Snow and sleet showered upon us nearly throughout this march, and the
hills around were completely obscured by heavy clouds. On the line of
march we passed a number of nomad camps of the Kákarr and Tor Tarin
tribes, and some hundreds of their black tents dotted the surface, in
clusters of four or five together, on either hand of our route. We
dismounted at one of these tents or _kizhdí_ to examine the interior,
and were surprised to find how comfortable, roomy, clean, and warm it
was, notwithstanding that camels, men, goats, sheep, and poultry were
sheltered under one roof with their human owners, and sacks of grain and
other provisions. The tent we examined was about thirty feet long by
fifteen wide. The centre was supported by slim poles seven feet high,
and the sides by others four feet high, and across them were passed
light ribs of wood. Over this framework was stretched a single sheet of
tough and waterproof black haircloth, woven in lengths a couple of yards
wide, and sewn together. The interior was divided into two portions by
a row of sacks of corn. The one was excavated to a depth of two feet for
the camels and oxen, &c.; the other was smooth, and clean swept. In its
centre was a circular pit for fire, for the smoke of which there was no
outlet except at the openings at either end of the tent. Around the sides
were spread coarse woollen druggets and piles of the household property,
and at the end opposite were set a couple of cots. The family we found
to consist of three women, two men, and two boys. The women were much
fairer than the men, and, with their general look of hardiness, were well
featured, displaying much more character in their faces than the men.
They were all large-limbed and robust people, and certainly lead the
healthiest and happiest of lives.

Snow ceased to fall in the afternoon, and towards sunset the sky cleared,
and we got a good view of the country around. Near our camp are the
villages of Utmankhel, Torkhel, and Majai, all belonging to the Tor
Tarins. Along the foot of the hills extending to the north-eastward are
Pitao (a collection of five hamlets close together), Semzai and Alizai,
all held by Saggids. They lie at the foot of Toba mountain. To their
eastward are seen old and new Bazár and Sraculá on the plain.

_3d February._—We left Aranbí Kárez at 8.15 A.M., in a heavy fall of
snow, and proceeding north-west for about three miles, then diverged
towards the hills on our right to avoid the heavy ground on the plain. We
followed the stony hill skirt of Aranbí, a spur from the Toba mountain,
for a short distance to the westward, and then passing round some low
mounds ending on the plain, turned to the north. Here the clouds broke
and the sun shone out, and we presently got an extensive view of the
whole plain, on which towards the south are scattered many villages,
remarkable for the absence of trees about them. To the west, in the
Dihsúri glen, we got a full view of the populous village of Abdullah
Khán, surrounded by fruit gardens. This is the chief town of the Achakzai
tribe, and during the Afghan war was held by Lieutenant Bosanquet with a
detachment of troops.

Proceeding, we crossed two wide water-courses coming down from the Melán
and Máchika glens on our right, and entered the Khojak _darra_ or glen,
which winds up to the foot of the Khojak Pass. It is narrow, and flanked
on each side by low ridges of fissile slate. Its upper part is occupied
by a forest of _khinjak_ trees, and in its lower it receives, on the
right and left respectively, the drainage from the Sanzali and Shamsikhán
glens, in which we spied a number of _kizhdí_ camps of the Achakzai.

The snow at Aranbí was only five or six inches deep. In this glen it
was in some parts over three feet in depth, and where we camped, at the
very foot of the ascent, in a gully called Churza (little gully), it was
twenty inches deep. The last part of the march was most laborious, owing
to the cattle sinking in the deep snow, and it was besides very trying on
account of the painful glare from the snow under a bright sun. None of
us had our spectacles at hand, and the only way I could at all bear the
exposure was by hanging my handkerchief, quadruply folded, in front of my
eyes. The intense reflection from the snow was exquisitely painful, even
with the eyes closely blinked, and produced a copious flow of tears, and
left a headache for the rest of the day. We arrived at Churza at 12.35
P.M., but the baggage did not all come up till late in the afternoon,
though the distance was only twelve miles. A party of Achakzai cleared
away the snow from a small piece of ground twenty feet square, to enable
us to pitch a tent, but our escort and camp-followers passed the night on
the snow, which here lay between twenty inches and two feet deep. The
space was very narrow, and all were much crowded together. Our Afghan
escort, I observed, spread their thick felts on the snow, and went to
sleep rolled up in their fur cloaks.

The hill above Churza is called Puras, and it is crossed by three paths,
all very steep, and difficult at the best of times, but particularly
so now. To the west, at a short distance, is a very narrow gully, down
which flows a tiny little stream. This is the usual pass, but it was now
blocked with drifted snow. A party of Achakzai were consequently sent
off to clear a way through it for us, and next day we crossed the Khojak
by it. The pass had been improved by the British army in 1839, but its
difficulties are still many and great.

_4th February._—Crossed the Khojak range to Chaman Choki—distance, six
miles. At 7 A.M., our baggage with the infantry escort commenced moving
out of camp up the hillside. In three hours and a half the last of it had
left camp, and half-an-hour later we ourselves followed with the cavalry
escort. The ascent was by a steep and narrow gully between close-set and
almost vertical banks of slaty rock, which only admitted of our horses
proceeding in single file. There was not so much snow as I expected, and
what there was had been trodden down by the baggage. In half-an-hour
we reached the summit of the ridge, and were at once enveloped in a
dense mist of snowflakes, slowly settling on the ground, and completely
obscuring the prospect. We stood here a few minutes to allow the baggage
cattle to get out of the way, and then led our horses down the other side
by a steep and slippery path trodden in the snow. In fifteen minutes we
arrived at the foot of the steep, where commences a forest of _khinjak_
trees, as on the other side. This place is called Cháokáh, and from it
the descent is by a gentle slope down a long glen drained by a shallow
gully. As we descend, the snow lessens, and at the lower end of the
glen disappears altogether, disclosing the ground, which is here of a
bluish-brown colour, and made up of loose splinters of slate. Beyond the
glen we passed between a succession of hummocks, and arrived at Chaman
Choki, which, as the name implies, is a turfy hollow watered by a good
spring.

The weather proved very unfavourable all day. Snow, sleet, and hail
succeeded each other till late in the afternoon, when the sun struggled
out from the clouds for a brief interval, preparatory to setting for the
night. Between four and five o’clock a violent hailstorm swept over our
camp and whitened the ground.

Our baggage did not all come into camp till the afternoon was well
advanced, but the passage was effected without loss or injury, and the
snow was warm compared with the bleak and barren highlands of Calát and
Cushlác. Probably this was owing to the absence of the north wind. The
Saggid’s arrangements for crossing the Khojak were well made, and the
result most satisfactory. By sending the baggage ahead of our own party,
we avoided leaving any of it behind, and moreover deprived the Achakzai
of any opportunity for pilfering or plundering, at either of which
practices they are very ready when there is a chance of their effecting a
safe retreat with the booty.

By the aneroid barometer, I estimated the elevation at Churza, on the
southern foot of the Khojak Pass, to be 7000 feet; at the top of the
pass, 7410 feet; and at Cháokáh, on the northern foot of the pass, at
5600 feet. The aneroid indications at each respectively were 22·82,
22·47, and 24·00. At the top of the pass there was very little snow—in
fact, the slate was apparent in many places; on the slopes were seen
some _khinjak_ trees and a number of shrubby bushes, mostly of a prickly
nature. In spring the whole range is covered with excellent pasture, and
produces great quantities of rhubarb, which is here called _psháe_. Its
stalks are preserved in the dried state under the name of _íráe_, and
they are used as a relish, cooked up with meat, &c.

_5th February._—The day broke with a clear sky, and we got a splendid
view of the wide sweeping plains of Kandahar, and the mountain ranges
bounding it to the north and east.

We left Chaman at 8.30 A.M., and marched twenty-two miles to Gátaí. Our
route was north-westerly down a gentle slope on to the undulating sweep
of the plain, everywhere covered with rich pasture just commencing to
sprout above the surface. Here and there are scattered a few camps of the
Ashezai and Adozai sections of the Achakzai tribe, and at short intervals
are the shallow water-runs that drain the plain to the westward by the
Kadani river. We crossed this little stream at about half-way, and beyond
it came to the isolated Baldak rock or hill, which marks the boundary
here between the lands of the Núrzai and Achakzai.

We halted here a while to view the prospect behind us. The whole range of
the Khwájah Amrán, running north-east and south-west, was seen to great
advantage, and presented a very beautiful sight. The whole range formed
a vast ridge of snow, here and there thrown up into higher masses, and
all set upon a dark foundation of slate rocks, on which the snow-line, by
contrast of colour, was marked with singular distinctness and regularity.

The most prominent peak, about the centre of the range, is the Nárín
mountain, held by the Kákarrs. It is the source of the Kadani stream (we
have just crossed it), which, after a south-westerly course over the
plain, is turned to the northward by the sandhills of the desert, and,
under the name of Dorí, joins the Arghasán near Dih Hájí.

To the south-west of Nárín is the Toba mountain, and between the two are
the Sehna Dúgúna, or tablelands of the Sehn Kákarrs. The continuation
south-west from Toba, is the Khwájah Amrán, which ends at Shorawak,
where is the shrine whence the range takes its name. Over it are the
Khojak, Rogháni, and Ghwája passes. The two first are _kotals_ or “hill
passes,” and are very difficult; the last is a _darra_ or “defile,” and
is easily traversed by laden camels; it is the road usually taken by
caravans. To the west of Khwájah Amrán is the plain of Shorawak, held by
the Bárech tribe. It is continuous with the Kandahar plain, and both are
separated from the desert by a high coast-line of sand-cliffs. Though I
could gain no confirmation of my views from the natives, I am inclined
to think that the Peshín and Shál Loras, which are now lost in the sands
of Shorawak, were formerly directed in one stream northerly by the
desert cliffs, and ultimately joined the Kalani, or its continuation the
Dorí, because the Kandahar plain is so much lower than the country in
which these rivers rise. By the barometric indications I recorded on the
march, the elevation of Shál is estimated at 5675 feet, Cushlác at 5150,
and Hykalzai at 4800 feet. These three Loras unite before they reach
Shorawak, and if their common stream, as I suppose, took a northerly
course thence to Kandahar, it would descend several hundred feet, for the
elevation of Kandahar is estimated at 3190 feet only.

To the north-east of Nárín is the Márúf mountain, and north-east of this
again is the Sámai mountain, due south of Caláti Ghilzá. It is occupied
by the Hotab section of the Ghilzai tribe, whose clans extend from this
right up to Kabul and the Sufed Koh. The Arghasán river rises by two
branches in the Márúf and Sámai hills.

After a halt of three-quarters of an hour, we proceeded over a wide
plain, here and there cultivated, and traversed in all directions by
decayed and dry water-cuts, and at three P.M. arrived at the foot of a
great granite rock, where we camped, near some springs issuing at the
foot of an opposite granite hill. We ascended the hill near our camp for
a view of the country, but on reaching its summit were overtaken by a
thick mist and hailstorm, which completely obscured the distant view.

The general character of the plain, however, was clearly visible. It
presents a wide surface, stretching east and west, and traversed by
irregular broken ridges of bare rock, coursing from north-east to
south-west. At distant intervals on the plain are seen a few domed
villages, and two or three forts. But the most remarkable feature of the
scene is the entire absence of trees—not even a shrub is to be seen. Even
the nomad camps are few and far between. In the summer months the heat
here must be, as it is described, quite unbearable. The plain is then a
parched desert.

The springs near our camp are said to have made their appearance above
the surface only three years ago. Previous to that time this place was
entirely without water, and was not used as a camping-stage. The old
stage was at Dand Gulai, at the foot of a hill five or six miles away to
the south-west. But its waters having dried up, it is now deserted as a
camping-ground.

From Gátaí we marched fourteen miles in a north-westerly direction, and
camped at Mel Mándah, or the Mel ravine, near a _kárez_ on its bank. A
most trying north-wester blew against us with considerable force all
the way, and chilled us to the very bones. For the first ten miles our
route was across a great plain, bounded towards the west by the cliffs of
the desert, and on the east by the range of hills connecting the Nárín
and Márúf mountains. The rest of our route was over a succession of
undulating downs, backed in an irregular and broken line, from north-east
to south-west, by a series of bare rugged hills. Throughout the march we
saw no signs of habitation or cultivation; not a village nor a tent was
seen on the whole route, nor even a single tree, nor any sign of cattle;
nor did we see any water, except a brackish little pool about the tenth
mile, where the road rises from the plain on to the downs. About a mile
east of our camp is the Hardo hill, on which are said to be the remains
of ancient walls. Its ridge separates the Kadani plain from that of
Mulhid to its north, which extends north-east to the Arghasán river. The
Mel Mándah, at this time a dry stony ravine, drains Hardo hill westward
into the Dorí river.

Our next stage was eighteen miles to Mákú Kárez, near the village of that
name. Our route led north-westerly across the Mulhid plain. From it we
got a good view of the Hardo ridge, and saw the outline of walls on its
crest. There are said to be some extensive reservoirs here, excavated in
the solid rock. Our companions could tell us nothing of these ruins, more
than that they were once the habitations of the _káfir_ (infidel) who in
ancient times occupied this country. Probably they are Buddhist remains.

At about half-way we arrived at the top of the Barghanah Pass, in the
ridge of the same name, and halted a few minutes to view the country.
Away to the south, through gaps between the scattered ridges intersecting
the plain, were seen bits of the Khojak range in its snowy drapery.
To the eastward was seen the great snowy mass of Sámai, and to its
north-east appeared the Súrghar, or Redhill peak, whose offshoots are
continuous with those of the Sufed Koh. Both Súrghar and Sámai drain
westward into the Arghasán, which is formed by tributaries from these
and the Márúf hills. To the east, Súrghar drains direct to the Gomal
river and Sámai, by means of its tributary the Zhob stream. A great
snowy spur is seen to project south-east from Sámai. It is said by our
attendants to join the Zhob peak, and separate the Zhob and Bori valleys
as a watershed, all to the north of it draining into the Gomal by the
Zhob rivulet, and all to the south of it draining into the Nárí river by
the Záo and Síbí streams, and tributaries from the Toba mountain. The
Khwájah Amrán range and its continuation north-east in fact form a great
watershed between the drainage of the Indus and the Helmand.

To the northward the view was obstructed by the Barghanah hills, but to
the west and south-west were seen the red sand-cliffs of the desert,
through gaps in the intervening ridges, right down to the northern limits
of Shorawak. At the top of the pass the aneroid figured 25·38, thus
giving its elevation at about 4100 feet. From the pass the road leads
along the course of a great ravine, wide and stony, and here and there
retaining pools of water, round which grew the tamarisk, and a tall reed
called _durma_ at Peshawar and _darga_ here. After winding along the
ravine for a few miles, we rose out of it on to the Barghanah plain, and
camped on a good _kárez_ stream at the little village of Mákú—elevation,
3500 feet; air, sharp and frosty; no wind, fortunately. About five miles
to the west of our camp is the Tangí ridge of hills. On its further side
is the Fathullah camping-ground on the old road between Kandahar and
Peshín.

From Mákú we marched sixteen miles to Mund Hissár, a short distance from
the river Tarnak. Our route was northerly across an undulating plain
closed to the east-north-east by the Márúf mountain, which projects
forwards from the Sámai range to the Arghasán river. Márúf was the
favourite residence of Sháh Ahmad, Durrani, the founder of the Afghan
monarchy. He had a strong fort here, in which his family used to reside,
and in which he himself ended his eventful career. Sháh Ahmad for
many years suffered from a foul disease, which destroyed the nose and
palate by ulceration, and during the latter years of his life he used
to wear a silver plate to mask the hideous deformity. When he felt his
end approaching, he had himself conveyed in a small sedan covered with
scarlet cloth, and carried by two men only, from Kandahar to his family
seat at Márúf. He dismissed his courtiers at the gates of the city, and
would allow no one to accompany him except a few mounted attendants.
Thus quietly he retired from the scene of his labours and exploits,
and expired in the midst of his family in the summer of 1773, shortly
after his arrival at Márúf. His remains were carried back to the city he
founded, and now rest under the mausoleum which is its only ornament.

Sháh Ahmad was only fifty years old at the time of his death. He is said
to have been a wise and just ruler, and of very simple and unostentatious
habits. His repeated invasions of India enriched his country, whilst his
successful campaigns against the Uzbaks and in Khorassan established the
independence of his kingdom. He is always spoken of as the best of the
Afghan sovereigns, and his memory is free from the vices and crimes that
have so freely characterised the rule of his successors. His stronghold
at Márúf was destroyed in October 1839, by a detachment of the Bombay
army marching from Ghazni to Peshín, in revenge for the massacre there of
a body of four hundred camp-followers proceeding from Kandahar to India.

After marching six miles, we came to the river Arghasán. It is separated
from the valley of the Tarnak by a long ridge of hills that extends
away to the north-east, and where we crossed it flows in a wide shallow
bed, hardly sunk below the level of the plain. Its channel is about one
hundred and eighty yards wide, and the river is divided into two streams
by an intervening strip of low tamarisk jangal. The river was about a
foot deep, and not very swift. Its water was clear, and is said to be
very wholesome. In flood seasons the water flows broadcast over the
plain, which is then quickly covered with excellent pasture herbs.

The Yúsufzai and Mahmand tribes of the Peshawar valley and hills were,
according to their own accounts, originally settled as nomads on the
banks of the Arghasán and the highlands of Ghwara Margha, to the
north-east, sharing the former pastures with the Tarin tribe. But in a
season of drought they fought with the latter, and were driven off to the
eastward; and gradually working their way to Kabul, ultimately seized
their present possessions from the Indian occupants, about four centuries
ago.

Beyond the river, on either bank of which is a good irrigation canal, we
wound round the end of the ridge of hills separating the valleys of the
Tarnak and Arghasán; and passing the Naodih collection of domed huts,
rose over some undulations and descended to the Tarnak valley; and going
across it in the face of driving sleet and a biting cold north-west wind,
camped close to the village of Mund Hissár. There is a large mound here
with traces of ancient walls upon it. The village takes it name from it.
The weather here was bitterly cold, owing to the blasts of the north-west
wind that swept the plain. At midday the ground was hard frozen, as were
all the lesser irrigation streams. This village is crown property, and is
the most prosperous-looking one we have seen since entering Afghanistan.
It is surrounded by a wide extent of cultivated and freely irrigated
land, but not a tree is to be seen anywhere about it. Its people are a
mixture of various races and tribes, who hold their lands on condition of
rendering one half the produce to government.

The whole country between this and Khojak, though entirely devoid of
timber, and even brushwood, in the spring and autumn months is covered
with a rich pasture, and supports vast flocks of goats and sheep. During
the summer and winter months the country is almost entirely deserted,
owing to the excessive heat of the one season, and rigorous cold of the
other, as well as the scarcity of pasture. I was told by a merchant
engaged in the trade, that the average export of wool from Kandahar to
Karáchí for the past ten years has been about five thousand candies
(_kaodí_) annually. Each candy sells at Karáchí for from one hundred
and fifty to two hundred rupees, thus giving a profit to the province
of from seventy-five thousand to one hundred thousand rupees a year, or
£7,500 to £10,000. The trade is capable of considerable extension, for
large quantities of wool are still retained for home consumption in the
manufacture of the felts called _namad_ and _khosai_. The former are used
as carpets and horse-clothing, and the latter is the ordinary winter
dress of the peasantry.

During the march from Peshín we had noticed a large flock of sheep being
daily driven along with our camp. We now learned that they formed part
of the liberal supplies provided by order of the Amir for our party,
which the Saggid informed us he reckoned would have numbered at least two
hundred people. But, as we did not exceed thirty in number all told, they
were going back to Kandahar.

_9th February._—Marched twelve miles from Mund Hissár to Kandahar. At
about a mile we crossed the river Tarnak, the edges of which were lined
with snow-wreaths. The river flows in a wide pebbly bed between two
gravelly banks. Its stream is strong and rapid, and mid-stream is about
three feet deep. The water is muddy just now, and is said to be always
more or less turbid, in which particular it differs from its tributaries
the Arghasán and Argandáb, both of which have clear streams.

Beyond the river we passed through a gap in a ridge of bare hills of
naked rock, and at once emerged on the plain of Kandahar by a short
descent from the hill skirt. The plain presented a wide hollow extending
for many miles from north-east to south-west. Its general aspect was
dreary in the extreme by comparison with the mass of villages, and
gardens, and corn-fields crowded together about the city at its western
extremity. Though yet in the poverty of its winter state, this part of
the plain bore a decidedly fertile and flourishing look. On the verge of
a desert plain to the north-east stood out the fortified parallelogram of
Ahmad Shahí, the city of Kandahar, and to its west in attractive contrast
rose the tall rows of dark cypresses, marking the sites of the pleasure
gardens of its former brother chiefs. South of these lay a crowded mass
of gardens, fields, and villages down to the banks of the Tarnak, whilst
to the north and west the whole was shut in by the rocky heights of Baba
Walí and Husen Shahr. Altogether it formed an oasis in the midst of a
desert.

At three miles from the city we were met by a numerous and gaily-dressed
company, who had come out for our _isticbál_, or ceremonial reception,
with a troop of regular cavalry and a company of infantry. First of all,
the cavalry formed a line on each side of our procession to keep off the
crowd, whilst the infantry marched in front. We proceeded a little way
in this order, when we came to a roadside mound on which were collected
the party who had come out to do honour to the General. Here the infantry
wheeled round and formed a street up the slope of the mound. General
Pollock and our party dismounted, and then the leader of the _isticbál_,
rising from the carpet on which he was seated, stepped forward to meet
us, attended by four or five other nobles of the province. The Saggid
introduced us to each in succession, and we shook hands all round with
Sardár Mír Afzal Khán, Núr Muhammad Khán, Núr Ali Khán, and two others.

Sardár Mír Afzal Khán is a fine specimen of an Afghan noble of the old
style. His bearing is courteous and dignified, with a tinge of hauteur.
He was very richly dressed, and mounted on a handsome Arab horse with
trappings of solid gold. At his side hung a scimitar with a gold embossed
handle, and gold ornaments on the scabbard. His head was close shaven
and covered with a splendid Kashmir shawl, the folds of which were not
so closely adjusted as they might have been, for the motion of his horse
more than once caused the headpiece to rock dangerously, as if about to
fall. Mír Afzal Khán is about sixty years of age, and wears a short beard
dyed red. He has sharp Jewish features, and a very prominent nose, and is
said to bear a strong resemblance to the late Amir Dost Muhammad Khán.
He is a son of the late Sardár Púrdil Khán, one of the many sons of the
celebrated Páyandah Khán (who was executed at Kandahar in 1806 by Sháh
Zamán), by a Durrani mother. Dost Muhammad was another son of Páyandah
Khán by a Juwansher Cazilbash mother. Páyandah Khán was a Bárakzai of
the Muhammadzai branch, and was the first who raised the Bárakzai tribe
to the distinction and influence they have since his death enjoyed. He
left a great many children, but twenty-two of his sons acquired notoriety
by the parts they enacted in the political revolutions that convulsed
the country on the death of Sháh Tymúr, the son and successor of Sháh
Ahmad, the founder of the independent Afghan nationality. Of these, Fath
Khán, whose mother was a Bárakzai, was for many years the most important
and powerful chief in the country, and thrice placed Tymúr’s son Mahmúd
on the throne at Kabul, against his brothers Zamán and Shuja. He was
inhumanly butchered in 1818 by Kamrán the son of Mahmúd, and then his
brothers all divided the country between them, and Dost Muhammad became
Amir of Kabul. He was succeeded in 1863 by his son Sher Ali Khán, the
present Amir. Sardár Mír Afzal Khán is consequently a cousin of the
present Amir, and he is also his son-in-law, his daughter being Sher
Ali’s favourite wife, and the mother of the heir-apparent, Abdullah Ján.
He has for many years past been governor of Furrah, and has been a stanch
supporter of the Amir’s cause during all his adversities, and was wounded
in the arm by gunshot at the battle fought at Kajbáz, near Caláti Ghizli,
by the Amir against his rebel brother, Sardár Muhammad Amin, on 6th June
1865.

The Saggid was present in the fight, and described it to us only
yesterday. It appears that both armies came into action suddenly, and
by surprise. The Amir’s eldest son, Muhammad Ali, was killed by a
cannon-shot, and his uncle, Muhammad Amin, pushing forward to take
advantage of the confusion thus produced, was hit in the head by a
rifle-bullet and killed at once. Mír Afzal Khán is now looked on as the
most influential chief in the country, and his coming out in person
to meet and do honour to the representative of the British Government
is considered a mark of sincere good-will on the part of the Amir’s
Government.

But to return from this digression to our procession to Kandahar. After a
hurried interchange of salutations we mounted our horses, and, in company
with a brilliant crowd of cavaliers, proceeded towards the city. The
cortége numbered about a hundred and fifty of the nobility and gentry
of the province, and gave us a good idea of the chivalry of Kandahar. A
better-mounted and more picturesque body of men I have never seen. The
variety of costume and colour, the easy independence of the men, their
courteous yet self-confident bearing, and the variety of their arms,
formed an interesting spectacle, of which no description I can give
will convey a proper idea. Some wore rich velvets or bright-coloured
broadcloths, cut to the national pattern; others wore the national dress
made of the finest kinds of home material, and a few there were who had
adopted a semi-European style of costume, an ill-judged mixture, which
did not show to advantage amongst the handsomer and more costly native
costumes. Next to the riders, the horses attracted our attention. They
were all uncommonly well mounted. The quality of the horse with most
seemed to be a greater object of solicitude than either that of their
dress or their arms. The favourite weapon was a dagger stuck sideways
in the folds of the waistband; but many wore a sword hung at the side,
and some carried an English rifle or a native matchlock slung over the
shoulder or across the back.

At first starting there was a slight confusion, owing to the eagerness
of all parties to occupy the foremost ranks; but our troop of regular
cavalry, forming a line on each side of our party, kept the crowd from
pressing too closely upon us, whilst the company of infantry, marching
ahead, kept the road clear.

Our path led across a succession of corn-fields and _kárez_ streams, and
passing between the villages of Dih Khojah and Hodera, took us round by
the Bardurrani gate to the north side of the city. We proceeded along
this, past the Hazrat-jí shrine and the city cemetery, and then turning
down the other side, turned off from the Topkhana gate, and crossing the
_pátáo_ canals, entered the road leading from the Herat gate westward to
the garden of Rahmdil Khán. When I was here in 1857-58, with Lumsden’s
mission to the court of the heir-apparent, the late Sardár Ghulám
Hydar Khán, this road was adorned by an avenue of tall poplar-trees. I
now missed them, and inquiring the cause of their disappearance, was
told that they had been, one by one, cut down, and used as fuel by the
townspeople during the troublous times following on the death of Dost
Muhammad.

As we proceeded we found the latter half of the road, this erst avenue,
was lined by a large body of troops, and behind them, in a field to the
left, was drawn up a half battery of artillery. The troops comprised
nearly the whole of the Kandahar garrison, and were paraded in the
following order:—First, a regiment of regular cavalry, of which a troop
was on duty with our party, next three regiments of regular infantry
(two of Kabulis and one of Kandaharis), and lastly, a small body of
Kandahar militia. The men were not as fine a body as I had expected to
see, judging from the company that had escorted us from Peshín. These men
belonged to one of the Kabul regiments, and had evidently been picked
for the duty, for the purpose of making an impression. Their colonel, Táj
Muhammad, Ghilzai, had come down with the Saggid to meet us at the Calát
border, and was evidently proud of his men, and somewhat enthusiastically
used to try and persuade us that all the Kabul army were just as fine, if
not superior fellows.

We now saw the rest of the regiment to which they belonged, for there was
no possibility of mistaking its identity, their uniform of its kind being
unique. Their uniform was a tight jacket and trousers, cut on the old
English pattern, but of a striped material called _ticken_, the same as
is used for making mattress-cases at home. The head-dress was the native
quilted conical cap or _topi_, with a boss of scarlet wool stuck on to
its point. The other Kabuli regiment wore red jackets, and the Kandahari
one a uniform of dingy yellow colour. The militia were the most sensibly
dressed of all, and, encased in their great sheepskin coats, looked the
only comfortable people on the parade.

As we came up to the troops, a startling object pranced his horse to
the front of the line, and gave the word for a general salute, but the
words were not yet out of his mouth, when our horses stood stock-still,
and, pricking their ears, commenced snorting with fear. Our own
persuasive measures, aided by the banging of the guns close beside us,
presently overcame their objections, and they shied and shuffled past
the object of their terror—whom we now discovered to be no other than
our road-companion, Colonel Táj Muhammad—in no very dignified manner.
The Colonel had left us, on approaching the city, to superintend the
arrangements for the parade, and he now completely took us by surprise
by the wonderful change in his dress. A Russian-pattern forage-cap,
with a broad gold band and straight peak, adorned his head, but the
body was covered by a capacious overcoat of chessboard pattern, in great
squares of brightest red, white, and blue. Having passed him, our steeds
recovered their equanimity, which was more than we had, and enabled the
General to acknowledge the honours of “dipped colours” and “God save the
Queen” with becoming grace and dignity.

At the end of the line we ran the gantlet of another apparition similar
to the first, and entered Rahmdil Khán’s garden, where his summer palace
had been prepared for our reception. Sardárs Mír Afzal Khán and Núr
Muhammad Khán conducted us to our quarters, and after partaking of some
tea and sweets that had been provided for our refreshment, took their
leave of us, and we saw no more of them here. The first thing we did on
being left alone was to stop the pendulums of no less than five American
clocks, which, whether they figured or not, most decidedly ticked, and
that too with a vigour and rapidity that gave rise to the surmise that
they were racing to make up for lost time, having been only just wound up
and set agoing for the occasion.




CHAPTER V.


We halted four days at Kandahar to recruit our cattle, and replace the
broken-down ones by new purchases. Our entertainment all this time
was most hospitable, and was really more than we could conveniently
endure. The apartments were luxuriously furnished with Persian carpets,
Herat felts, and Kashmir embroideries. Several coloured glass globes
were suspended from the ceiling, and every niche that was not already
occupied by an American clock—and there were some ten or twelve such—was
ornamented with a glass lamp. The clocks were all of the same pattern,
and brightly gilded all over, and, together with the globes and lamps,
appeared to form part of an investment ventured in this yet barbarous
region by some enterprising merchant with a partiality for “Yankee
notions.”

We had hardly been left alone in our palatial quarters when a succession
of huge trays of all sorts of sweetmeats began to arrive. Each was borne
in by two servants, one supporting each end, and deposited one after
the other on the floor. The array was quite alarming, for I knew they
would go to our servants for disposal, and was certain they would exceed
the bounds of prudence and moderation; a surmise in which I was not far
wrong, for nearly all of them had to undergo a physicking before we set
out on our onward journey. One of the trays in particular attracted our
attention, on account of the variety of zoological forms its surface was
crowded with. We dubbed it “Noah’s Ark,” and kept it till our departure,
partly from a suspicion that the different species of animals might not
all be good for the food of man, and partly as an amusing specimen of
the artistic skill of the confectioners of Kandahar. Much cannot be said
for their proficiency in the art of moulding. Their figures generally
left a good deal for the imagination to supplement before their identity
could be satisfactorily brought home to the mind; but some, with even
the most liberal allowance of fancy, were altogether beyond recognition.
One figure in particular afforded us much amusement from its puzzling
resemblance to several totally distinct animals, and various were the
speculations hazarded as to its real prototype. Looked at on one side, it
was pronounced to be a hare, but this was negatived by the length of its
tail. Then it was suggested that it was meant to represent a wolf; but
this was objected to on account of the square form of the head and face.
“Perhaps it’s a tiger,” observed one of our attendants. “Perhaps it is,”
said Ghulám Ahmad, the General’s Munshí, “or any other animal you like to
call it. The material is the same, and just as good under either name.”
This was a well-directed hint to the servants, some of whom he observed
were inclined to differ in opinion as to the respective qualities of
the different mathematical figures and animal forms which were about to
be divided amongst them. “Yes,” chimed in his assistant, “whether disc
or diamond, sun or star, the sugar of all is alike, and the pistacio
paste equally thick; whether elephant, ox, or horse, the candy is alike
transparent in all, whilst the difference in size is nothing to what it
is between the real animals.”

After these encouraging signs of a peaceable division of the spoils,
we were glad to see the trays removed, for their size and number
incommoded our movements. On their removal, an excellent _zújafát_, or
cooked dinner, was served up Afghan fashion, and with the profusion of
Afghan hospitality. The principal dish, as a matter of course, was the
_puláo_—a whole sheep stuffed with a rich and savoury store of pistacio
and almond kernels, with raisins, dried apricots, and preserved plums,
&c., and concealed under a tumulus of rice mixed with pomegranate
seeds, caraways, cardamums, and other aids to digestion, and reeking
with appetising perfumes. Around it were placed, in crowded confusion,
a most substantial array of comestibles, the variety and excellence of
which were rather puzzling to inquiring foreigners with only limited
powers of digestion. There was the _yakhni_, the _mattanjan_, and the
_corma_, the _kabáb_, the _cuímá_, and the _cúrút_, with the _phirín_,
and _falúda_, and the _nucl_ by way of dessert, together with sherbets of
sorts, sweet preserves and sour preserves, and bread in the forms of the
_nán_, _paráta_, _bákir-khání_, and _tuakí_. Our host, the Saggid, with
an inviting _bismillah_ (“In the name of God,” used as an invitation to
commence any act), stretched forth his hand against the _puláo_, and we
followed suit, but without making the smallest impression on the savoury
heap before us. With this as a secure foundation, we dipped from dish
to dish to make acquaintance with their contents. Each had particular
merits of its own, but as only an Afghan palate can distinguish them, of
course they were not appreciated by us. The Saggid, who had seen a good
deal of the English in India, and was familiar with our mode of living,
was careful to point out the dishes most resembling our own; but alas!
for the prejudice of human nature, I could trace no points of similarity,
and would have preferred a good mutton-chop and some mealy potatoes to
all the rich _chef d’œuvres_ of the Afghan culinary science that loaded
the table. As a nation the Afghans are gross feeders. They eat largely
and consume astonishing quantities of fatty matter. The merit of any
particular dish with them depends more upon the quantity and quality
of the melted butter or fat in which it swims than on the tenderness
or flavour of the flesh, and the more rancid the fatty matter is, the
more highly is it esteemed. This is particularly the case amongst the
peasantry and the nomads, amongst whom it is an ordinary occurrence to
dispose of the tail of a _dumba_ sheep between three or four mouths at
a single meal. The tail of this variety of sheep is a mass of pure fat,
and weighs from six to eighteen pounds. The hardy out-door life they lead
requires that they should have a certain amount of carbonaceous pabulum
in their food; and as by their religion they are debarred from the use
of fermented liquors, the deficiency is very probably supplied by the
abundant use of fat and butter. At all events, they lay great stress on
a liberal supply of _roghan_, or grease, in all their food, and to its
plentiful use, I believe, is to be attributed their physical superiority,
combined, of course, with the influences of climate, which, taken alone,
are not sufficient to account for their large limbs and robust frames.

At length our part of the performance came to a close, and the row of
attendants marching in, carried off the feast to the side-apartments,
where, in the character of hosts, they entertained our domestics. The
Saggid now took leave of us to go to his home in the city, and we put out
most of the lamps and candles, that filled the room with a painful glare,
and increased its already close temperature.

The Afghans have no idea of domestic comfort or refinement according to
the European standard, nor have they any taste in the arrangement of
their houses. The rooms prepared for us, though full of costly and really
fine specimens of native manufacture, were yet singularly deficient in
comfort and tasteful decoration. The Saggid, and his coadjutor here,
General Safdar Ali, had accompanied the Amir Sher Ali Khán on his visit
to India in the spring of 1869, for the conference at Amballa, and they
now attempted to light up our quarters here after the fashion they
had seen in our houses in India. Lamps and candles without stint were
lighted, and set wherever there was room to stand them, without reference
to the amount of light required, or the proper places for exhibiting it.
Consequently, the room, which was entirely unventilated, except through
the doorways opening into side-chambers, speedily became insupportably
hot and stifling, so much so, that we were obliged before we could go to
sleep to open all the doors and let a draught of the cold frosty night
air through the house.

Next morning we rode out with the Saggid and General Safdar Ali to visit
the gold-mine at the foot of the hills to the north of the city. The mine
is situated in a small creek running up north-east into an angle formed
by a spur projecting on to the Kandahar plain from the Baba Walí range.
The hills are of a very hard and compact blue limestone, but the surface
of the creek and the adjoining plain is a coarse gravel, containing
fragments of greenstone, hornblende, quartz, and mica-schist. Coursing
down the centre of the creek is a tortuous little water-course, now dry,
and with only a few wreaths of snow lying under the shade of its rough
conglomerate banks.

The mine is situated half-way up the creek, and on its southern side,
close to the ridge of blue limestone. It is a wide excavation straight
down into the soil, and in a soft easily-worked rock, quite different
from any in the vicinity. The piles of excavated rock heaped up round the
mouth of the pit presented a remarkable variety of colours, amongst which
black, blackish-green, bluish-green, reddish-orange and fawn colour were
the most prominent. I examined several of these stones, and found them
to consist of particles of greensand, hornblende, felspar, quartz, and
mica, bound together in a gritty ferruginous clay. The formation appears
to be one of decomposed sienite, and is sufficiently compact to require
blasting in the excavation.

We descended into the great irregular pit by a steep path in its side,
and saw the miners at work. The process is very rough, and simply this:
A vein of quartz, from three or four inches to only half an inch or less
thick, is exposed in the rock, either by the use of the pickaxe or by
the aid of gunpowder. The workmen then examine the vein with the naked
eye, and if any particles of gold are detected, they are removed, with
the surrounding portion of matrix, by means of a chisel and hammer. The
gold-dust thus removed is collected by each workman separately in small
baskets, and taken to the city, where it is treated for the separation of
the precious metal, as will be described presently.

An immense number of quartz veins traverse the rock in all directions,
and in several of them we saw the compressed flakes of gold _in situ_. In
two or three instances the metal was in thick lumpy masses, nearly the
size of an almond. The pit is about one hundred and twenty feet long,
by thirty or forty wide, and about eighty feet deep in the centre. Its
sides are sloping and irregular, owing to the tracing up of veins for a
short distance in different directions. There must be an immense amount
of waste in this rough process, and no doubt the heaps of excavated rock
lying about the mouth of the pit would yield to the experienced miner a
very profitable return.

The mine was discovered in 1860 in the following manner. A shepherd
boy, tending his flock at graze on the creek, picked up a bit of quartz
studded with granules of gold. He took it home to his father, who carried
it to a Hindu to see if he could get anything for it. The Hindu, true to
the instincts of his race, in whom the love of gold is an innate quality,
at once recognised the value of the discovery, and gradually, after his
own fashion, got out of the lad’s father the exact spot on which the
specimen was discovered. His next step was to apprise the Governor,
and the site was at once explored. At a few feet below the superficial
gravel, the ferruginous formation of disintegrated quartz and sienite
above described was exposed, and in the veins on its surface gold was
discovered. The site was at once claimed as crown property, and work was
forthwith commenced by Government.

The mine has now been worked nearly twelve years, but with several
intermissions. For the first two or three years it is said to have
yielded very abundantly. It is now farmed by a contractor, at an annual
rental of five thousand rupees, or five hundred pounds. The yearly cost
of working it is set down at another five hundred pounds, but this is
palpably a gross exaggeration. The profits, it is pretended, hardly cover
rent and working charges, though the reverse is pretty generally believed
to be the fact, notwithstanding the contractor’s solemn protestations
to the contrary, and his bold appeals to God, his prophet, and all the
saints as witnesses to the truth of his assertions. There is little
doubt that the mine, worked as it is now even, is a really profitable
speculation; but in a country such as this, where life and property are
proverbially insecure, it would be most unsafe to admit the truth,
for to do so would assuredly provoke the cupidity of the ruler, whose
despotic will brooks no hindrance in the accomplishment of his desire, be
it just or unjust. Hence it is that all classes below the nobility, and
not a few even among that favoured class, as a precautionary safeguard,
assume an appearance of poverty, and by common consent profane their most
sacred characters for the support of a falsehood which is apparent to all.

Under the difficulties of such a position it is impossible for the
stranger to arrive at an approximation to the truth. But that the
mine does pay under the disadvantageous conditions mentioned, is best
evidenced by the fact of its continued operation. We had no opportunities
during our short stay here of ascertaining the extent of the auriferous
formation, disclosed by the excavation of the mine. But as the surface
gravel of the plain north of the city is of the same character as that
on the creek in which the mine is situated, it may be reasonable to
suppose that the gold-yielding stratum extends for some distance under
the alluvium of the plain. If this be so, Kandahar is destined to prove a
valuable acquisition to its future possessors. Under European exploration
and skilled working, it would assuredly produce an hundred-fold of what
it has hitherto done. For in the creek itself only one pit has been dug
at the actual spot on which the metal was first discovered. All the rest
of the surface is yet untouched, and under the existing government of the
country it is destined to remain so.

On leaving the mine we passed through the Baba Walí ridge to the shrine
of the same name, dedicated to the patron saint of Kandahar, for a view
of the Argandáb valley, the most populous and fertile district of the
whole province. From its source in the hills north-west of Ghazni, to
its junction with the Tarnak at Doúb, it has thirty-one villages on the
right bank, and thirty-four on the left. They are mostly occupied by
Popalzai and Alikozai Durranis. Though now seen in the depth of winter,
the valley has a remarkably prosperous and fertile look. We returned
through the Baba Walí range by a recently-made carriage-road blasted
through the rock, in the track of an old pass a little to the west of the
one we entered by. On return to our quarters, we found the miners ready
with their implements and a small stock of quartz to show us the process
by which they extracted the gold. The process appeared very simple and
efficacious. The bits of quartz, ascertained by the eyesight to contain
particles of gold, are first coarsely pounded between stones, and then
reduced to powder in an ordinary hand-mill. The powder is next placed
on a reed winnowing tray, and shaken so as to separate the particles of
gold and finer dust from the grit. From the latter the larger bits of
gold are picked out and thrown into a crucible, and melted with the aid
of a few grains of _borax flua_. When melted it is poured into an iron
trough, previously greased, or rather smeared, with oil, and at once
cools into an ingot of bright gold. The fine dust left on the winnow is
thrown into an earthen jar furnished with a wide mouth. The jar is then
half filled with water and shaken about a little while. The whole is
then stirred with the hand and the turbid water poured off. This process
is repeated four or five times, till the water ceases to become turbid.
A small quantity of quicksilver is next added to the residue of sand,
some fresh water is poured on, and the whole stirred with the hand. The
water and particles of sand suspended in it are then poured off, and
the quicksilver amalgam left at the bottom of the vessel is removed to
a strong piece of cloth, and twisted tightly till the quicksilver is
expressed as much as it thus can be. The mass of gold alloy is then put
into a crucible with a few grains of borax, and melted over a charcoal
fire. The molten mass is finally poured into the iron trough mentioned,
and at once solidifies into a small bar of bright gold. Such was the
process gone through in our presence. Even in this there was a good
deal of waste, owing to the rejection of the coarser grit. With proper
crushing machinery there is no doubt the yield would be considerably
increased.

This afternoon we received a post _viâ_ Khozdár and Calát, with dates
from Jacobabad up to the 18th January. The courier described the route
as almost closed by snow in Shál and Peshín, where, it seems, more snow
has fallen since our passage over the Khojak. Whilst reading our papers,
General Safdar Ali was announced. He brought a _nazar_, or present, on
the part of the Amir for General Pollock, as the representative of the
British Government. It consisted of fifteen silk bags ranged on a tray,
and each bag contained one thousand Kandahari rupees, the value of which
is about a shilling each.

A north-west wind has prevailed nearly all day, and the air is keen and
frosty. During the night boisterous gusts of wind disturbed our slumbers
and threatened to overturn some of the tall trees in our garden. In the
forenoon we visited the ruins of Shahri Kuhna or Husen Shahr, the “old
city,” or “city of Husen.” The latter name it derives from the last of
its sovereigns, Mír Husen, Ghilzai, the second son of the celebrated Mír
Wais, and brother of Mír Mahmúd, the invader of Persia, and the destroyer
of the Saffair dynasty by the wanton massacre in cold blood of nearly one
hundred members of the royal family.

The city was taken and destroyed by Nadír Sháh in 1738, after a long
siege, during which the Afghan defenders displayed such conspicuous
bravery that Nadír largely recruited his army from amongst them, and
advanced on his victorious career towards India.

On our way to the ruins we visited the shrine of Sultán Wais, and
examined the great porphyry bowl supposed to be the begging-pot of Fo
or Budh. It is a circular bowl four feet wide, and two feet deep in
the centre (inside measurement), and the sides are four inches thick.
When struck with the knuckle, the stone, which is a hard compact black
porphyry, gives out a clear metallic ring. The interior still bears
very distinct marks of the chisel, and on one side under the rim bears
a Persian inscription in two lines of very indistinct letters, amongst
which the words _Shahryár_ (or Prince) _Jaláluddín_ are recognisable, as
also the word _táríbh_ or “date.” The exterior is covered with Arabic
letters in four lines, below which is an ornamental border, from which
grooves converge to a central point at the bottom of the bowl. Many of
the words in the inscription were recognised as Persian, but we had not
time to decipher it General Pollock had an accurate transcript of the
whole prepared by a scribe in the city, and forwarded it, I believe, to
Sir John Kaye.

The keeper of the shrine could tell us nothing about the history of this
curious relic, except that it, and a smaller one with handles on each
side, which was carried away by the British in 1840, had been brought
here by Hazrat Ali, but from where nobody knows. Possibly it may have
come from Peshín, which in documents is still written Foshanj and Foshín.

The bowl now rests against the trunk of an old mulberry-tree in a corner
of the enclosure of the tomb of Sultán Wais. The trunk of the tree is
studded all over with hundreds of iron nails and wooden pegs, like the
trees described on the march to Hykalzai. About the enclosure were lying
a number of great balls, chiselled out of solid blocks of limestone. The
largest were about fourteen inches in diameter, and the smaller ones five
or six inches only. They were, our attendants informed us, some of the
balls used in ancient sieges of the adjoining city in the time of the
Arabs. They were propelled by a machine called _manjaníc_ in Arabic—a
sort of ballista or catapult.

From the ruins of the old city we went on to those of Nadírabad, now
surrounded by marshes caused by the overflow of irrigation canals, and
returned to our quarters by the southern side of the present city, or
Ahmad Shahí. The fortifications have been recently repaired and fresh
plastered, and have been strengthened by the construction of a series of
redoubts, called _Kása burj_.

_12th February._—We visited the city this afternoon with the Saggid and
General Safdar Ali. We entered at the Herat gate, and at the Chársú
turned to the left up the Shahí bazaar, and crossing the parade-ground,
where we received a salute of fifteen guns, passed into the _Arg_ or
“citadel,” which was our prison-house for thirteen months when I was here
in 1857-58 with Lumsden’s mission. I say prison-house, because we could
never move outside it but once a day for exercise, and then accompanied
by a strong guard, as is described in my “Journal of a Mission to
Afghanistan in 1857-58.” From the citadel we went to see the tomb of
Ahmad Sháh, Durrani, the founder of the city, and thence passing out at
the Topkhana gate, returned to our quarters in the garden of the late
Sardár Rahmdil Khán.

The main bazaars had evidently been put in order for our visit. The
streets had been swept, and the shops stocked with a very varied
assortment of merchandise and domestic wares, which were now displayed to
the best advantage. The sides of the main thoroughfare were lined with a
picturesque crowd of citizens and foreigners, brought here by their trade
callings. The demeanour of the crowd was quiet and orderly, and their
looks were expressive of good-will; which is more than could be said of
any similar crowd in the bazaars of Peshawar, as was very justly remarked
at the time by General Pollock. As we passed along, I now and again
caught a finger pointing at me with “_Haghah dai_” (“That’s him”); and in
the Chársú, where we had to pick our way through a closely packed crowd,
I was greeted with more than one nod of recognition, and the familiar
“_Jorhasted?_” (“Are you well?”) “_Khúsh ámadíd_” (“You are welcome”), &c.

The citadel, which is now occupied by Sardár Mír Afzal Khán, Governor of
Farráh, and his family, is in a very decayed and neglected state, and the
court of the public audience hall is disgracefully filthy. The court and
quarters formerly occupied by the mission of 1857 are now tenanted by
General Safdar Ali, the Amir’s military governor of the city.

From the citadel we passed through the artillery lines, a wretched
collection of half-ruined and tumbledown hovels, choked with dung-heaps,
horse litter, and filth of every description, and turned off to the
Ahmad Shahí mausoleum. The approach to it is over an uneven bit of
ground, which is one mass of ordure, the stench from which was perfectly
dreadful. It quite sickened us, and kept us spitting till we got out
into the open country again. The tomb, like everything else here,
appears neglected and fast going to decay. The stone platform on which
it stands is broken at the edges, and the steps leading up to it,
though only three or four, are suffered to crumble under the feet of
visitors without an attempt at repair. The dome has a very dilapidated
look from the falling off here and there of the coloured tiles that
cover it, whilst those that are still left make the disfigurement the
more prominent by their bright glaze. Where uncovered, the mortar is
honeycombed by the nests of a colony of blue pigeons, which have here
found a safe asylum even from their natural enemies of the hawk species.
The interior is occupied by a central tomb, under which repose, in
the odour of sanctity—though those surrounding it are anything but
sanctified—the ashes of the first and greatest of the Durrani kings. Near
it are some smaller tombs, the graves of various members of the king’s
family. The cupola is very tastefully decorated by a fine Arabesque
gilding, in which run all round the sides—the dome being supported on an
octagonal building—a series of quotations from the Curán. These, in the
light admitted through the fine reticulations of the lattice windows,
appeared remarkable fresh and bright, though untouched since their first
production a century ago. We doffed our hats as we entered the sacred
precincts, as our attendants took off their shoes at the threshold,
excepting only the Saggid and General Safdar Ali and Colonel Táj
Muhammad, who were much too tightly strapped in their odd compounds of
Asiatic and European military uniforms to attempt any such disarrangement
of their evidently unaccustomed habiliments. The _mujawwir_, or keeper of
the shrine—for amongst this saint-loving people the tenant of so grand
a tomb could hardly escape being converted into so holy a character—was
quite pleased at this mark of respect on our part, and made himself
very agreeable by his welcome and readiness to afford information. “I
know,” said he, with a hasty and timid glance at the shodden feet of our
companions, “that this is the manner in which Europeans testify their
reverence for holy places. The officers who visited this tomb when the
British army was here observed the same custom, and always uncovered the
head on entering beneath this roof. It is quite correct. Every nation
has its own customs; you uncover the head, and we uncover the feet. In
either case, respect for the departed great is the object, and by either
observance it is manifested. It is all right.” The old man told us he
was seventy-two years old, and had not been beyond the precincts of the
tomb for the last thirty years. It was his world. He had not been as far
as the bazaars in all this time, nor had he seen the cantonments built
by the British outside the city. This sounds incredible, but I don’t
think it improbable, for I know of three or four instances amongst the
Yusufzais of the Peshawar valley, in which old men have assured me that
in their whole lives they had never moved beyond the limits of their own
villages, not even so far as to visit the next village, hardly three
miles distant. How the old _mujawwir_ managed to exist so long—for one
can hardly say live with propriety—in this vile stinking corner of
this filthy city, is not to be understood except on the explanation of
habit becoming second nature. Both the confinement and the atmosphere
had however left their mark upon him, and had blanched his gaunt sickly
visage as white as the beard that graced his tall lank figure.

From the mausoleum we passed through a quarter of the city which had
evidently not been prepared for our visit. The narrow lanes were filthy
in the extreme, the shops were very poorly stocked, and altogether the
place looked oppressed, as indeed it is, by the unpaid, ill-clad, and
hungry soldiery we found lounging about its alleys. We were glad to pass
out of the Topkhana gate, and once more breathe the fresh air of the open
country.

From what we saw on this occasion, and from what we heard during our
short stay here, there is no doubt that the condition of Kandahar, as
regards population and prosperity, is even worse than it was when I
was residing here fourteen years ago. The oppression of its successive
governors, the frequent military operations in this direction, and the
location of a strong body of troops in the city during the last ten or
twelve years, has almost completely ruined the place, and has reduced the
citizens to a state of poverty bordering on despair.

The discontent of the people is universal, and many a secret prayer
is offered up for the speedy return of the British, and many a sigh
expresses the regret that they ever left the country. Our just rule and
humanity, our care of the friendless sick, our charitable treatment
of the poor, and the wealth we scattered amongst the people, are now
remembered with gratitude, and eager is the hope of our return. This
is not an exaggerated picture, and speaks well for the philanthropic
character of the short-lived British rule in this province, when
we consider that our occupation of the country was but a military
aggression. But even if they had never had a practical experience
of British rule, the desire of the Kandaharis for the return of our
authority and extension of the British government to their province,
is explained by the glowing accounts they receive from their returning
merchants of the prosperity, happiness, and liberty that reign in India,
whilst they render them more impatient of the tyranny under which they
are forced to groan.

Hundreds of families, it is said, have left the city during the last ten
years, to seek their fortune under more favourable rulers. The city is
said to contain five thousand houses, but fully a third part of it is
either deserted or in ruins, and the population does not exceed eighteen
thousand, if it even reaches that number. Indeed it is astonishing how
the city holds out so long under the anomalous circumstances of its
government and the ill-restrained license of an unpaid soldiery.

I was told by a non-commissioned officer of the Corps of Guides, who was
now spending his furlough here amongst his relations, and whom I formerly
knew when I was with that regiment, that the condition of the people
was deplorable. Hearing of our approach, he came out to meet us at Mund
Hissár, and attended daily at our quarters during our stay here. From him
I learned that numbers of the citizens were anxious to see the General,
and represent their grievances to him; and that hundreds, remembering
the charitable dispensary I had opened here during my former visit, were
daily endeavouring to gain admittance to our quarters for medicine and
advice regarding their several ailments and afflictions, but that both
classes were prohibited by the sentries posted round us with strict
orders to prevent the people from holding any communication with us, lest
we should hear their complaints, and what they had to say against our
hosts.

The city is now governed by three sets of rulers, each independent of the
other, but all answerable to the Amir. Thus General Safdar Ali is the
military governor. His troops are six months in arrears of pay, and make
up the deficiency by plundering the citizens. His nephew (sister’s son),
Sultán Muhammad, is the civil governor. He has to pacify the townspeople
under their troubles, and to screw from them the city dues or taxes. Then
there is Núr Ali, the son of Sardár Sher Ali Khán, the late governor,
who is himself just now at Kabul rendering an account of his recent
charge. He is a luxurious youth, clad in rich velvets and cloth of gold,
and on behalf of his father collects the revenues outside the city.
The consequence of this triangular arrangement is that the people are
effectually crushed and bewildered. They know not who are their rulers,
and in vain seek redress from one to the other, only to find themselves
fleeced by each in turn. As my informant pathetically remarked, “There is
no pleasure in life here. The bazaar you saw to-day is not the everyday
bazaar. There is no trade in the place. How should there be any? The
people have no money. It has all been taken from them, and where it goes
to nobody knows. There is no life (or spirits) left in the people. They
are resigned to their fate, till God answers their prayers, and sends
them a new set of rulers.”

Truly their condition is such as to call for pity. I observed, in our
progress through the city, that the people had a sickly appearance
compared with the generality of Afghans, and wore a subdued timid look,
altogether at variance with the national character. They are, as we heard
from more than one source, only waiting a change of masters. In their
present temper, anybody would be welcomed by the Kandaharis, even a
fresh set of their own rulers would afford them a temporary relief; but
a foreigner, whether British, Persian, or Russian, they would hail with
delight, and their city would fall to the invader without even much show
of resistance, for the garrison could look for no support from the people
they had so hardly oppressed.

The Government of Kandahar, besides the city and suburbs, includes
about two hundred villages. Altogether they yield an annual revenue of
about twenty-two laks of rupees to the Amir’s treasury. Of this total,
about nine laks are derived from the city dues and taxes. Almost the
whole of this sum is expended on the civil and military establishments
of the government, so that very little finds its way to the imperial
treasury. The revenue is not all collected in cash; on the contrary, a
considerable proportion is taken in kind, such as corn, cattle, sheep,
and so forth; and the collection of much of this last is avoided, as far
as government is concerned, by the issue of bonds, or _barát_, on the
peasantry and landholders, to the extent of their dues of revenue. These
bonds are distributed amongst the civil and military officials in lieu
of wages. They exact their full dues, and extort as much more as their
official influence and the submission of the peasantry enable them to
do. The system is one of the worst that can be imagined, leads to untold
oppression, and is utterly destructive of the peace and prosperity of the
country.

During the last two days a number of workmen have been employed in
erecting palisades along the sides of the tank in front of our quarters,
and along the cypress avenues on each side of it, preparatory to a
grand illumination and display of fireworks, fixed for this evening, in
honour of the General’s arrival here. At seven o’clock, darkness having
set in, the performance of the evening commenced. Thousands of little
lamps, which had been fixed with dabs of mud at short intervals along
the cross poles of the palisading, were lighted, and produced a very
pretty effect. Innumerable tapering flames reflected their long trembling
shadows across the placid surface of the tank, and lighted the long rows
of avenue on either side with a glare of brilliancy, highly intensified
by the impenetrable gloom of the close-set sombre foliage above, and
the darkness of the night-enshrouded vista of the garden beyond. We had
not sufficiently feasted our eyes on this attractive scene, when its
brilliancy was thrown into the shade by the noisy eruption of a whole
series of “volcanoes,” the contents of which shot out in a rushing
jet of yellow scintillating flakes, and finished up with a loud bang,
that sometimes exploded, and always overturned the volcano. Flights of
rockets, roman candles, wheels, &c., followed, whilst crackers thrown
into the tank scud about its surface with an angry hissing, presently
plunging into its depths, and anon rising with a suffocating gurgle
jarring ungratefully on the ears, and finally expiring in the throes
of a death-struggle. There were besides some elephants, horses, and
other nondescript animals, that were fixed in the foremost places, as
master-pieces of the pyrotechnist’s art, but the less said of them the
better. They emitted jets of fire and volumes of smoke from the wrong
places at the wrong moments, so that, when moved to combat against each
other, their clumsy shells revealed, as they rocked from side to side
in their efforts to fall, the bare limbs of the human machinery that
struggled to support them in their proper positions against the shocks
of the exploding combustibles embedded in their flanks and extremities.
Altogether the display, though a grand effort, and perhaps a feat on the
part of the pyrotechnists of Kandahar, was inferior to what one sees in
India, and in any European capital would be hissed at as a downright
failure. The purpose, however, was noways affected by the performance,
and the honour was fully appreciated as a mark of good-will and respect
for the Government it was our privilege to represent.

The next day was devoted to the final arrangements for our departure on
the morrow. Fresh cattle had been purchased for our camp and baggage,
some new servants had been entertained, and it was necessary now to see
that all were properly equipped and provided for their journey. During
the afternoon we had a long interview with some Hindu bankers of the
city, from whom we took a small advance in exchange for notes of hand
upon the Government treasury at Shikárpúr. They had correspondents at
Herat, Kabul, Shikárpúr, and Amritsar, but not at Mashhad, Balkh, or
Bukhára. They confirmed what we had heard from other sources regarding
the oppressed state of the city, and the systematic plundering of the
citizens that daily goes on, but said that their own community—the Hindu
traders—were not interfered with. They assured us that the rich furniture
of our apartments was mostly the confiscated property of Sardár Muhammad
Sharíf Khán, the Amir’s rebel brother, who has just been deported to
India as a state prisoner. With the timidity and suspicion common to
their class here, they spoke in low tones and with uneasy furtive glances
around; and presently, when the Saggid came in for his usual afternoon
cup of tea, they were evidently discomposed, and quickly retired on the
first symptoms of acquiescence in their departure. The Saggid brought us
some fine nosegays of blue violets, the familiar scent of which quite
perfumed the room. He found me busily penning notes, and jocularly
remarked, “I know you people always write down everything you see and
hear, and afterwards publish it to the world. Now pray, Doctor Sáhib,
what have you been writing about me?” This was an unexpectedly home
question; but following in his own merry mood, I evaded a direct reply
by the remark that his observation was quite correct; that as a nation
we were given to writing, and that with some of us the habit exceeded
the bounds of moderation and utility, and was then called a _cacoethes
scribendi_. “Very likely, very likely,” interposed the Saggid; “no doubt
you people write a great deal more than is of any earthly use, but the
habit is not without its merits. Now you will have doubtless written
down all about the country you have come through, and will know it
better than its own inhabitants,” I here observed that, with the most
careful and leisurely inquiries, we could hardly expect to attain to such
perfection. “Nay, but you do,” said the Saggid; “you go riding along and
come to a village. To the first man you meet in it you say, ‘What’s the
name of this village?’ He tells you, and then you say, ‘What do you call
that hill?’ and he gives you its name. Out comes your note-book, and down
go the names, and by and by all the world knows that there is such a hill
near such a village, a fact nobody else in the country is aware of except
the inhabitants of the actual locality.”

The Saggid was as much amused by this telling _argumentum ad hominem_ as
we were, and added, “Now, by way of illustration, I will tell you what
occurred to me many years ago, when, as a young man, I went to Bangalore
with a batch of horses for sale. An English officer who spoke Persian
asked me one day about my country, and when I told him the name of my
village, he turned it up in his map, and said, ‘Yes, I see. There is a
place near it called Ganda China.’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘there is no such place
near it, nor even in the country.’ ‘There must be,’ maintained he. Well,
considering I knew my own country best, I thought it useless arguing
the point, so remained silent, allowing him to have his own way. When I
returned home and recounted my adventures in the Deccan, amongst others
I mentioned this circumstance, with no very flattering allusion to the
English officer’s obstinacy. ‘You are wrong, Sháh Sáhib’ (the respectful
title by which Saggids are addressed), said two or three voices. ‘Ganda
China is the briny bog at the further end of the hollow behind our hill.’
‘Well,’ said I, ‘I never knew that before.’ So the English officer, you
see, knew what I did not of my native place.”

In the following conversation the Saggid, to his credit be it recorded,
spoke most sensibly, and with a freedom from prejudice for which we
were not prepared. He lamented the ignorance of his own people, and the
jealousy they evinced of our learning anything about their country:
“As if,” said he, “you could not send any number of Afghans into it,
instructed to bring you whatever information you required regarding it.”
He very truly observed that we knew more of the history and topography of
his country than the most learned native in it could ever hope to do in
their present state of benighted ignorance. As an instance, he mentioned
a discussion at which he was present at the Amir’s court shortly before
he set out from Kabul to meet us, in which not a single member present
could tell the exact locality of Chinaran, of which they knew nothing
more than that it was an important fort on the Persian frontier in the
time of Sháh Ahmad, but in what part of the frontier nobody could tell.

_14th February._—At noon we set out from Rahmdil Khán’s garden, under
a salute of fifteen guns from the artillery, drawn up for the purpose
outside the gate. Our route led over fields of young corn, burnt yellow
by the recent hard frosts, and across a succession of irrigation streams
to the village of Chihldukhtarán, beyond which we came to the Chihlzina.
We alighted here, and ascended the rock for the sake of the view, which,
the weather being fine and clear, was very distinct and extensive over
the plain to the eastward and northwestward. In the former direction, the
furthest point seen was the snow-topped peak of Súrghar, on the further
side of which we were told lies the Abistada lake. To the north-west is
the great snowy range of Sháh Macsúd, closing the prospect by a lofty
ridge running from north-east to south-west. Beyond it lies the Derawat
valley.

On descending we took leave of General Safdar Ali, who returned to
Kandahar with a troop of regular cavalry, and proceeded in company with
the Saggid and Colonel Táj Muhammad, escorted by a company of regular
infantry, and a party of two hundred and fifty irregular horse, fine
active fellows, very well mounted, and generally well armed. At a short
distance we passed between the villages of Mír Bazár on the left and
Gundigán on the right. This last is built on a couple of artificial
mounds, and is noteworthy as being the only Shia village of Parsiwans
in the whole province. Beyond these the road skirts a ridge of rocky
hills to the left, and has the village of Murghán some way off to the
right, where flows the river Argandáb. Further on we came to an extensive
roadside graveyard, in which the tomb of the celebrated Mír Wais,
Ghilzai, forms the most prominent object, as much from the height of its
cupola above the more humble tombs around, as from the state of its decay
and neglect. Passing these and the adjoining Kohkarán village, we camped
a mile beyond on an open gravelly patch between the Kohkarán hill and the
river bank, having marched seven miles from Kandahar.

On approaching Kohkarán, the lord of the manor, Sardár Núr Muhammad Khán,
came out to meet us, and invited us to his fort for refreshment; but
as it stood a little way out of our road, we politely declined, and he
accompanied our party into camp, where his servants presently arrived
with trays of food of sorts, and amongst the dishes a huge bowl of the
national _cúrút_, which is, I believe, a close relation to the _sour
kraut_ of the Germans. Sardár Núr Muhammad Khán is a son of the late
Tymúr Culi Khán, own brother of the late Wazír Fath Khán, Bárakzai.
He is reputed as being one of the wealthiest of the Afghan nobles, and
has always adhered loyally to the cause of the present Amir during the
long period of his trials and adversities. During the siege of Herat
by the late Amir Dost Muhammad Khán, he was imprisoned and tortured by
Shahnawáz Khán (who continued the defence after the death of his father,
Sultán Ahmad Khán), on the suspicion of being a secret partisan of the
Dost’s. He now told me that he was at the time in command of the Herat
garrison, and that God alone preserved his life. On the fall of Herat in
May 1863, Shahnawáz fled to the Persians, and became their pensioner at
Tahrán. His brother, Sikandar Khán, fled to Turkistan, and took service
with the Russians, by whom he was treated with distinction, and sent to
St. Petersburg. Another brother, Abdullah Khán, fell into the Amir’s
hands, and being a youth of some parts, was sent to reside at Kabul under
surveillance.

Sardár Núr Muhammad Khán had accompanied the Amir Sher Ali in all his
wanderings, and shared his misfortunes. He spoke in the gloomiest words
of the future prospects of his country, and seemed glad to retire
from the troubles of public life to the solitude and quiet of his
country-seat. He had been here about twenty months, and seldom went
beyond his own domain. He came out to meet us with Sardár Mír Afzul
Khán’s _isticbál_ from Kandahar, but except on such occasions he seldom
even goes to the city.

He is a fine, blunt, and honest Afghan, with prepossessing looks and very
hospitable manners. His time is mostly spent in improving his castle, to
which he has just added an extensive range of stables for the hundred
horses his stud consists of. He is said to possess some of the best
Arab, Baloch, and Turkman horses in the country. He was mounted on a
beautiful Arab himself, and by his side rode an attendant mounted on a
great Turkman of wonderful strength and fleetness, as he proved to us by
putting the animal to its full speed across the plain.

He told us that this winter was the severest season known to have
occurred during the past twenty years, and, as an instance of its
severity, assured us that the black partridges in his vineyards had all
been killed by the cold, numbers having been found lying dead upon the
snow.

From our camp we have a full view of the Argandáb valley, and the crowd
of villages and gardens along the course of its river. Numerous canals
are drawn off from its stream for purposes of irrigation, and for the
water supply of Kandahar. To the northward the valley extends in a wide
upland pasture tract to the foot of the ridge of hills separating it from
the adjoining Khákrez valley. The hills have a very barren look, and are
crossed by several passes practicable to footmen only.

From Kohkarán we marched eighteen miles, and camped on the roadside
between Hanz Maddad Khán and Sang Hissár. At a short distance from camp
we crossed a deep irrigation canal, and at once descended a steep clay
bank into the bed of the Argandáb river. The channel here is very wide
and boulder-strewed, and the river flows through its centre, and there
are besides two little streams, one under each bank. The current is
strong and stirrup-deep. We found hundreds of wild-fowl and coolan along
the pools bordering the river; and I went off with Colonel Táj Muhammad
and shot a few teal and purse-necks. The coolan were much too vigilant to
allow us to get within range. During the hot-weather rains, this river
swells into a raging torrent, and is quite impassable for three or four
days together. The farther bank of the river is low, and lined by an
irrigation canal similar to that on the other bank.

Beyond the river, the road passes through a wide extent of corn-fields
and villages, known collectively as Sanzari, and bounding them to the
southward is a ridge of hills called Takhti Sanzari, on which we could
trace indistinctly the remains of ancient ruins.

We cleared the Sanzari lands at a roadside _ziárat_, over the door of
which were fixed some iben and márkhor horns; and leaving the Ashogha
canal and village to the left, entered on a vast treeless waste, that
gently slopes up to the Khákrez range towards the north. We followed a
well-trodden path over the gravelly plain in a south-west direction, and
leaving the Sufed Rawán villages and cultivation along the river bank to
our left, camped a little beyond the Hanz Maddad, and close to a ruined
mound called Sang Hissár.

The _hanz_, or reservoir, named after its builder, Maddad Khán, of whom
nobody could tell us anything, is now, like everything else in this
country, fast going to ruin. It has long been dry, and the projecting
wings from the central dome, which were meant as a shelter for the
wayfarer, are now choked with the débris of the crumbling walls and heaps
of drift sand. At the _hanz_ the road branches—one track goes due west
across the plain to Kishkinákhud and Girishk, and the other south-west to
Garmsel by the route of Calá Búst.

Westward of this point the country assumes an aspect altogether different
from that we have hitherto traversed. It presents a vast expanse of
undulating desert plain, upon which abut the terminal offsets from the
great mountain ranges to the northward and eastward. The weather being
fine and the atmosphere singularly clear, we were enabled to get a very
extensive view of the general aspect and configuration of the country.

To the west were the terminal spurs of the Khákrez range, ending on
the plain, and concealing from view the valley of that name, and on
which we looked back as we advanced on our route. To the west and south
respectively, the horizon was cut by an arid waste and sandy desert.
Close at hand to the east, between the junction of the Argandáb with the
Tarnak, is the termination of the Baba Walí range. To its north lies
the valley of the Argandáb, running up north-east as far as the eye can
reach in a continual succession of villages, gardens, and corn-fields,
a picture of prosperity strikingly in contrast with the arid and bare
aspect of the country to the south of the range. In this latter direction
the parallel ranges of Arghasán, Barghana, and Kadani, coursing the wide
plateau from north-east to south-west, all terminate in low ridges that
abut upon the Dorí river opposite to the sand-cliffs of the great desert
that separates Kandahar and Sistan from the mountain region of Makrán.

The angle of junction of the Argandáb and Tarnak is called Doaba. To
the south of the Takhti Sanzari it is continuous with the Panjwaí
district on the banks of the Tarnak. It is very populous, and is covered
with villages and gardens, celebrated for the excellence of their
pomegranates. From Panjwaí there is a direct route across the desert
to Hazárjuft. The distance is said to be only eighty miles. The desert
skirt from this point, along the course of the Dorí right down to the
end of the Lora river on the plain of Shorawak and Núshkí, is said to
afford excellent winter pasturage for camels and sheep. This skirt
forms a tract some fifteen or twenty miles wide on the border of the
actual sandy desert, and is at this season occupied by the camps of
the nomad Achakzai, Núrzai, and Bárech Afghans. It produces lucerne,
clover, carrot, and other wild herbs in profusion during the spring.
Our next stage was twenty-two miles, to the river bank near the hamlet
called, from its adjacent spring, Chashma. It is included in the lands of
Kishkinákhud. Our route was by a well-beaten path on the gravelly plain
at about two miles from the river, towards which it slightly inclined as
we proceeded westward.

To the left of our course, along a narrow strip on the river bank, are
the collection of villages and gardens known as Bágh Marez and Sháhmír.
Amongst them, conspicuous for its neatness and strength, is the little
fort of Khúshdil Khán, son of the late Sardár Mihrdil Khán, and elder
brother of Sardár Sher Ali Khán, the recent governor of Kandahar. He has
always held aloof from politics, and spends his life in the seclusion of
his country retreat. On the farther side of the river the land rises at
once into a high coast, formed by round bluffs that stretch away towards
the desert in a tossed and billowy surface of loose sand.

To the right of our route lay the Kishkinákhud plain. It supports a very
scattered and thin growth of pasture herbs, amongst which we noticed some
stunted bushes of the camel-thorn and sensitive mimosa. As we advanced we
came abreast of the Khákrez valley away to the north across the plain.
It has a dreary and desert look, and appeared uninhabited. It has no
perennial stream, but is drained by a central ravine which crosses the
plain as a wide and shallow water-run, called Khákrez Shela. We crossed
it dryshod a little way short of camp.

Beyond Khákrez is the Sháh Macsúd range of hills, now covered with snow.
The hills are said to be well stocked with large trees, and amongst them
the wild or bitter almond. We were assured that the Popalzais, who hold
this country, had of late years taken to grafting the wild trees as they
grew on the hillsides with the sweet and cultivated almond, and with
complete success.

At the foot of a dark spur branching off southward from the main range
was pointed out the site of the ruins of Mywand. They are described as
very extensive; and in the time of Mahmúd of Ghazni, the city was the
seat of the government of his wazír, Mír Hassan. At the head of the
valley, to its north, are the sulphur hot springs of Garmába, resorted to
by the natives of the vicinity as a remedy for rheumatism and diseases of
the skin.

During the latter part of the march we passed a couple of roadside
hamlets occupied by Hotab Ghilzais, and watered by _kárez_ streams. There
was very little cultivation about, and the villagers appeared a very poor
and miserable set.

The weather is fine and clear, and the air delightfully fresh and mild.
We are now fairly clear of the hills, and are entered upon the great
basin of the Kandahar drainage.

_17th February._—We set out from Chashma at eight A.M., and marched
twenty-three miles to Baldakhán by a good gravelly path following the
course of the river at about a mile from its right bank. At about the
third mile we passed the hamlet of Mulla Azím, occupied by Mandínzai
Isháczais, who are _astánadár_ of the Saraban Afghans (that is to say,
descendants of an Afghan saint of the Saraban division of the nation),
and consequently hold their lands rent free, and enjoy other privileges
and immunities accorded to members of the priest class. Beyond this we
entered on the Bandi Tymúr, a long strip of villages and cultivation
extending for twelve miles or so along the right bank of the river,
which here flows over a wide pebbly channel interspersed with patches
of dwarf tamarisk jangal. The soil is everywhere gravelly and charged
with salines, which here and there form extensive encrustations on the
surface. Several _kárez_ streams, brought from the undulating tract of
Kháki Chanpán to the north, cross the road at intervals, and a succession
of irrigation canals led off from the river intersect the country on
either side. The tract derives its name from an ancient _band_ or weir
thrown across the river in the time of Tymúr. We did not see any signs
of this dam, nor could we learn that any traces of it were still in
existence.

To the north of the Bandi Tymúr tract are first the Miskárez hamlets and
cultivation, and beyond them are the Kháki Chanpán hamlets, concealed
from view in the sheltered hollows of the undulating pasture tract of
that name. Away to the north beyond it, between the Khákrez and Sháh
Macsúd ranges, is seen the Ghorát valley, in which are the hot sulphur
springs of Garmába already mentioned. To the north of Ghorát is seen
the Dosang range of hills, that separate it from the Derawat valley,
which drains by a perennial stream to the Helmand in Zamíndáwar. This
is described as a very populous and fertile valley, continuous to the
north-east with the country of the Hazerahs. To the north-west of it, a
range of hills intervening, is the Washír valley, which drains to the
river of Khásh.

To the south, on the left of our route, the sandy desert abuts upon the
river in a high bank of water-worn stones, in the sheltered hollows
between which is a close succession of nomad camps, that extend in a
continuous line for nearly fifty miles, for we marched in sight of them
to within a few miles of Calá Búst. The camps were on shelving banks
close upon the river bed, and were seldom more than half-a-mile apart.
Their unbroken black line upon the red ground of the sandy bluffs formed
a very prominent object of attraction, and the extent of the cordon
proved the numerical strength of the nomads to far exceed the limit of
what we had supposed their numbers to be. I counted sixty-three camps in
view at the same time. The number of tents in each ranged from twenty
up to eighty, but the majority appeared to contain from forty to fifty
tents. If we allow two hundred camps along the river from Chashma to
Búst, and reckon only forty tents in each, it will give a total of eight
thousand tents or families; and if we take each family to consist of five
individuals, it will give us forty thousand as the total of the nomad
population massed in this part of the country. The calculation is by no
means exaggerated; on the contrary I believe it to be under the mark.

Similar encampments, we are assured, extend along the desert skirt, where
it abuts on the channels of the Tarnak and Dorí rivers, right down to
Shorawak, and are reckoned to contain a total of not less than forty
thousand tents, or two hundred thousand souls. These nomads include
a number of tribes from all the hill country between this and Kabul.
They come down from the highlands with their cattle and flocks during
September and October, pass the winter here, and return to their summer
pastures during March and April. Their sheep and camels find abundant
pasture at this season on the borders of the desert, and are scattered
over its surface to a distance of twelve or fifteen miles from the river.
There are here and there superficial pools of rain-water (called _náwar_)
on the pasture tracts, but generally the cattle are driven down to water
at the river every third or fourth day. A couple of centuries ago nearly
the entire Afghan nation were nomads, or, as they are here called,
_kizhdí nishín_, from their mode of dwelling, and sometimes _sahára
nishín_, from the place of habitation.

At about the sixth mile of our march we passed another roadside hamlet
of the Mandínzai Isháczais. Some of the villagers came out and took up
a position on the road in front of us, with a Curán suspended across
the path in a sheet stretched between two poles hastily stuck into the
ground. We passed under the sacred volume, and received the blessing of
its owners in return for a rupee given to them by the Saggid. Our grooms,
with uplifted arms, made a bound, touched the book, and then their
foreheads and hearts, the while invoking the prophet’s blessing.

At about half-way on this march we passed the ruins of an old town and
the remains of a fort overlooking the river. Beyond this the country is
bare and desolate. The soil is either a coarse gravel covered with a
thin jangal of camel-thorn, or it is a spongy clay white with excess of
salines. For many miles here the road passes through a long succession
of salt-pits. Near Ballakhan we turned off to the left, and camped on a
saline tract close to the river.

A high north-east wind blew all day, and, fortunately for us, drove
clouds of salt dust against our backs, instead of in our faces. The sky
became cloudy in the afternoon, and towards sunset gusty showers of rain
fell. On the line of march we were overtaken by a courier from Jacobabad
with our letters and newspapers, and dates up to the 26th January. We
spent the evening in reading the news of the world we had left behind us.

Next to returning to one’s own, there is nothing so delightful as the
receiving intelligence from them. We always hailed the arrival of our
posts with unconcealed joy; and no sooner possessed ourselves of the
contents of one, than we looked forward to the arrival of another, with
an eagerness that only those placed in similar circumstances could
possibly evince.




CHAPTER VI.


_18th February._—We marched from Ballakhan twenty-eight miles, and camped
on the bank of the river Helmand, close under the citadel of Búst. The
night proved stormy, and a good deal of rain fell, rendering the ground
for several miles from camp very heavy and deep in mud. At two miles from
camp, we passed the ruins of Ballakhan, on a mound some little way off
to the right of the road; and a little farther on, the Júe Mahmand, also
to the right of the road. This tract, as far west as the Kárez-i-Sarkár,
is held by the Núrzais, whose camps of black tents and settlements of
reed huts dot the surface at short intervals. We found large herds of
their camels, oxen, goats, and sheep at graze on the scanty pastures the
surface afforded.

The country here is similar to that traversed yesterday. Deep irrigation
canals, now mostly dry, intersect it in all directions, and, crossing the
road at short intervals, present obstructions to the free passage of the
traveller. The soil is everywhere spongy and charged with salines, yet a
considerable extent is brought under cultivation. The natives cure the
land of these salts by first sowing with rice and then with clover, and
after this the soil is said to be fit for any crop.

For several miles our road led over a succession of salt-pits and ovens,
and lying about we found several samples of the alimentary salt prepared
here from the soil. It was in fine white granules, massed together in
the form of the earthen vessel in which the salt had been evaporated.
The process of collecting the salt is very rough and simple. A circular
pit or conical basin, seven or eight feet deep, and about twelve feet
in diameter, is excavated. Around its circumference is dug a succession
of smaller pits or circular basins, each about two feet wide by one and
a half feet deep. On one side of the large pit is a deep excavation, to
which the descent from the pit is by a sloping bank. In this excavation
is a domed oven, with a couple of fireplaces. At a little distance off
are the piles of earth scraped from the surface and ready for treatment.
And, lastly, circling round each pit is a small water-cut, led off from a
larger stream running along the line of the pits.

Such is the machinery. The process is simply this: A shovelful of earth
is taken from the heap and washed in the basins (a shovelful for each)
circling the pit. The liquor from these is, whilst yet turbid, run
into the great central pit, by breaking away a channel for it with the
fingers. This channel is then closed with a dab of mud, and fresh earth
washed, and the liquor run off as before; and so on till the pit is
nearly full of brine. This is allowed to stand till the liquor clears.
It is then ladled out into earthen jars, set on the fire, and boiled to
evaporation successively, till the jar is filled with a cake of granular
salt. The jars are then broken, and the mass of salt (which retains its
shape) is ready for conveyance to market.

Large quantities of this salt are used by the nomad population, and a
good deal is taken to Kandahar. The quantity turned out here annually
must be very great. The salt-pits extend over at least ten miles of
country we traversed, and we saw certainly several thousand pits.

These saline tracts are not so utterly waste as one would imagine. The
soil, though curable for purposes of cultivation, as above mentioned,
spontaneously supports a growth, which is more or less abundant, of
artemisia, saltworts of three or four kinds, camel-thorn, dwarf tamarisk,
and some thorny bushes called _karkanna_. These afford excellent pasture
for camels, and the oxen and sheep fattened on them are said to thrive
and improve in flesh better than on the hill pastures, which often
produce fatal bowel complaints.

As we went along, I made an unsuccessful detour after a flock of coolan
I had seen alight some way off to the right of our route, and came upon
some immense herds of camels, oxen, and sheep, all grazing together in
the vicinity of nomad camps scattered over the country. The sheep are all
of the fat-tailed variety, called _gad_ here and _dumba_ in India, and
appeared of large size and in excellent condition. They are shorn twice
a year, and the wool fetches the nomad one rupee per sheep. The milk,
cheese, and _cúrút_ is valued at another rupee for each sheep, and a
lamb at a third; so that the nomad’s annual profit from his flock may be
reckoned at three rupees per head of sheep he owns.

I passed close to several tents, and spoke to some of the men. They did
not seem very well disposed, and stared at me rather savagely. Colonel
Táj Muhammad, who accompanied me with three or four troopers, hurried me
back to our party, saying these men were not to be trusted; and as our
party was small, it was not safe to tarry long amongst them. His hint
was not lost, and we soon left the savages to their native wilds, and
speculations as to the booty that had escaped their clutches.

At a little short of half-way we halted a while at a mound near some
Núrzai tents, whilst the baggage went ahead. At a mile to the north
is the Nurullah Khushkába, so called on account of its aridity, the
undulating tract being void of water. At about twelve miles north by west
from the mound is the Girishk fort, and below it, on the Helmand, we saw
the Dubrár mound, and on the plain to the west the Mukhattar mound, an
isolated heap of ruins, marking the site of an ancient fort. The governor
of Girishk is Muhammad Alam Khán, son of the late Saggid Muhammad Khán
of Peshawar, and for several years a servant of the British Government
in the Panjab. A messenger met us here from the fort, to say that the
governor was absent in the Zamíndáwar district collecting the revenue, or
he would have come out to pay his respects to the General.

Whilst here, I took out my note-book to jot down a few memoranda of the
road we had traversed, and the Saggid, seeing the movement, jocularly
observed, “Now I know what you are going to write.” “What?” inquired I,
rather curiously. “People, savages—country, a desert waste; what else
can you say?” he very aptly replied. “But I will tell you something much
more amusing than anything you have got in your Kandahar book.” This last
allusion, I must confess, took me by surprise. I was about to ask where
he had seen the book, when he anticipated the query. “Yes, we know all
about it; and when the durbar at Kabul is dull, your book is produced,
and sets them all a-laughing.” “That’s satisfactory,” said I. “Ah!” he
replied, “but you have been very hard upon our faults.” “Come,” said I,
in self-defence, “I have not abused you as your writers habitually abuse
us.” “Well, no. The argument cuts both ways. Anyhow we are no better than
you have painted us.”

I asked how the book got to Kabul, and learned that it had been
taken there by Cázi Abdul Cádir, to whom I gave a copy when he was a
Government servant at Peshawar. The Cázi had learnt English at the
mission school in that frontier station, and, possessed of my book,
was now the interpreter of its pages at Kabul. I attempted to explain
that the book was not meant for Afghan readers, and the Saggid very
good-naturedly helped me out of the difficulty by saying that his people
were now accustomed to the hard words of foreigners by reading the
English newspapers and other books brought to the country from India.
He expressed astonishment at the freedom of criticism allowed to the
press, and could not understand how any Government could exist under such
uncontrolled discussion of its acts. “You people puzzle us entirely,”
said he. “No other Government would permit a public discussion of its
acts, but you seem to court it. It is a very bad system, and encourages
disaffection.” We endeavoured to explain that the freedom of the press
was characteristic of the British system of government, and that the
channel thus afforded for the unfettered expression of public opinion
was one of the greatest safeguards of the Government, and a powerful
instrument in the maintenance of public order. “It may be so for you; you
are the best judges of your own interests. It would not do for us. The
Government would not last a day under such a system here.” It was now
time for us to be on our way again, so the stories we were to have heard
were reserved for another occasion.

Our route continued south-west along the course of the river, the
opposite bank of which was lined by a black cordon of closely-packed
nomad camps. At six miles we came to Júe Sarkár, a little way off to the
right of the road. It is a modern country-house, standing in the midst
of its own gardens enclosed by high mud walls, and watered by a _kárez_
stream. The late Sardár Kuhudil Khán built this house as a country
residence in 1846, after he had annexed the Garmsel to Kandahar. It is
now occupied by his grandson, Gul Muhammad Khán, son of Muhammad Sadíc
Khán, the torturer of M. Ferrier, as is so graphically described by that
traveller in his account of his adventures in this country.

A little farther on are some hamlets scattered amongst the ruins of
Lashkari Bazár, which originally formed a suburb of the ancient city of
Búst, now lying some six miles ahead. From this point onwards, in fact,
our path lay through a succession of ruins, with here and there patches
of cultivation between the clusters of decayed mansions and towers, right
up to the fort and citadel of Búst.

At a few miles from our camp on the river bank we passed a roadside
shrine, and stopped at the cabin of a _faqír_ in charge of it for a
drink of water. It was perfect brine, from a small well hard by, yet
the mendicant assured us it was the only water he used, and his sickly
look and attenuated figure did not belie the assertion. His life of
penance secures him the reverence of the nomads of the neighbourhood, and
elicited marked respect from our escort.

We halted a day at Búst to rest our cattle and prepare them for the next
march, which was to be a long one across the desert. The delay afforded
us the opportunity to explore the rivers around. From the top of the
citadel, which commands an extensive view, we found that they covered an
area of many square miles on the left bank of the Helmand, and extended
over the plain for seven or eight miles to the east and north. The
citadel and fort form a compact mass of ruins altogether separate from
the rest of the Búst city.

The fort is a long parallelogram lying due north and south on the
river’s bank. The walls are very thick, and strengthened at short
intervals by semilunar bastions or buttresses. On the inner face they
bear the traces of chambers, and the top all round appears to have
supported houses. At each angle is a very substantial circular bastion,
except at the south-west angle, which is occupied by the citadel. This is
a lofty structure on a foundation of solid red brick masonry, that rises
straight out of the river bed, and is washed by its stream in the season
of full flood. The highest point of the citadel is about two hundred
feet above the bed of the river, and is run up into a square tower, used
apparently as a look-out station.

From its top we got a very extensive view of the country, but could not
see Girishk, though the fort of Nádálí on the plain opposite to it was
distinctly visible. A more dreary outlook than this station affords could
be found in few countries. Beyond the strip of villages and cultivation
on its farther bank, and the collection of hamlets and walled gardens in
the angle of junction between the Helmand and Argandáb, nothing is to be
seen but a vast undulating desert tract, limited towards the south by a
bold coast of high sand-cliffs.

The southern portion of the fort, in which the citadel stands, is
separated from the rest by a deep ditch some forty feet wide, and running
east and west. The eastern half of this division is fortified against
the rest of the fort, and contains the remains of several large public
edifices. The most noteworthy is a fine arch built of red bricks set in
ornamental patterns. The arch is of broad lancet shape, about sixty feet
high in the centre, and fifty-four feet across from basement to basement
on the level of the ground. The arch extends due north and south, and
from the ornamental designs and Arabic characters on the façades
fronting the east, it was most probably the portal of the principal
mosque.

The western half of this division is occupied by a lofty artificial
mound, on the summit of which stands the citadel. Through the whole depth
of this mound is sunk a very remarkable well, closed above by a large
cupola. The well is built very substantially of red brick and mortar,
and is descended to the very bottom by a spiral staircase, which, in the
upper part of the shaft, opens successively into three tiers of circular
chambers, that look into the shaft through a succession of arches in its
circumference. In each tier are four chambers circling the well, and
communicating with each other by arched passages; and at the back of each
chamber, away from the well shaft, is an arched recess.

The depth of the well is about 130 feet, and its diameter 18 feet. We
found the bottom dry, and covered with a thick layer of débris, sticks,
and rubbish. Some labourers were set to work to clear this away; but
as at a depth of four feet there was still only débris, the work was
discontinued, and we mounted up to the open air again. The well was
evidently fed from the river by some subterranean channel, and its waters
rose and fell with that of its stream, as was indicated by the different
appearance of the bricks in the lowest part of its shaft.

The chambers opening on the well were no doubt used as a cool retreat in
the hot weather; and that the well was used for the supply of the citadel
is evidenced by the rope-marks worn into the bricks on the lower edge of
the openings.

The rest of the fort interior extends away to the northward. Its area is
covered with bricks and pottery, but shows no traces of buildings. It is
of the same width as the citadel divisions, but six or seven times more
in length. The citadel rises out of the river bed; but the west face of
the whole fort is separated from the river, which here makes a bend to
the west, by an intervening strip of land. The whole fortification is
surrounded by a wide ditch and covered way. There is a gateway in the
east face, just beyond the interior ditch, separating the citadel from
the rest of the fort, and there is another gate opposite to it, fronting
the river. The citadel was entered by a small gate in the centre of
its southern face. Each gateway is protected by outflanking bastions.
Altogether, the place appears to have been a very strong and important
frontier fortress, and commanded the approach from Sistan by Garmsel
towards Kandahar.

The General got a party of workmen together, and made some small
excavations in different parts of the citadel; but our stay was too short
to admit of any extensive exploration of this kind. Several bits of glass
and china of superior manufacture were turned up, and two or three “fire
altar” Sassanian coins were also found. The china was of two different
kinds: one, the common material with the familiar blue designs; the other
a coarse-grained material, coated with a glazed crust of mother-of-pearl
appearance, and pale lilac hue. Some fragments of glass goblets and
bowls were found, and attracted our attention as being far superior to
any manufacture of the kind now to be found in this or the adjacent
countries, or India itself. One in particular I observed formed part of a
large bowl: the glass was fine, clear, and thin, and ribbed with bands of
a rich chocolate-brown colour.

Búst or Bost is the site of a very ancient city. Malcolm, in his “History
of Persia,” says it is identical with the ancient _Abeste_; and he
states that in A.D. 977, when Sebuktaghín was at Ghazni, it was in the
possession of one Tegha, who being expelled, applied to Sebuktaghín for
aid, and was by him reinstated, on condition of paying tribute. Tegha
failed to do so, and was consequently suddenly attacked by Sebuktaghín,
the perfidious Tegha effecting his escape. This Sebuktaghín was a
_ghulám_, or body-soldier of the refractory Bukhára noble Abustakín, who
settled and founded Ghazni. At this period the Indian prince Jaipál was
King of Kabul, and Kulif, the Sámání, was Prince of Sistan.

Erskine, in his “Life of the Emperor Babur,” mentions that Búst was
besieged, A.D. 1542, by the Emperor Humáyún, on his advance against
Kandahar, with a Persian army, and the fort surrendered to him. Previous
to this, in A.D. 1498, the same author states, the fort of Búst was
captured by Sultán Husen Mirzá, Báikara, when he set out from Herat, his
capital, against his rebel son, Khusran, at Kandahar. He was obliged,
however, to retire from Kandahar, and to give up this fort; but he found
in it supplies sufficient to provision his whole army, and enable them to
retrace their steps comfortably.

Búst was finally dismantled and destroyed in A.D. 1738 by Nadír Sháh,
when he advanced against Kandahar on his way to India. In all these
sieges, the fort alone, it appears, was occupied as a strategetical
position; the city and suburbs had remained a mass of ruins, in much the
same state as they are now, since the desolating invasion of Changhiz in
A.D. 1222.

In the present century, Kuhudil Khán, having annexed Garmsel to his
principality of Kandahar in 1845, had some intention of restoring the
fort of Búst, and had commenced the repair of its walls. But the jealousy
of Persia, and other troubles nearer home, put a stop to the work; and he
died in 1855, before he could carry out his original design. The site is
well placed to command the approach through Garmsel, and is sufficiently
near to afford efficient support to Girishk, twenty miles higher up the
river on the opposite bank.

Our camp here was pitched right on the river bank, immediately to the
south of the citadel. The channel is from 250 to 300 yards wide, between
straight banks about twenty feet high; but the stream at this season is
only about eighty or ninety yards wide, on a firm pebbly bed. It was
forded in several places opposite our camp by horsemen going across in
search of fodder. The water reached the saddle-flaps, and flowed in a
clear gentle stream. By the aneroid barometer I made the elevation of
this place 2490 feet above the sea.

Whilst here, a courier arrived with our post from India, with dates up
to the 1st February from Jacobabad. We now learned, for the first time,
and to our no small surprise, that our party had been attacked, and our
baggage plundered, by the rebel Brahoe on our way through the Míloh
Pass. How the false report originated it was not difficult to surmise,
considering the troubled state of the country at the time of our passage
through it, and the readiness of the Indian newspapers to chronicle
exciting news from the frontier states. A courier also arrived with
letters for the General from Sir F. Goldsmid, dated Sihkoha, 2d February.
His party had arrived there the previous day, after a trying march from
Bandar Abbas, crossing _en route_ a range of mountains on which the cold
was as great as that we experienced in Balochistan, the thermometer
sinking to 5° Fah. This courier, through ignorance of the route we had
taken, proceeded by Farráh and Girishk to Kandahar, whence he was put on
our right track, and hence the delay in his arrival.

_20th February._—Culá Búst to Hazárjuft, forty miles. We set out at 6.45
A.M., and passing some villages and walled gardens, proceeded in a
S.S.E. direction, along the left bank of the Helmand, which here divides
into several channels, separated by long island strips. At three miles we
came to the Argandáb, where it joins the Helmand, at a bend the latter
river makes to the westward, opposite an abrupt sandhill bluff.

The angle between the point of junction of these two rivers is dotted
with clusters of reed cabins, mud huts, and walled vineyards, belonging
to different tribes, such as the Núrzai, Achakzai, Bárakzai, Bárech,
Uzbak, and others.

The Argandáb, or Tarnak, as it is also called, flows close under the
cliffs of the sandy desert to the south, and joining the Helmand at
its sudden bend to the westward, appears to receive that river as an
affluent, whereas itself is really the confluent. Its channel here is
very wide and sandy, showing marks of a considerable back-water in the
flood season. As we saw it, the Argandáb here has a shallow gentle
stream, about forty yards wide, and only two feet deep in the centre. The
water flows over a sandy bottom, and, like the Tarnak at Kandahar, is
very turbid.

Beyond the river we rose on to the desert skirt through a gap in the
sandhills, and then winding round to the S.S.W., proceeded over a dreary
waste of sandhills and hollows. At a mile from the river the road divides
into two branches. That to the right follows the course of the Helmand,
and passes straight across ridge and gully, whilst that to the left
sweeps round over an undulating sandy waste called Ním-chol, or “half
desert,” and at twelve miles joins the first at Gudar Burhána, where is a
ford across the Helmand to the Záras district of Girishk.

Our baggage proceeded by the former route; we took the latter, and got
a good view of the desert skirt. I made a detour of a few miles to the
south in quest of some bustard I had marked in that direction, and was
surprised to find the surface covered with a by no means sparse jangal.
There was a great variety of plants and bushes fit for fuel, and a thin
grass was everywhere sprouting from the loose soil of red sand. A species
of tamarisk called _tághaz_, and a kind of willow called _bárak_, were
the most common shrubs. The latter is burnt for charcoal, which is used
in the manufacture of gunpowder. The small species of jujube and a
variety of salsolaceæ were also observed, but the great majority I did
not recognise at all.

I could now understand the reason of this tract being the winter resort
of the nomad tribes of Southern Afghanistan. It produces a more varied
and richer vegetation than the wide plains and bleak steppes of the
Kandahar basin, and the hollows between its undulations provide a shelter
from the keen wintry blasts that sweep the plain country with blighting
severity.

As far as the eye could reach, south, east, and west, was one vast
undulating surface of brushwood thinly scattered over a billowy sea of
reddish-yellow sand. I galloped some way ahead of my attendant troopers,
and found myself alone on this desolate scene, with the horizon as its
limit. Though the surface was scored with a multitude of long lines
of cattle-tracks trending to the river, not a tent was to be seen,
nor any living creature; even the bustard I was following vanished
from my view. I reined up a moment to view the scene, and suddenly the
oppression of its silence weighed upon me, and told me I was alone. A
reverie was stealing over me, when presently my horse, neighing with
impatience, broke the current of my thoughts, and turned my attention to
the direction he himself had faced to. Appearing over a sandhill in the
distant rear, I saw a horseman urging his horse towards me, and waving
his arm in the direction of the river. Not knowing what might be up, I
galloped off in the direction indicated, and we shortly after met on
the beaten track which had been followed by our party. An explanation
followed, and he chidingly informed me that we had got too far away from
the main body. “We ourselves,” he said, “never think of going alone into
these wastes. The wandering nomads are always lurking after the unwary
traveller on their domain, and view him only as a God-send to be stripped
and plundered, if not killed. God forbid that any evil should befall
you. Our heads are answer for your safety.” With this mild reproof, he
proposed we should hasten on, which we forthwith did, and overtook our
party in the wide hollow of Gudar Burhána. Beyond this we ascended a high
ridge of sand, and turning off the road to the right, mounted one of the
hummocks overlooking the Helmand, and alighted for breakfast at eighteen
miles from Búst, and nearly half-way to Hazárjuft. Meanwhile our baggage
with the infantry escort passed on ahead.

From our elevated position we got an extensive view of the great plain
to the northward. Nádálí and Calá Búst were indistinctly visible to
the north and north-east respectively, and away to the west was seen
the black isolated Landi hill called also Khanishín, the only hill to
be seen in the whole prospect. Immediately below us flowed the still
stream of the Helmand, and on its opposite bank lay the populous and
well-cultivated tract of Záras. It is included in the Girishk district,
and is freely irrigated from canals drawn of from the Helmand some
miles above the position of Búst. Its principal villages are Khalach,
Záras, Surkhdazd, Shahmalán, and Moín Calá; the last in the direction of
Hazárjuft.

The air was delightfully pure and mild, the sky without a cloud, and the
noonday sun agreeably warm. Our simple fare, cold fowl and the leavened
cakes of wheat bread called _nán_, washed down with fresh water, was
enjoyed with a relish and appetite that only such exercise and such
a climate combined could produce. An attendant with a stock of cold
provisions and a supply of water always accompanied us on the march,
and we generally halted half-way on the march for breakfast on some
convenient roadside spot. Our host, the Saggid, always joined us at the
repast, and generally produced some home-made sweetmeats as a _bonne
bouche_ at the close of the meal. We enjoyed these _al fresco_ breakfasts
thoroughly. The cleanliness and excellence of the Afghan cookery made
full amends for the want of variety in the fare. The simple food was, to
my mind, far preferable and more wholesome than the doubtful compounds
prepared by our Indian servants in imitation of the orthodox English
dishes that commonly load our tables in India. In the roasting of a
fowl the Afghan certainly excels. In their hands the toughest rooster
comes to the feast plump, tender, and juicy, and with a flavour not to
be surpassed. The secret lies in the slow process of roasting over live
embers, with a free use of melted butter as the fowl is turned from side
to side.

At one P.M., after a rest of an hour and forty minutes, we mounted
our camels and set out again on our route. For an hour and a half we
followed a beaten track across a billowy surface of loose red sand, and
then passing a ruined hostelry called Rabát, entered on a firm gravelly
tract, thickly strewed with smooth black pebbles, and perfectly bare
of vegetation. We crossed this by a gentle slope down to the Hazárjuft
plain, and at four P.M. camped close on the river bank a little beyond a
terminal bluff of the sand-cliffs bounding it to the south.

The Hazárjuft plain is a wide reach between the river and a great sweep
southwards of the desert cliffs, and, as its name implies, contains
land enough to employ a “thousand yoke” of oxen or ploughs. It is
coursed in all directions by irrigation canals drawn from the river, and
contains four or five fortified villages, around which are the reed-hut
settlements of various dependent tribes.

Hazárjuft is the _jágír_ or fief of Azád Khán, Nanshirwání Baloch, whose
family reside here in the principal village of the district. It is a
square fort, with towers at each angle and over the gateway. The Khán
himself resides at Kharán, of which place he is governor on the part of
the Kabul Amir. The other forts here are held by the Adozai and Umarzai
divisions of the Núrzai Afghans, who are the hereditary owners of the
soil.

In all this march there is no water after crossing the Argandáb. Our
infantry escort were much exhausted by the length of the journey, and
fairly broke down some miles short of its end. We passed several of them
lying on the roadside completely prostrated by thirst, and they were
unable to come on till we sent out water to them from Hazárjuft. They
had started with an ample supply for the whole march, but, with the
improvidence characteristic of Afghans, had wasted it before they got
half through the journey, and hence their sufferings.

The journey might be divided in two stages of eighteen and twenty-two
miles, making Gudar Barhana on the river bank the halting-place. In
the hot season this would be absolutely necessary, otherwise the long
exposure to the burning sands would be destructive alike to man and
beast. The elevation of Hazárjuft is 2360 feet above the sea.

The most remarkable features of the Hazárjuft plain are the wide extent
of its cultivation, and the vast number of ruins scattered over its
surface. Some of these are of ancient date, and others bear the traces
of fortifications raised upon artificial mounds, but the majority
are evidently merely the remains of the temporary settlements of the
migratory tribes, who shift about from place to place according to their
pleasure, or, as more frequently is the case, through force of feuds
amongst themselves, and disagreements with the lord of the manor.

In examining the arrangement, size, and disposition of these crumbling
walls, one sees that they differ only from the existing temporary
settlements around in the loss of their roofs and fronts. These are
formed of basketwork frames of tamarisk twigs, coated on the outside with
a plaster of clay and straw mixed together, and are easily transportable,
though the necessity for this is not apparent, as the material of which
they are made is found in any quantity all along the river course.

Our next stage was fourteen miles to Mian Pushta. The road follows a
S.S.W. course, and diverges somewhat from the river. It passes over a
level tract of rich alluvium, everywhere cultivated, and intersected in
every direction by irrigation canals, now mostly dry.

At three miles we passed the Amir Biland _ziárat_, ensconced in a
tamarisk grove. It is dedicated to the memory of a conquering Arab saint,
said to be a son or grandson of the Amir Hamza. Hard by is a village of
the same name, and further on are the two little forts of Warweshán.
On the plain around are scattered a number of hut settlements of the
Núrzais. They are named after the chiefs by whom they were founded, or
by whom they are now ruled. Two of these are named Muhammad Ghaus, and
others are Aslam Khán, Lájwar, Khán Muhammad, Fatu Muhammad, Sardár
Khán, Abbasabad, &c. Each settlement comprised from 120 to 250 huts.
Beyond all these is the Kushti village, and then Mian Pushta.

I struck off the road, and followed the windings of the river for some
miles. Its northern or right bank rises directly into high cliffs, that
mark the coast-line of the great Khásh desert. In all the extent from
Hazárjuft to the Khanishín hill, the alluvium is all on the left bank of
the river. The right bank in this course rises at once up to the desert.

On my way along the river, I crossed a succession of deep and narrow
water-cuts running in a south and south-easterly direction. Some of them
proved difficult to cross. The channel of the river is very wide, and
is fringed on each side by thick belts of tamarisk jangal. This extends
all along the river course into Sistan, and in some parts assumes the
proportions of a forest. The river itself flows in a clear stream, about
a hundred yards wide, close under the right bank. The bed is strewed with
great boulders, and water-fowl of every kind swarm in its pools. I found
an immense flock of pelicans, geese, and ducks all together in a space of
a couple of miles. I shot two or three pelicans with No. 2 shot, but they
carried away the charges without a sign of discomfort.

Turning away from the river, I came to a _ziárat_ dedicated to Sultán
Wais, or Pír Kisrí. It is held in great veneration here, and is shaded
by a clump of very fine and large _paddah_ trees (_Salix babylonica_),
growing on the sides of a deep irrigation canal that flows by it.

From Mian Pushta we marched eighteen miles to Sufár. Our route was S.S.W.
over a long stretch of corn-fields, interrupted now and again by patches
of camel-thorn, salsolaceæ, and other pasture plants. The alluvium here
narrows considerably in width, and the desert cliffs approach to within
a couple or three miles of the river. Shortly after starting, we came to
the Abbasabad settlement. It consists of about a hundred huts of “wattle
and dab,” belonging to Adozai Núrzais. Some of the huts were formed of
the wicker frames of tamarisk withes before mentioned, supported on
side-walls, and closed by another at the rear; but most were besides
thatched with a long reed that grows abundantly along the river’s course.

A little farther on we passed a _ziárat_ or shrine, shaded by a clump
of trees, close under the desert bluffs to our left. High up in the
perpendicular face of one of these cliffs we observed a row of three
tall arched openings. They appeared of regular formation, and no means
of approach were traceable on the cliff, nor could anybody tell us
anything about them. At about midway on the march we passed the turreted
and bastioned little fort of Lakhi. Around it are ranged a number
of thatched-hut settlements of the Adozai and Alizai Núrzais. Each
settlement, of which there were five or six, is protected by its own
outlying towers. Each settlement consists of from thirty to forty huts,
ranged on each side of a wide street, and in each the towers stand, one
at each end of this.

I struck off the road here, and followed the river course for some miles.
Its bed is nearly a mile and a half wide, and covered with tamarisk
jangal, camel-thorn, and reeds. I found some herds of black cattle and
a few camels at graze, and noticed, by the drift sticking to the trees,
that the hot-weather flood of the river must be at least twelve feet
above its present level, and fill the whole channel. Water-cuts and weirs
occur at frequent intervals, and water-mills are found on most of them;
but they are only worked in the cold season.

Gun in hand (for I had been shooting wild-fowl along the river), I
entered one of these wicker cabins, out of curiosity to see the interior,
and found three men coiled up in their felt cloaks or _khosai_, lazily
watching the working of the mill. Neither of them moved more than to turn
his eyes on me with a blank stare, and my _salám alaikum_ only drew on me
a harder gaze. “Have you no tongue?” said I, addressing the semblance of
humanity crouched nearest the entrance, as his uplifted eyes and dropped
jaw confronted me. A simple nod answered in the affirmative. “Then who
are you?” This loosened his tongue. “Pukhtún,” said he, boldly. “What
Pukhtún?”—“Núrzai.” “What Núrzai?”—“Adozai.” “What Adozai?”—“Sulemán
Khel.” “Where do you live?”—“There,” with a jerk of the head in the
direction of the river, utterly indifferent as to whether he were right
or wrong. “What’s that you are grinding?”—“Wheat.”

This was enough for me, and I paused to give him an innings, the while
looking from one to the other. Neither volunteered a word to my expectant
glances; so with a _Da Khudáe pa amán_ (to the protection of God), Afghan
fashion, I left them to their indolent ease and stolid indifference.
Proceeding some way, I faced about to see if either of them had been
moved by curiosity to come out and look after us. Not a bit of it; they
had not moved from their comfortable lairs.

This incident filled me with surprise, because these men could never
have seen a European before, considering we are the first who are known
to have visited this portion of Garmsel. I expressed my astonishment
to Colonel Táj Muhammad, who had accompanied me, observing that the
stupid unconcern of the millers had surprised me much more than my
sudden intrusion upon their retreat had incommoded them. He explained
their impassibility on the ground of their being mere country bumpkins.
“Besides,” said he, glancing at the _chogha_ or Afghan cloak I wore
(for though we were walking, the morning air was sufficiently cold to
render such an outside covering very acceptable), “from the way you
went at them about their tribes, they most likely took you for a Kabul
Sardár.” However flattering the allusion, it did not satisfy my mind;
and farther on in the march, after we rejoined the main party, we met
another instance of the boorish independence characteristic of the Afghan
peasantry.

As we passed their several settlements, the people generally crowded to
the roadside to view our party, and we usually gave them the _salám_,
without, however, eliciting any reply. On this occasion the crowd, lining
each side of a narrow roadway, were quite close to us; and as they took
no notice of our _salám_, the Saggid remonstrated with them for their
want of civility, and gave them a lecture on the sin of neglecting to
reply to such salutation. His harangue made little impression, and, for
the most part, fell upon deaf ears. One man did say _Starai ma sha_,
equivalent to our “I hope you are not tired,” and his neighbour stretched
out his fist with a significant cock of the thumb, and an inquiring nod
of the head, a gesture which amongst these untutored people is used to
signify robust health and fitness, but the rest did not even rise from
their squatting postures.

They were hardy-looking people, but have repulsive features, and are
very dark complexioned. Some of their young women we saw were fairer and
comely, but the old dames were perfect hags, wrinkled and ragged. Their
dress is of a coarse home-made cotton called _karbás_, and consists of
a loose shift and trousers, the latter generally dyed blue. The wealth
of these people consists in corn and cattle. The former is exported in
large quantity across the desert to Núshkí and Kharán for the Balochistan
markets.

Our camp at Sufár is close on the river bank. Throughout the march the
country is covered with ruins, which exceed the present habitations in
their number and extent.

From Sufár we marched fourteen miles to Banádir Jumá Khán, where we
camped on the river bank. During the first half of the march our route
was south-west away from the river, across a wide alluvial tract,
which extends eight or ten miles southward before it rises up to the
desert border, here forming a wide semi-circle of low undulations, very
different from the high cliffs on either side of it. During the latter
half of the march our route was west by south to the river bank.

At about five miles we came to the extensive ruins of Sultán Khwájah, in
the midst of which stands a lofty fortress larger than that of Búst. On
the opposite or right bank of the river, crowning the top of a prominent
cliff, is a solitary commanding tower of red brick, now apparently
deserted and in decay.

At five miles farther on we came to Banádir Tálú Khán, a poor collection
of some hundred and fifty wattle-and-dab huts, in the midst of ruins of
former habitations, and vineyards without vines. There are several of
these _banádir_ (plural of the Arabic _bandar_, a port or market-town) on
this part of the river, each distinguished by the name of its presiding
chief or that of its founder.

There is considerably less cultivation in this part of the country, and a
large portion of the surface is a saline waste covered with camel-thorn
and saltworts. The irrigation canals too are met at more distant
intervals. The river bed here is fully a mile broad, and is occupied by
long island strips of tamarisk jangal, abounding in wild pig, hare, and
partridge.

From our camp, looking due south across the _banádir_ reach or bay of
alluvium, we got a distant view of Harboh hill in the sandy desert. It
has a good spring of water, and is on the caravan route from Núshkí to
Rúdbár. Straight to our front, or nearly due west, is the Khanishín hill
or Koh Landi, so named from the villages on either side of its isolated
mass.

So far we have had fine sunny weather since leaving Búst, and the air has
been delightfully mild and fresh. The crops are everywhere sprouting, and
give the country a green look. But the absence of trees (except the small
clumps round distant _ziárats_, and the jangal in the river bed), and
the vast number of ruins, tell of neglect and bygone prosperity, and are
the silent witnesses to centuries of anarchy and oppression, that have
converted a fertile garden into a comparatively desert waste.

_24th February._—Banádir Jumá Khán to Landi Isháczai, fourteen miles.
The country is much the same as that traversed before, but the desert
cliffs rapidly approach the river, and considerably narrow the width of
the alluvium on its left bank, and finally slope off to the high sandy
ridge that, projecting from Koh Khanishín, abuts upon the river in lofty
perpendicular cliffs, and turns its course to the north-west.

At a few miles from camp we passed over a long strip of perfectly level
ground, covered to redness with little bits of broken pottery, but
without a trace of walls or buildings. Beyond this, at about half-way
on the march, we passed the Baggat collection of huts, occupied by
Popalzais. I struck off the road here down to the river, and was
surprised to find it much wider and deeper than in any part of its upper
course as far as we had seen of it. The Helmand here appears quite
navigable, and flows in a broad stream, in which are several small
islands, covered with a dense jangal of tamarisk.

On the opposite or right bank, the desert cliffs, hitherto abutting
direct on the river in its course from Hazárjuft, now recede from it,
and leave a gradually expanding alluvium, on which are seen corn-fields,
villages, and huts, and extensive ruins. In a northerly direction, beyond
this alluvium, extending as far as the eye can reach east and west, is a
vast undulating desert waste. It is called Shand, or “the barren,” and
is continuous with the deserts of Khásh and Kaddah. The whole tract is
described as without water, and but scantily dotted with jangal patches.
It is drained by a great ravine (mostly dry except in the rainy season)
called Shandú, which empties into the Helmand opposite Khanishín. Vast
herds of wild asses, it is said, are always found on this waste, which in
the hot season is unbearable to any other animal.

Immense numbers of wild duck, geese, cranes, herons, and pelicans were
feeding on the river and in the pools along its course. I stalked close
up to a large flock of the last, and fired into the crowd. Several
hundreds rose heavily and flew off, but two were observed to flag behind,
and presently alight lower down the river. Borrowing the rifle of one
of my attendant troopers, I followed these, and shortly after found
them in a pool with necks craned on the alert. Covering the nearest
at about eighty yards, I pulled an uncommonly hard trigger, and, to my
disgust, saw the mud splash at least sixteen feet on one side of the
mark. The weapon was a double-grooved rifle, manufactured at Kabul on
the pattern of those formerly used by the Panjab Frontier Force, and had
an ill-adjusted sight. It is to be hoped, now that the Afghans are our
friends, that this was an exceptional specimen of their armoury.

Returning from the river, we joined the main party near a dismantled
castle called Sultán Khán. It had been neatly and strongly built, and was
destroyed, we were told, many years ago by the Bárechís in some intestine
feuds with their partners in the soil of Garmsel. It is a pitiful
fact that the ruins in this country, from their extent, and superior
construction, and frequency, constantly impress upon the traveller
the former existence here of a more numerous population, a greater
prosperity, and better-established security than is anywhere seen in the
country; whilst the wretched hovels that have succeeded them as strongly
represent the poverty, lawlessness, and insecurity that characterise the
normal condition of the country under the existing regime.

Near the castle is a _ziárat_, and round it an extensive graveyard, which
attracted attention on account of the blocks of white quartz, yellow
gypsum, and red sandstone covering the tombs—all entirely foreign to the
vicinity. They had been brought, we learned, from the Karboh hill. As
we rode along in front of the column, a startled hare dashed across our
path ahead. My gun was at “the shoulder” at the time (for I generally
carried it in hand for any game that might turn up on the route), but it
was instinctively brought to “the present,” and fired on the instant.
“_Ajal!_” sighed the Saggid, “who can resist fate?” “_Yarrah khkár
daghah dai_” (“Verily, this is sport”), exclaimed Colonel Táj Muhammad,
his eyes sparkling with delight. “_Bárak allah!_” (“God bless you!”)
cried a trooper as he urged forward to pick up the victim from the
road. Poor puss was quite dead as he held her aloft, and many were the
congratulations on the accident that averted an ill omen.

The Afghans are extremely superstitious, and blindly believe in all
sorts of signs and omens. Amongst others, a hare crossing the path
of a traveller is considered a prognostic of evil augury, and the
wayfarer always turns back to whence he came, to start afresh under more
auspicious conditions. On this occasion the sudden termination of the
career of poor puss short of crossing the road was hailed as a happy
event, and averted the misgivings of our scrupulous attendants as to what
the future held in store for us.

Our camp was pitched close to Landi, a compact little square fort with
a turret at each angle. Under the protection of its walls is a hut
settlement of about one hundred and fifty wattle-and-dab cabins, occupied
by Isháczai Afghans. The weather was dull and cloudy throughout the day,
and at sunset a storm of wind and rain from the north-west swept over our
camp.

From Landi Isháczai we marched twenty-two miles to the river bank, a
little beyond Calá Sabz, on its opposite shore, our course being nearly
due west. At the third mile we cleared the cultivation and entered on the
undulating tract sloping up to the sandy ridges extending between the Koh
Khanishín and the river. The young corn, we observed, was blighted yellow
in great patches by the frosts and snows of last month. Snow seldom falls
on this region, but this winter having been an unusually severe one, it
lay on the ground to the depth of a span for several days.

The land as it slopes up to Khanishín, which is fully twelve miles from
Landi, is very broken, and stands out near the hill in long lines of
vertical banks, that in the mirage assume the appearance of extensive
fortifications. The hill itself is perfectly bare, and presents a
succession of tall jagged peaks, that extend five or six miles from
north to south. Between it and the river the country is entirely desert,
sandhills and ravines succeeding each other for a stretch of twenty miles
from east to west. The surface is mostly covered with a coarse gravel
or grit of dark reddish-brown stones, but in some parts it is a loose
sand of bright orange-red colour, and in others is caked into rocks of
granular structure. Here and there are scattered thick jangal patches of
desert plants similar to those seen on the route from Búst to Hazárjuft
They afford excellent camel forage, and a good supply of fuel. At about
half-way we crossed a deep and wide hollow running down to the river on
our right; and passing over a second ridge of sandhills, at sixteen miles
crossed a very deep and narrow ravine of pure red sand, without a boulder
or stone of any kind to be seen in it. Beyond this we halted on some
heights overlooking the river for breakfast, the baggage meanwhile going
ahead.

The weather was all that could be desired. A clear sky, mild sun, and
pure fresh air proved the climate to be delightful at this season. A few
gentle puffs of a north-west breeze, however, now and again raised clouds
of sand, and showed us what it could do in that way at times.

The view from this elevated position is extensive, but it is dreary in
the extreme. The sandhills, backed by the bare, scorched, black mass of
Khanishín, are all that the southern prospect presents, whilst to the
north across the river lies the wide waste of the Khásh desert.

Below us winds the Helmand with its islets of tamarisk thickets, and
beyond it spreads the alluvium, which here shifts from the left to the
right bank, with its corn-fields, villages, and ruins. The chief village
is Khanishín to the eastward; the hut settlement of Núnábád lies to its
north, and Dewalán to its west. Further westward, near the ruins of a
large fort, is the Ghulámán hamlet, and then Calá Nan (Newcastle), beyond
which is the Calá Sabz ruin, so named from the green colour of the mound
on which it stands. The whole of this tract belongs to the Isháczai
Afghans, amongst whom are settled a few Baloch families of the Mammassání
or Muhammad Hassani tribe; and even now, in its best season, wears a
poverty-stricken, parched, and neglected look.

Proceeding on our way, we reached the river bank in an hour and a half,
and camped midway between Calá Sabz and Tághaz, both on its opposite
bank. This march resembled that from Búst to Hazárjuft. Not a sign of
habitation or water exists after clearing the Landi cultivation, nor did
we meet a single traveller, nor see any sign of life in all the route.

There is another road along the river bank to the midway hollow above
mentioned, but it is difficult on account of ravines and the broken
nature of the ground. A third route goes round by the south of Koh
Khanishín, but it is six or seven miles longer, and without water.

There is no habitation on our side of the river, nor cultivation, nor
even a ruin; and what could be the use of the Calá Sabz, or Green Fort,
on its commanding mound immediately on the river, it is difficult to
imagine. Our supplies were all brought from the villages on the opposite
shore, and our people forded the river stirrup-deep, or up to the girths,
in several places. The river here is about two hundred yards wide, and
its banks are low and overgrown with tamarisk jangal.

The evening set in cloudy, and at nine o’clock a heavy thunderstorm with
lightning and rain burst over our camp. It lasted an hour and a half, and
then swept southwards to the sandy desert.

Hence we marched twenty-three miles to Mel Gudar, and camped on the river
bank, near the ford of that name, just where the river makes a deep bend
to the south. Our route generally was S.S.W., now and again striking the
river at its successive turns or bends to the south.

For the first six or seven miles the ground was very deep in mud, owing
to the rain last night. In some parts our cattle sunk up to the knee in
it, and could with difficulty extricate themselves from the mire. The
road from the south of Koh Khanishín here joins the main route, and as
the land rises in that direction, it is dry and firm under foot.

At about half-way, we struck the river at one of its many bends,
directly opposite the fort of Malakhan, which occupies a high mound
overlooking its right bank. It is advantageously situated, and has a
lofty citadel. During the British occupation of the country, it was held
by a detachment from the Kandahar garrison. The citadel was destroyed and
the fortifications demolished in 1863 by the Amir Dost Muhammad, because
he found that every governor sent to this frontier post became rebellious
on the strength of the fort. The place is now quite deserted, and offers
another sad instance of the too truthful saying, that everybody who
comes here destroys something and goes his way.

A couple of miles or so beyond this, at another bend of the river, we
came to the hut settlement and cultivation of Deshú, belonging to the
Isháczais. It is the only habitation we have met with on this side the
river since leaving Landi. A little farther on we passed through some
widespread ruins of towers and houses, the ground between which was red
with bits of broken pottery. In some parts it was perfectly flat, and
gave out a hollow sound as our horses tramped over the surface, conveying
the idea that we were riding over concealed vaults. At two miles on from
this, we camped on the river bank, opposite a dense jangal of tamarisk
and willow trees.

Our next stage was thirty-six miles to Landi Bárechí, where we camped on
the high bank of the river close to the fort. Our route, at first S.S.W.,
led through a wild uninhabited jangal tract for the whole distance. The
road is a well-beaten track, and passes across a succession of deep bays
or reaches of spongy saline alluvium, and for the most part follows the
course of the river, the short bends of which now and again come close up
to the road.

The reaches are separated from each other by promontories of the desert,
which stretch forward up to the river bank. At about eight miles we
came to a solitary mound on the Abdullahabad reach or bay. It is called
_Sangar_, or “the breastwork,” and is said to be the first place seized
from the Núrzai by the celebrated Baloch freebooter, Abdullah Khán,
after whom the country is now named. This notorious robber was the chief
of a small party of Sanjarání Baloch nomads, who are said to have
come here from the Kharán and Núshkí districts in the troublous times
following Nadír Sháh’s devastating march through the Garmsel in 1738. He
pitched his tents here, and, with the aid of other Baloch mercenaries of
different tribes, succeeded in ousting the Núrzai possessors after many
encounters. During his lifetime he held all that portion of the left bank
of the river extending from Mel Gudar to Rúdbár, as the summer pasture
tract of his tribe, and annually, on the return from winter quarters in
the desert, contested its possession with the Núrzai. Many tales are
told of his prowess and lawlessness, but in a country where every man
is a born robber, and acknowledges no other right but that maintained
by might, his deeds of valour resolve themselves into petty successes
against, and gradual encroachments on, the lands of individual nomad
camps numerically weaker than his own, and distracted by intestine feuds
that prevented a combination to expel the intruder. The plundering habits
of these Baloch, and their constant hostilities with the neighbouring
Afghan nomads, led to the abandonment of the Garmsel route from Kandahar
to Sistan, and the country soon became a den of thieves, and the refuge
of outlaws of all the surrounding provinces, who attached themselves to
the Baloch chief as mercenaries and dependants.

From Sangar our path veered to the S.W., and, after a few miles, passed
round the projecting desert cliffs by a narrow path between them and the
river brink, and brought us into another bay or reach, called Khwájah
’Ali, from a mound and ruined tower in the midst of a sheet of broken
pottery that covers its surface to redness. Whilst riding over this, we
observed, as on a former occasion, that the ground gave a hollow sound
under our horses’ feet, as if it were vaulted. Excepting the tower
mentioned, not a wall nor vestige of any other building was discoverable
above the flat surface.

Having come sixteen miles, we halted at this tower for breakfast; and
took the opportunity to satisfy ourselves that there was really nothing
to see here, except that the river bank on this side is high and
vertical, and its wide bed full of tamarisk and willow forests, on the
edge of which are the fresh prints of wild pig in the soft soil.

From this alluvial bay we passed into a similar one, by a very narrow
path between the river brink and the abrupt cliffs of a promontory of the
desert. It is called Dashtí Hadera, or “the plain of the graveyard,” and
is about two miles across. Here, too, though no traces of walls or mounds
were visible, the surface was coloured by the bits of red tile and glazed
pottery thickly strewed over the level ground. Beyond this we rose on to
the next promontory of the desert, and passed an extensive graveyard,
from which the plain below derives its name.

From this elevation, the flat surface of which is a coarse gravelly sand
bare of vegetation, we got a wide view of the desert, extending away to
the south, as far as the eye could reach, in an unbroken waste of sandy
undulations. We descended the farther side of this by a long sandy gully,
and entered on the Pulálak alluvium, a reach similar to those already
passed, but wider.

Here we passed the rains of the Pulálak huts, destroyed in the spring
of 1869 by the usurper Muhammad ’Azím Khán, when he took this route to
Persia, after his defeat at Ghazni in January of that year by pre-Amir
Sher ’Ali Khán. Pulálak is said to be an abbreviation of Pul ’Ali Khán
(the bridge or boundary of ’Ali Khán); but who ’Ali Khán was we could not
clearly learn.

The ex-Amir, Muhammad ’Azím Khán, halted here to recruit his band
of followers on the young growing crops and what supplies the place
afforded. But meanwhile Sharíf Khán, the Nahroe Baloch of Sistan, being
suspicious of ’Azím’s designs, suddenly marched from Burj Alam, surprised
’Azím, and put his followers to flight. He then received the fallen
Amir as a refugee, and assisted him as far as Mashhad on his way to the
Persian capital. The unfortunate Bárechí settlers, having been plundered
by each in turn, left the country to join their clansmen in Shorawak, and
their homesteads are now almost obliterated in a wilderness of jangal.

Beyond this, rounding some desert cliffs, we entered the alluvium of
Landi Bárechí, and camped on the high river bank close to the fort. There
is a good deal of cultivation here, and the level ground is dotted all
over with little sandheaps topped by clumps of tamarisk, or bushes of a
species of caroxylon and other salsolaceæ, which have been the cause of
their formation. We had not seen this appearance before, and the number
and size of these mounds attracted our attention. They are formed by
drift sand collecting about the roots of scattered bushes, and gradually,
as its quantity increases by fresh additions, raising them above the
general level of the plain. Some of these mounds are eight or ten feet
high, and of a blunt conical form. Landi is a small square fort, with a
turret at each angle, and around it are some two hundred wattle-and-dab
huts of the Bárechí Afghans. The river here flows in two or three streams
between long island strips of tamarisk jangal.

I shot a large blue-backed and black-headed seamew here. The gull fell
into the stream, and drifted to the opposite shore; but my servant, a
native of Kandahar, retrieved it, fording the river with the water up
to his neck. The stream was very still, and of clear blue colour. Here
also I got specimens of the black cormorant, a grebe, and a small diver
much resembling it, and another bird with similar features, but with a
serrated bill, hooked at the tip.

The weather was more or less cloudy all day. Towards sunset rain set in,
and continued in a steady soaking drizzle far into the night. The evening
temperature outside the tent was 54° Fah. By the aneroid, I calculated
the elevation of this place at 1950 feet above the sea.

At the last stage, one hundred and fifty of our cavalry escort were sent
back to Kandahar; and at this place we parted with our infantry escort
and their commandant, Colonel Táj Muhammad, Ghilzai, as we are soon to
enter Sistan territory, now in the possession of Persia.

I was sorry to lose the Colonel’s society, for he generally accompanied
me on my deviations from the beaten track, and proved himself a very
agreeable and intelligent companion. He obtained his promotion for
good service at the siege and capture of Herat in 1863 under the late
Amir Dost Muhammad Khán. He is one of the most intelligent and least
prejudiced Afghans of his class I have met with, and in our rambles
together gave me a fund of information regarding his people and the
portions of the country he had visited. Like all Afghans, he was a keen
sportsman, and with a common smooth-bore military musket, of the now
nearly extinct Brown Bess pattern, made some remarkably good “pot shots”
at eighty yards, considering his ammunition was home-made gunpowder, and
roughly-rolled pellets cut from pencils of lead.

He took leave of us with many sincere expressions of regret at our
separation, and committed us to “the protection of God” with all sorts
of good wishes for our welfare and prosperity. Towards those he treats
as his friends, the Afghan can make himself very agreeable, and in this
phase his character is of the most winning kind. His straightforward
friendliness, his independent bearing, and freedom from flattery and
obsequiousness, coupled with unbounded hospitality and unceasing
attention to the wants of his honoured guest, are sure to captivate
the stranger, and blind him to the fact that he has a dark side to his
character, and that a very trivial circumstance may serve to disclose it.

However, on this occasion, as the even tenor of our friendly relations
was happily unmarred by a single _contretemps_, it is not for me in this
place to enlarge on the proverbial fickleness of their character, nor to
disclose the wolf that lurks in the Afghan heart. It is enough to speak
of our friends as we find them; and in this light it is but fair to say,
nothing could have excelled the genuineness of the cordiality that marked
our conduct towards each other during our association on this march
through the province of Kandahar.

_28th February._—Landi Bárechí to Rúdbár, seventeen miles; route, W.S.W.
After clearing the Landi cultivation, our path led under some projecting
desert cliffs, on the most prominent of which are the ruins of a small
fort, which, from its elevation, must command a wide prospect of the
country on the east and west.

Beyond this, crossing the Rúdbár canal, we entered a wide gulf or reach
of level land. It is now a perfect wilderness; and in its centre, on a
low mound, are the ruins of Lát Calá, of the history of which nobody
could tell us anything. The surface around is strewed to redness with
bits of broken pottery, bricks, and glazed ware. Farther on, our path
still skirting the desert cliffs on our left, we passed the ruins of
Karbásak or Garshásap, and then veering towards the river on our right,
crossed a bare pebbly tract down to Rúdbár, where we camped.

The pebbles on this tract, which is formed by the sinking of the desert
in low undulations towards the river, are smooth, and close-set in the
clay soil. They are of a dark brown colour, and in the morning sunlight
shone with the lustre of frosted silver. Not a particle of vegetation was
seen in this tract, though beyond it, in the vicinity of Rúdbár, there is
a considerable extent of corn-fields, and a scattered growth of tamarisk
and other trees.




CHAPTER VII.


_29th February 1872._—Rúdbár consists of two small forts, about
half-a-mile apart, on the left bank of the Helmand, which here flows in
a full deep stream nearly two hundred yards wide. The channel, which is
about a mile wide, is fringed with a dense jangal of tamarisk and willow
trees bordered by belts of tall reeds.

Each of the forts is surrounded by its own collection of hut settlements
and corn-fields. One of them belongs to Imám Khán, who resides at
Chárburjak, on the right bank of the river, lower down its course; and
the other to Kamál Khán, who resides at Bandar, still farther west, on
its left bank. Both these Baloch chiefs are brothers of the late Khán,
Jahán Khán of Chakansúr. Their father was the late Ján Beg, son of
the celebrated Abdullah Khán, Sanjarání, whose history I have already
referred to. Their permanent location in this country only dates from
the early years of the present century, when, about the year 1810, they
were settled here by the Bárakzai king-maker, Fata Khán, as a makeweight
against his rival neighbours the Núrzais. This remarkable man, there is
little doubt, aimed at supplanting the tottering Saddozai dynasty on
the throne of Kabul in his own person. As Wazír of Sháh Mahmúd, he not
only brought in these Baloch colonists as a military element in support
of his cause on this frontier of the kingdom, and on the border of his
own patrimonial estate at Nádálí near Girishk, but appointed his own
brothers to the charge of the most important provincial governments of
the country.

His cruel death in 1818, after his successful repulse of the Persians
from Herat, though it cut short his own career, precipitated the downfall
of the Saddozais, and hastened the transfer of the government to his own
family; and thus was matured the scheme of his life, which the Fates had
decreed he himself should not accomplish.

Rúdbár is reckoned the limit of Garmsel to the west. Farther on in that
direction, the desert wastes on either side bounding the valley of the
Helmand gradually diverge from each other, and the country opens on to
the plain of Sistan. That portion of the Helmand valley called Garmsel,
or “the hot tract,” extends from Hazárjuft to Rúdbár, a distance of one
hundred and sixty miles from east to west. It is bounded on the north and
south by vast desert wastes, noted for their aridity and destructive heat
during six months of year. Towards the river they form high coast-lines
of sand-cliffs and bluffs of shingle, that confine its valley within
well-defined limits.

Owing to the peculiar arrangement of these lateral barriers, it is
difficult to assign a general width to the valley, nor is it easy to
describe it as a whole. The most notable features of the valley are
its division into two nearly equal parts by the Koh Khanishín, and the
transference of the alluvium from one bank to the other on either side of
it. Koh Khanishín itself stands an isolated mass of sharp, bare, black,
jagged peaks about five miles south of the river; but between it and the
stream, on which it abuts in tall cliffs, is interposed an elevated strip
of the sandy desert some sixteen or eighteen miles across, as already
described.

To the eastward of this point the alluvium is all on the left or south
bank, and presents a succession of wide bays or reaches, bounded in that
direction by corresponding sweeps or curves of the desert coast-line. On
the opposite side there is no alluvium whatever, the desert cliffs rising
straight from the river bank.

To the westward of Khanishín the alluvium is mostly on the right or north
bank for some fifty miles. It then shifts to the opposite bank for about
the same distance, and beyond Rúdbár lies on both sides of the river. The
width of the alluvium varies considerably between one and six miles in
the different successive reaches or bays.

The valley everywhere bears the marks of former prosperity and
population. Its soil is extremely fertile, and the command of water is
unlimited. It only requires a strong and just government to quickly
recover its lost prosperity, and to render it a fruitful garden, crowded
with towns and villages in unbroken succession all the way from Sistan to
Kandahar.

The present desolation and waste of this naturally fertile tract
intensify the aridity and heat of its climate. But with the increase of
cultivation and the growth of trees these defects of the climate would be
reduced to a minimum, and the Garmsel would then become habitable, which
in its present state it can hardly be considered to be.

Under a civilised government there is not a doubt the Garmsel would
soon recover its pristine prosperity, and then this part of the Helmand
valley would rival in the salubrity of its climate that of the Tigris at
Baghdad. It has been, as history records, and as its own silent memorials
abundantly testify, the seat of a thriving and populous people, and it
still possesses all but the main requisite for their restoration. When
the curse of anarchy and lawlessness is replaced in this region by the
blessings of peace and order; then Garmsel will once more become the seat
of prosperity and plenty. But when can one hope to see such a revolution
effected in this home of robbers and outlaws? The advancing civilisation
of the West must some day penetrate to this neglected corner, and the
children’s children of its present inhabitants may live to hear the
railway whistle echoing over their now desert wastes.

From Rúdbár we marched twenty-eight miles to Calá Ján Beg, and camped
in a tamarisk forest on the river bank. Our route was nearly due west
along the course of the river, and for the whole distance passed through
a quick succession of ruins, the remains of ancient forts, cities, and
canals.

The first ruins are those of Pushtí Gáo, close to Rúdbár. Amongst them
is traced the course of a great canal called Júe Garshasp. It is said in
ancient times to have irrigated the southern half of the Sistan plain,
but the accuracy of this statement is doubtful, for we failed to trace it
in our onward progress. The main channel is said to have run from Rúdbár
to Fákú under the name of Balbákhan, and to have given off numerous
branches on either side.

Between these ruins and the river bank a long strip of corn-fields
extends for seven or eight miles, and amongst them are scattered numerous
sand-drift hillocks, topped by clumps of tamarisk trees. Beyond this
cultivation the country between the desert cliffs and the river bank
presents a bare undulating surface closely set with smooth brown pebbles.
Here and there between the successive ruins are low ridges dotted with
tamarisk trees, now budding into foliage.

At about the sixteenth mile we came to the ruins surrounding Calá Mádari
Pádsháh, or “the fort of the king’s mother.” The fort itself is in fair
preservation, and appears to be of much more recent date than the ruins
that surround it. It is said to have been the residence of the mother
of Kai Khusran. At about eight or ten miles beyond it are the extensive
ruins of Kaikobád, a city named after its founder, the first of the
Kayáni sovereigns, and subsequently said to have been the capital of Kai
Khusran. Two tall dilapidated towers, at some three hundred yards apart,
are pointed out as the site of his palace, and the fenestered curtain
walls projecting from them towards each other give an outline of the
palatial court. These ruins are all of raw brick, and wear a very ancient
look, and prove the astonishing durability of the material.

I diverged from the route to explore the ruins, and on the uneven surface
covering decayed walls and the foundations of houses found fragments
of red brick, but saw none of the arched roofs so common in the more
modern ruins, or those of the Arab period. The palace extended quite to
the river bank, and across it on the opposite shore are the ruins of a
compact town round a central fort raised on a low artificial mound.

The ground about these ruins, which extend for five or six miles along
the river bank, is very uneven, being thrown into irregular ridges and
mounds by accumulations of sand upon the débris and foundations of walls,
&c. Owing to this superficial covering we saw no broken pottery or glazed
ware, as in the other ruins previously passed.

A few miles farther on we came to our camping-ground, an open strip of
sand in the midst of a belt of tamarisk forest, close to the river and
the Calá Ján Beg. This last is a ruined fort of much more recent date
than the ruins of Kaikobád, and derives its present name from the fact
of the Baloch chief, Ján Beg, having been on one occasion driven to seek
shelter within its protecting walls from the attacks of the Núrzais,
whose lands he had invaded. He seems to have made good his stand in this
country, for his family now occupy all the river tract from Rúdbár to
Chakansúr.

Ján Beg was the son of the Abdullah Khán, Sanjarání Baloch, previously
mentioned, and appears to have rivalled his father, whom he succeeded,
in the violence and lawlessness of his character, and the obstinacy
with which he contested the Núrzais for the possession of the pasture
tracts on this part of the Helmand course. He left three sons, named
Khán Jahán, Nunwáb, and Islám, who at the commencement of the present
century had spread themselves over the alluvium on the right bank of
the river from Ishkinak and Husenabad up to the vicinity of Chakansúr,
as _palás-nishín_, or “dwellers in booths.” The _palás_, or booth, is a
movable cabin formed of wickerwork walls, and thatched with reeds. Each
of these chiefs had a number of dependants or subjects, consisting of
various Baloch tribes. Their number amounted to several hundred families,
and they were collectively styled _tawcí_, or bondsmen. They cultivated
sufficient land for the supply of their immediate wants, and for the
rest, were mainly occupied in tending their herds of camels and flocks of
sheep, in plundering their neighbours, and in protecting themselves from
reprisals.

Their permanent location in fixed abodes in this country dates from
the time (1810) that the Wazír Fata Khán, Bárakzai, settled the three
brothers in their respective possessions, namely Khán Jahán at Chakansúr,
Nunwáb at Bandar Fákú, and Islám at Rúdbár. These places are now held
severally by their respective sons, Ibráhím, Kamál, and Imám, and they
constitute an important party in the political divisions of Sistan. They
hold all the lower course of the Helmand from Rúdbár to its termination
in the Hámún, and the country on its right bank up to Kaddah and
Khásh, formerly possessed by the Núrzais. They are a very turbulent
and predatory people, and habitually plunder their neighbours, and
often organise raids across the Persian frontier. The best commentary
on the life these people lead was afforded by the reply of a native to
some inquiries I made regarding the perilous adventure of M. Ferrier
in Garmsel with Assad Khán in 1845, so graphically described in the
twenty-seventh chapter of his “Caravan Journeys.” “Who cares to know,”
said he, “What befell a wandering Farangi in this country a century ago?
Adventures such as you describe are of daily occurrence here, and nobody
takes note of them except the actual participators.”

_1st March._—Calá Ján Beg to Chárburjak—fourteen miles; route, west by
north, over a bare gravelly desert, dotted here and there by the ruins
of forts and towns for the first half of the distance. Beyond this the
surface is undulating, and covered with brown pebbles that glistened with
a silver lustre in the morning sunlight. On the alluvium on the opposite
side of the river we observed the ruins of a large fortified town called
Ishkinak. Around it are the huts and fields of the Zabardast Balochi.
Westward of this are the cultivation and settlements of Hasenábád,
belonging to Imám Khán of Chárburjak. They extend in a long narrow strip
of corn-fields and huts between the river and the desert cliffs bounding
the alluvium to the northward.

At about half-way we were met by Sher Muhammad, son of Imám Khán. He was
attended by three or four horsemen, and came to excuse his father’s
meeting us on the plea of ill-health, but invited us on his part to
camp at his fort. We acquiesced in the arrangement, and he consequently
hurried back with the intelligence. Meanwhile we dismounted at a roadside
mound to breakfast and let the baggage get on ahead. From this elevation
we got a view of the top of the Sarhadd mountains, three days’ journey
across the desert due south. These mountains are described as well
watered from numerous springs, and the valleys as covered with groves of
the date-palm. To the west of them is the Baloch district of Ishpí, in
which rice is largely cultivated. Away to the distant west we saw, but
indistinctly, the Nihbandán range, running north and south, and closing
the Sistan basin in that direction.

From this we went on along the river bank, and camped on a sandy spot
in its wide channel, directly opposite Chárburjak, on its farther bank.
This is a square fort, with towers at each angle, and is a recent
construction, dating only from the time of Muhammad Razá, the Sárbandi
chief of Sihkoha. The river is here easily forded stirrup-deep at this
season. Soon after our arrival in camp Imám Khán sent us a feast cooked
in Baloch fashion, but as we had but recently breakfasted, we were not
yet prepared to appreciate the merits of the savoury-smelling _corma_ and
_kabáb_, nor to test the digestibility of the three different kinds of
bread loading the trays, viz., fritter, pancake, and muffin.

We here learned that Sir F. Goldsmid’s party had been in this vicinity
some days ago, and an Afghan priest describing their doings to the
Saggid, not knowing that his Pushto speech was understood by us, said in
a ludicrously plaintive voice, “Yes! the Farangis have been here, and
they have gone. They mounted to the top of every high mound, and put
telescopes to their eyes. They have seen all our country inside and out,
and made a map of it. God only knows what will become of us now!” A quiet
hint from his friends warned him, and he took care not to commit himself
further, and presently retired to the Saggid’s tent.

Later in the afternoon the Saggid came to our tent to consult with the
General as to the advisability of removing the couriers we had left
behind at the several stages through Garmsel, for the transmission of our
posts to and from India, as he had received reliable information that our
reception in Sistan would not be an agreeable one. He considered that
the safety of those men, in their isolated posts on the Sistan border,
would be jeopardised, and thought it best that they should be removed
to the more direct and safer route from Kandahar by Girishk to Farráh.
A messenger was consequently despatched with orders for the several
troopers to return to Kandahar, and by the same opportunity a letter was
sent to the governor of that city, instructing him of the new arrangement
made for our posts. Of the correctness of the Saggid’s views, and the
wisdom of his action in this matter, we later on had proof, as will be
mentioned in its proper place.

From Chárburjak letters were sent off to Mír Alam Khán, Persian governor
of Sistan, and to Mirzá Másúm Khán, Persian commissioner, announcing our
arrival, and intimating our proposed route to Burj Alam. At the same
time, owing to the disquieting reports we had received, it was decided to
send on our spare tents to the next stage at Bandar.

We ourselves followed next morning, but we had hardly cleared out of
camp, when one of our men returned to say that the Kárwánbáshí, Sálih
Muhammad, in charge of our _peshkhájurd_, or advanced camp, had been
stopped by an armed party from the Bandar fort, and ordered to return,
but the Kárwánbáshí refusing, the camels were halted till he could hear
from us. The messenger was sent back with orders for him to remain where
he was, and we proceeded. Presently after, another horseman was seen
approaching us in hot haste. He turned out to be a Persian, and came on
the part of Kamál Khán of Bandar, to apologise for the _contretemps_
regarding our baggage, and to assure us of a welcome reception. With the
national volubility and hyperbole, he almost persuaded us that we would
be treated as honoured guests, and be furnished freely with all our camp
required. It was not long, however, before our doubts were settled; for
though camped close under the fort, the chief neither came to see us, nor
showed us the smallest attention, whilst, on the contrary, supplies were
withheld on one pretence and another till late in the evening, and then
doled out sparely at their own price.

Our route from Chárburjak was nearly due west, and for the first few
miles crossed a sandy tract covered with dwarf mimosa and tamarisk. The
caked sand and clay on this tract was evidently a deposit from the river
floods. Between this and the desert cliffs is a strip of bare pebbly
ground. We followed this for some miles along the course of a very
ancient canal, which formerly, it is said, irrigated Trákú, and all the
country to the town of Zirrah. It is called Júe Karshasp or Garshasp, but
appears to be quite distinct from the canal of that name met at Rúdbár.
It is said to have been excavated by Garshasp, the grandson of Jamshed,
and ancestor of Rustam. It is of considerable size, and is furnished with
numerous cross-cuts opening into the main channel at a certain height,
and meant to carry off the overflow in seasons of the river flood.

Beyond this we passed the ruins of a small town, and then came to the
Bandar or Trákú canal, a recent cutting dating from the time of Muhammad
Razá, Sárbandi. We crossed it by a rustic bridge, and turning to the left
through some tamarisk jangal, rose on to the desert, which here projects
towards the river in a succession of tall cliffs.

From this high ground we got an extensive view of the Sistan plain and
the alluvium on the right bank of the river, which gradually widens to
the northward into the proportions of a plain. The Helmand is seen to
make a sudden turn at Bandar, and to flow north-west in a very tortuous
course. A drearier prospect one could not wish to see. To the south is
the great sandy desert, whose bare surface cuts the horizon as does the
ocean. To the west lies the wide plain of Sistan, a flat, bare, pebbly
tract, the uniformity of which is only broken by the ruins that here
and there stud the surface. To the northward winds the Helmand, in a
wide channel crowded with tamarisk forest. Beyond the river stretches
a widening strip of alluvium, the characteristic features of which are
its conspicuous ruins, backed by desert cliffs, which here too cut the
horizon in one vast line of unbroken waste. Descending from this elevated
strip of desert, we entered on the Sistan plain, and at a mile or so came
to Bandar Fort, where we camped. Bandar, for this country, is a strong
place. It consists of a fort within fortified walls, which are loopholed,
and furnished with bastions for a flank fire. The whole, place is very
neatly built, and appears to be of recent construction, the outer walls
particularly.

From this we marched fourteen miles, and camped in tamarisk jangal on
the river bank near a clay bridge called Daki Dela. After clearing the
corn-fields round the fort, our route was northerly along the river
course, by a beaten track on the verge of a wide, level, bare pebbly
plain, that extends many miles to the westward, without any sign of
habitation or cultivation.

On the opposite side of the river, the alluvium up to the desert cliffs
appears entirely deserted, and for some miles is covered with the ruins
of an extensive city called Mír. At our camp the river flows in two
streams, divided by a long island strip of tamarisk jangal. Both streams
were forded by our horsemen to collect the _kerta_ (a species of cyperus)
grass as fodder for our cattle. It grows here in abundance, and is the
principal fodder of the cattle in this country.

During the afternoon, Shamsuddín Khán, the son of Sardár Ahmad Khán of
Lásh, arrived in camp. He is a fine young man, and, as one result of his
visit to India in 1869 (he was in attendance on the Amir Sher Ali Khán
when he went to Amballah for his conference with Lord Mayo), has adopted
the European style of dress. The Saggid, alluding to documents, &c.,
for the business on hand, asked him if he had come fully prepared. “Oh,
yes,” said the young chief eagerly, his eyes brightening at the query;
“we are all ready.” “How do you mean?” inquired the Saggid, doubtful
from his manner as to whether he had been properly understood. “We
have sharp swords, and keep our powder dry,” was the unexpected reply.
The several different tribes occupying this country have been so long
at enmity against each other, that they never think of moving across
their respective borders unless provided to meet all contingencies,
and consequently, in the present state of excitement amongst them, his
question elicited the most natural reply.

Whilst our visitors were with us, the Saggid’s servant reported the
arrival of a messenger from Kamál Khán at Bandar. The Saggid went out
to see him, and presently returned with the packet of letters we had
despatched for India by courier from Calá Ján Beg, and the following
story:—Our courier had been attacked and plundered by robbers beyond
Rúdbár. They took his horse and arms from him, but did him no personal
injury. He walked back with the packet committed to his charge tied round
his waist under the clothes, and on arrival at Bandar, was so foot-sore
and fatigued that he could not come on. Under these circumstances he
revealed himself to Kamál Khán, and made the packet over to him for
transmission to us. Such was the story, and we considered ourselves
fortunate in the restoration of the packet; for at Chárburjak we were
informed that Sir F. Goldsmid had left letters to await General Pollock’s
arrival, but that the Persian official there had sent them to the Persian
Governor at Nasírabad. That the letters had been left we subsequently
satisfied ourselves, but as to what became of them we could never learn.

From Daki Dela we marched twelve miles, and camped on the river bank at a
place called Ghabri Hájí, from the tomb of some pilgrim in the vicinity.
Our route was nearly due north, across a continuation of the plain
traversed yesterday. At about half-way we came abreast of the ruins of
Calá Fath or Calá Pat, on the opposite side of the river, and a little
farther on we crossed the track of a very ancient canal, called Yakháb.
It starts from the river below the ruins, and strikes across the plain
in a westerly direction. The ruins of Calá Fath are very extensive,
and present some very large buildings, besides the lofty citadel which
occupies the summit of an artificial mound in their midst. The ruins
extend over several miles of country, and are backed by the cliffs of
the Khásh desert. They are mostly of clay and raw brick, but red bricks
of a large size are also said to be found amongst them. The city was the
capital of the last of the Kayáni kings, and is said to have been finally
sacked and dismantled by Nadír Sháh about a century and a half ago. The
citadel has been recently repaired, and is now garrisoned by a party of
Persian troops, but there is no cultivation, nor other habitation in the
vicinity. It is merely held as a military outpost, and its occupation as
such only dates from the last month.

A little beyond this, emerging from a belt of tamarisk bordering the
river, a party of fifty or sixty horsemen, all gaily dressed, and
bristling with armour of sorts, came across the plain towards us. The
Saggid forestalled our inquiry by the intimation that they were some
Afghan chiefs who were come to welcome us. With this satisfactory
assurance we proceeded, and presently, arrived at a few paces from each
other, all by common consent dismounted simultaneously. Then followed a
very confused and promiscuous greeting, with an amount of cordiality and
friendship quite unlooked for, considering we were perfect strangers. Our
friends seemed to act on the principle of “shaking a hand wherever they
saw one,” and, doubtless, under opposite conditions, would be equally
ready as the proverbial Irishman to “hit a head wherever they saw one.”
At all events, from their martial array, they were quite prepared to act
on a contingency rendering such a measure necessary.

We were no sooner dismounted than we were enveloped in a crowd of Afghans
and Balochi, welcoming anybody and everybody in their own rough and
homely fashion. One seized my hand with a “_Jor hastí?_” (“Are you well?”
or, “How d’ye do?”), but before I could reply it was grabbed by another
with a similar interrogative; from him it was snatched by a third, who
was quickly deprived of its possession, and cut short in his “_Kúsh
ámadíd_” (“You are welcome,” or, “Glad to see you”) by a burly fellow
elbowing his way through the crowd with great bustle and roughness. He
merely gave a tug and a toss, with “_Saggid kúm dai?_” (“Which is the
Saggid?”), and passed on; and I hurried after him, glad to escape from my
surroundings—a true case of “save me from my friends.”

The Saggid presently restored order, and introduced us to Sardár Ahmad
Khán, Isháczai Afghan, the lord of Lásh; and Sardár Ibráhím Khán,
Sanjarání Baloch, the lord of Chakansúr or Chaknásúr; and Mardán Khán,
Núrzai Afghan of Farráh, formerly Yár Muhammad’s agent in Sistan. The
usual compliments were then quickly exchanged, and mounting, we proceeded
on our way together. Presently we struck the river bank, and following
its course opposite a long island strip for a mile or two, camped on the
verge of the hard gravelly desert plain, close to a belt of tamarisk
jangal.

In the afternoon Sardár Ibráhím Khán called on the General, and took
his leave of us, as he crosses the river to be amongst his own people
at night. He is a thorough barbarian, slovenly in dress, loud in voice,
and rough in manner. He has coarse repulsive features, and a very
unhealthy sallow complexion, the results of a long life of dissipation
and debauchery. His coming out to meet us is, we are told, a great
compliment, for he is very proud of his independence, and has never done
as much honour to any Afghan king or other potentate. He is very popular
amongst his people on account of his liberality and courage, but is said
to be subject to fits of insanity, brought on by the excessive abuse of
_charras_, or the resin of Indian hemp, an intoxicating drug which is a
very fruitful source of madness in India.

On these occasions he shuts himself up in a tower of his fort with one of
his wives and a couple of African slave boys for a week at a time, his
only guards being a number of savage dogs he keeps for hunting the wild
boar. His son, Khán Jahán Khán, now has the management of his affairs, as
the father’s fits of dissipation quite unfit him for the conduct of his
business. The immense quantities of snuff he uses quite muddle his brains
in the intervals when they are not deprived of intelligence by drugs.
We did not discover until after he had left us that he was the actual
murderer of the unfortunate Dr Forbes when he was his guest in 1842.

I learned from an eye-witness, now in the service of the chief of Lásh
(whose mother is the murderer’s sister), that the murder was quite
unpremeditated, and was committed in a freak of intoxication. It appears
that on the eve of the melancholy occurrence a party had been arranged
for shooting wild-fowl on the lake in the morning. The host and murderer,
with a party of attendants, accompanied their guest to the lake, and all
appeared in very good spirits and on the best terms. The wild-fowl were
found too far from the shore, and the _tútín_, or bulrush float used by
the fowlers, was brought forward to carry Dr Forbes nearer to the game.
Gun in hand, says my informant, the confiding stranger took his seat on
this raft, and was being poled out into the clear water by one of the
attendants. When only a few yards from the shore, the murderer and his
victim were conversing merrily; and the latter, laughing, observed that
the unsteady motion of his little bark did not promise him a successful
bag. The former, now suddenly changing his tone, took his loaded rifle
from an attendant, and pointing it at Dr Forbes, laughingly exclaimed
he would make a very good target. The doctor, not expecting any foul
play, laughed, and said no doubt he would. At this moment the fatal
trigger was pulled, and the unfortunate gentleman rolled into the water,
shot through the heart. Seeing what he had done, the murderer, Ibráhím
Khán, is described as having burst into a paroxysm of insane laughter
at this tragic conclusion of the stranger’s career. His body was soon
after recovered from the water, and the valuables removed from it. The
corpse was then decently interred on the river bank, and no indignity was
perpetrated upon it, as has been stated by some parties.

The murderer, it appears, had been in a more or less intoxicated state
for some days previously, and, at the time he committed the crime, was
under the influence of _charras_ or _bhang_. Such is the account I
received; and though it in no way exculpates the criminal, it divests the
tragedy of much of the horrors the commonly current accounts had coloured
it with.

The weather at this stage was altogether different from any we previously
or subsequently experienced in this country. During the day the sky was
overcast with clouds, and the air was still and oppressive. Towards
sunset a strong south wind set in, and at nightfall increased to a gale
for an hour or so. On its subsidence the atmosphere became close, warm,
and oppressive, and a host of musquitoes and midges invaded our tents. In
the flood season they are said to be a perfect plague in the vicinity of
the river and the shores of the lake.

Our next stage from this was nineteen miles to Burj ’Alam. The route,
at first northerly along the river course, gradually diverged from it
to north-west by a beaten track across a bare pebbly tract. The country
presents nothing worthy of note, except the wide extent of ruins on the
opposite side of the river during the first few miles out from camp.
Beyond them to the east the prospect is intercepted by the high coast of
desert cliffs, and in the opposite direction, across the wide plain to
the west, is bounded by the Nihbandán range of hills, which to the south
are connected with the Sarhadd mountains, and to the north with those of
Farráh.

Our new friends, Sardár Ahmad Khán and Mardán Khán, with their respective
followers, accompanied us on the march. The former was handsomely dressed
in the Afghan costume, and mounted on a richly caparisoned Persian horse.
He joined us shortly after we had started, and galloping up from the
rear, saluted the General with a very well pronounced “Good morning,” and
merrily observed that he had learned the expression from Conolly more
than thirty years ago. He spoke in high terms of that officer’s merits,
and said their friendship, when he was here, was like that of brothers.

He recounted various excursions he had made in Sistan with Captain
Conolly and Sergeant Cameron, and expressed his pleasure in again making
the acquaintance of Englishmen after so long an interval. He said he
viewed us in the light of brothers, and hoped we would consider him
in the same relation, and in token of this new bond of brotherhood,
he stretched out his arm and shook hands with us. His manner is very
quiet, and with somewhat of the polish of the Persian about it, and was
strangely in contrast with that of his countryman, Mardán Khán, who,
with the characteristic roughness of the Afghan soldier, was loud and
blustering in his manner, and, though thoroughly well disposed, never
hesitated to “call a spade a spade,” regardless of time and place.

This latter character was in the service of Prince Kamrán at Herat at the
time that Major Todd was political officer there. He was subsequently
Yár Muhammad’s revenue collector for Sistan, and had his headquarters
at Kimak, where he married a Sistani lady, who now resides at his home
near Farráh. Later, he took service with the Amir Dost Muhammad, and was
appointed commandant of a party of Farráh irregular horse, a post he
still holds under the Amir Sher ’Ali. He bears the character of being a
brave and successful soldier, and is said to have been engaged in most
of the fights on this frontier during the past half-century, and carries
the scars of some of them on his body. Though now an old man, he is
remarkably active, and rules his men with a well-dreaded sternness.

We found both our companions incredibly ignorant of everything outside
their own country and its immediate politics, and even with these they
were not so well acquainted as one would expect them to be. Their
knowledge of geography was of the scantiest; of history they knew simply
nothing; whilst of European politics their ideas were of the haziest
kind. “Who are these Prúss who have defeated the French?” said Mardán
Khán. “Outside Islám we only know of three nations to the west—the
English, French, and Russians. But now people talk of the Prúss: who are
they?—where do they come from? They must be a great nation if it is true
they have defeated the French.”

Having been enlightened on these points as much as he was capable of
being enlightened, he exclaimed with provoking simplicity, “I see! they
are neighbours of the Rúss. Of course they are the same nation.”—“Not
at all,” said I in explanation. “Then they are brothers, for their
names are evidently of one stock.” It was useless arguing the point, for
any further explanation would only have been received with suspicious
incredulity, so the conversation was turned. “But tell me,” said my
companion confidingly, still hankering after the old topic, “is it true
that there is such a country as _Yangi dunyá_?” (the New World). “There
is no doubt about it; we call it America,” said I. “And is it true that
they have rebelled against your government, and set up an independent
government of their own?”—“That’s an old story now,” I replied. “Then it
is true. Where do they live? Is their country near Farangistan?”—“You
would not understand if I told you,” said I, tiring of the interrogation;
“their country is straight under our feet on the other side of the
world.” “_Lá hanla!_” (“No!”) exclaimed my astonished friend, opening
his eyes to the widest with a stare of disbelief. Here, glad of the
opportunity, I galloped off to the General’s party, which had reined up a
little in advance to look around for a site to breakfast on.

Some water-worn banks a little to the right of our route were selected.
From them we looked down on a beautifully clear blue sheet of water in a
deserted channel of the Helmand delta. It was evidently very shallow, for
cranes found a footing far from the shore, and pelicans along its edge
moodily watched the approach of unwary fish. This channel is upwards of
a mile wide, and its banks, which consist of firm clay some sixty feet
high, are marked by successive rows of water-lines, at no great height
above the present pool, thus indicating that the channel carries a flood
at certain seasons. The banks on both sides are bare of vegetation, and
are much furrowed and worn by surface drainage.

We had come twelve miles before we halted, and proceeded four more before
we descended by a gently sloping gully into a wide circular basin, which
formerly had formed a back-water in connection with the deserted channel
above mentioned, but which now presented a dry, fissured, and caked
surface of bare clay, set around by water-marks rising in lines one above
the other to a height of some twenty feet.

We went across this basin towards a clay bluff projecting on to it. As
we approached near it a large party of horsemen, much to our surprise,
suddenly shot out from behind its cover towards us, and reined up to
await our arrival. They formed the _isticbál_ party sent out by Sharíf
Khán, Nahroe Baloch, to meet and conduct us to his fort of Burj ’Alam.

The party was headed by his son ’Ali Muhammad, a handsome youth dressed
and shaved in the Persian fashion, and consisted of about sixty horsemen,
all armed with rifles slung at their backs. It was the first we had seen
of the Persians, for most of the party belonged to that nation, and
they certainly looked a fine body of men, and were well mounted. The
ceremony was very well arranged, and the sudden dash forward from their
concealment was managed with good effect, as it was meant to do.

As we came up, ’Ali Muhammad moved his horse forward, and, with a slight
inclination of the body said, “_Ahwál shuma?_” (“How do you do?”). The
greeting was responded to in the same manner and language, and then both
parties, mingling into one, proceeded without further ceremony or delay.

Passing over a ridge of bare pebbly ground, from which Kimak Fort was
seen four miles to the north-east, we descended into a great hollow,
level with that just left behind. It extends for many miles to the
south-west as a low-lying plain, or lacustrine hollow, bordered to the
south by a coast-line of high clay banks. This is the Hámún of Sistan:
the name in Persian signifies a level desert plain. We crossed it in a
northerly direction, and passing an extensive graveyard, a little farther
on came to our camp, pitched close under the walls of Burj ’Alam.

The graveyard occupies the base and slopes of a clay ridge on the left of
our path, and dates only from the commencement of the present century.
A couple of domed mausolea on the crest of the ridge mark the tombs of
’Alam Khán, the founder of the Nahroe colony in Sistan, and of his son,
Dost Muhammad, the brother of the present chief, Sharíf Khán. The other
graves are different from any we have hitherto seen. Over each grave is
built an oblong platform or block, lying north and south. The material
is raw brick neatly plastered with clay, and on the upper surface is the
figure of a coffin. The dimensions of these structures are apparently
uniformly six feet by three high, and two and a half wide. They appeared
carefully kept, and gave the cemetery a neat look.

This is the first village we have come to in Sistan proper, which it
seems is limited to a very small area. We were much surprised, on leaving
camp this morning, to hear our companions say that we should enter Sistan
by-and-by, being under the impression that we had already done so on
passing beyond Rúdbár. In reality however—so we are told—we only entered
Sistan to-day where the _isticbál_ of Sharíf Khán met us; the country
beyond to the south being called, on the east Trákú, and on the west
Zirrah, which sinks rapidly to the south. In this restricted sense Sistan
is a very small country, and only comprises the low-lying lacustrine
basin, or Hámún, that lies between the Naizár on the north and the
cliffs of the Zirrah desert on the south, the delta of the Helmand on the
east, and the Sarshela ravine on the west.

During the afternoon, Sharíf Khán, the chief of the Nahroe Baloch settled
in Sistan, paid us a visit. He is a tall, well-built, handsome man, and
was richly dressed in the Afghan fashion. His manners are polished for
Baloch, the result evidently of his residence at Tehran, where he has
spent several years as a political prisoner or _détenu_. He is now,
under the rule of the Persians, the most important, though by no means
the most influential, chief in the country. In deference to his Persian
masters he has adopted the Shia doctrine, and most of the tribe have in
this particular followed the lead of their chief. He has also married his
daughter to Ali Akbar, the eldest son of Hashmat-ul-Mulk Mír ’Alam Khán,
the Persian governor of Sistan. The Nahroe Baloch, of whom Sharíf Khán is
the present representative, are comparatively modern settlers in Sistan.
About the beginning of the present century, the Kayáni chief Bahrám Khán,
being pressed by the Sanjarání Baloch on the one side, and the Sárbandi
and Shahrki on the other, called in the aid of the Nahroe Baloch under
their chief ’Alam Khán, and settled them on the south borders of Sistan
as a check upon the encroachments of the others.

’Alam Khán was the son of Mirzá Khán, chief of a shepherd tribe dwelling
in the Nahroe hills north of Bampúr. He came into Sistan with no great
gathering, and was granted the lands of Gód, Calá Nan, Burj ’Alam
(restored from ruins and named after himself), and two or three other
villages, as military fiefs. ’Alam Khán, on the subsequent decline of
the Kayáni family, declared his independence, and on his death was
succeeded by his son, Dost Muhammad. This latter died in 1857, and was
succeeded by his brother, Sharíf, the present chief. They were all Sunni
Muhammadans, and exercised a subordinate influence on the politics of the
country till the arrival of the Persians. But now, since their occupation
of the country, they have become Shia Muhammadans, and attained to the
foremost importance in the country, though numerically they are the
weakest party.

Burj ’Alam is a walled town built on the slope of a high clay bank that
here bounds the hollow to the northward. The walls are crenated and
loopholed, but, from the situation of the town, the houses in the upper
part are commanded over the walls from the low ground to the east. The
houses are crowded together in a confused jumble of domed huts, and are
overlooked by the citadel, built on an eminence at the north-west angle.
The town is said to shelter four hundred families.

_6th March._—Burj ’Alam to Wásilán, six miles. After clearing the walled
vineyards and corn-fields about our camp, we came to a great canal
flowing westward, and in parts overflowing, between raised banks at
twelve or fourteen feet above the level of the plain. We followed it a
short distance, and then turned to the north-east, over a promontory
of high clay banks covered with pebbles similar to those seen in the
desert, and again descending to the low land, picked our way amongst
bogs and pools to the banks of the canal at Kimak, half-way on the
march. The pools, formed by overflowings from the canal, were swarming
with all sorts of wild-fowl. Disturbed at their busy morning meal by our
approach, they rose in dense clouds that darkened the sky, and, whirling
overhead in rapid flights, filled the air with an uproar of discordant
sounds, heard far above the shouts, curses, and imprecations of our
camp-followers, as they floundered and struggled in the passage of the
canal.

We ourselves were ferried across on the native _tútín_, to a narrow
landing directly under the walls of the Kimak fort, at a spot where, for
a short distance, the stream flows flush with the plain, though both
above and below it it flows between raised banks considerably higher
than the general level of the surface. The _tútín_ is a very clumsy
raft or float, constructed of bulrushes bound together in bundles, and
strengthened by tamarisk stakes. It derives its name from the _tút_, or
rush, of which it is made, and is about eight feet long by three wide,
and one and a half deep. The ends of the bundles of rushes are at one
end coiled over and pegged to the upper surface by long wooden pins, and
the body of the raft is strengthened by cross ribs of tamarisk above and
below, fastened together through its substance by cords passing between
the bundles, which are arranged lengthways, whilst the form is secured by
long tamarisk staves fastened at the sides, as is shown in the annexed
sketch.

[Illustration]

There were only two of these rafts at the ferry. Ourselves and boxes were
ferried across on them on successive trips, and the rest of our camp and
escort forded the stream a little lower down, where the water reached to
the necks of the men. Each raft could only accommodate two passengers
and two small boxes, with one man to pole it across the stream. We
each sat upon a box, and the weight of all sunk the raft to the level
of the water. We were obliged to sit perfectly still in the centre to
prevent a capsize, a catastrophe that was more than once threatened in
our short transit by the clumsy movements of the wherryman with his pole.
After landing on the other side, we passed round the walls of Kimak, and
through some small orchards and vineyards to the banks of the canal a
little farther up, where we halted to watch the passage of our baggage
and escort.

The whole of our party comprised about a hundred and thirty horsemen,
sixty or seventy camels, more than half that number of mules and
baggage-ponies, and about thirty footmen. The camp equipage was more
or less wetted, and several mishaps occurred, but no serious loss or
accident; and in three hours and a half the whole of our party were
safely across the Kohak canal, or, as it is here called, Mádariáb (mother
of the water). Where we crossed, the canal is between thirty and forty
yards wide; it is said to have an average depth of nine feet here, and is
only fordable in two or three places. The ford at Kimak was very narrow,
and most of the mishaps that occurred were owing to the cattle getting
off the direct line into deep water.

The Kohak canal, as its name implies, is taken off the Helmand above a
weir thrown across the river at that place. In reality it drains the
river into its own channel to the extent of diverting its stream, for
very little, at this season, escapes over the river, and the river bed
beyond it is a mere succession of stagnant pools, that cease far short of
reaching the pool, or lake marsh, into which the Helmand in its ordinary
course disembogues. The canal traverses the plain westward, and gives
off some large branches, which are unfordable. From these an intricate
network of smaller canals branch off, and ramify the whole country south
of the Naizár, fertilising it to an extraordinary degree.

Kimak is a small village enclosed within crenated and loopholed
walls, and protected by a citadel at the south-west corner. It is the
residence of Sherdil Khán, the brother of Sharíf Khán of Burj ’Alam,
and is now held by a party of Persian soldiers. They certainly seem to
have established themselves here pretty strongly, for I observed that
they thrashed the people very freely right and left, with an amount of
submission on their part I was not prepared to see. The fact is, Persian
rule is so stern, and their punishments so severe and so horribly cruel,
that an unusual amount of oppression and violence are endured by the
serfs before they are goaded into resistance.

From Kimak, leaving the ridge of clay mounds called Atashgáh half a mile
to our left, we proceeded north-eastwards, and at three miles camped at
Wásilán, a small village, around which are some Baloch huts. Our route
all the way led over corn-fields flooded with water, and we had to pick a
path to avoid the deep mud.

Due north of our route the Koh Khojah hill appeared on the horizon, an
isolated block of black rock of no great height. The general aspect of
the country is a vast gently undulating plain, diversified here and there
by low sandhills, and bounded towards the east by high desert cliffs,
that now and again come into view.

The authorities at Wásilán made themselves as disagreeable to us as they
could short of actual violence. They not only would not provide our
camp with supplies themselves, but prohibited the people from selling
to us, and went so far as to turn back some loads of fodder already
purchased and being brought to camp by some of our camp-followers. The
Saggid’s Afghans could not brook this conduct on the part of those who
stood in the position of hosts towards us, and a scuffle ensued between
them and some of the village people. The occurrence was at once seized
upon by the opposite party as a subject of complaint; but the Saggid,
to cut the matter short, had his four followers soundly flogged on the
spot, and returned the loads of straw purchased in the village. Our
cattle for the day were put on short rations, eked out with what they
could pick up on the plain. This is our disagreeable recollection of
Wásilán. A more agreeable remembrance is kept alive by the appropriate
name of the place, which signifies in Arabic “the meeters.” It was
here we had the pleasure of meeting Major Ewan Bean Smith, who arrived
towards the close of the day from Sir F. Goldsmid’s camp at Banjár, and
learning of the safety and welfare of their party; for though letters
had been passing between our camps, we had on more than one occasion
heard disquieting rumours concerning the security of our friends. So we
met at last, notwithstanding the “rude bar” in our progress through the
Garmsel; and, to turn from the serious to the frivolous, gained full
credit for what had been unanimously conceded as the most telling of the
riddles exchanged between the two camps, the one in question having been
propounded to explain the cause of delay in our arrival in Sistan.[2]

Next day we marched twelve miles to Nasírabad, and camped on the plain
north-west of the fort. Our route was northerly, over a level country,
more or less extensively cultivated, and freely irrigated by numerous
water-cuts. The soil is light and sandy, and is described as extremely
fertile in the production of cereals and melons. In some parts the land
seemed to have received a deposit from river floods.

At about midway on the march we crossed a strip of waste land, the
surface of which presented a very remarkable appearance from the action
of a high wind that prevails here at certain seasons. The soil, which
was a compact sand, had been scooped into long wind-swept refts, all
from north-west to south-east. The edges of these were as clean and
sharp as if they had been dressed with a chisel, and on passing the
hand across them, left the conviction that they could inflict an ugly
wound on the shins of the unwary traveller stumbling against them. A few
tamarisk bushes dotted the surface here and there, with small patches of
camel-thorn and saltwort, and by their bend and direction of branches
evidenced the violence and persistence of the wind that had so cut the
surface into striæ.

Beyond this we passed some ruins of villages and a miserable hamlet
called Kandúrak. It is only interesting in a historical point of view
as being the scene of a desperate fight and terrible slaughter of the
Shahrki rebels in the time of Sháh Tymúr, Durrani. Towards the close
of Sháh Ahmad’s reign, the Shahrki tribe, in the perpetual revolutions
characterising the normal condition of this province during centuries
past, had, by continual encroachments on the lands of their neighbours
the Kayáni, contrived to gain the ascendancy in the politics of the
country, and Sháh Tymúr, on succeeding to the throne of Afghanistan, just
a century ago, appointed their chief, Mír Beg, governor of the province.
Mír Beg, Shahrki, was killed about the year 1777 in a petty fight against
the Núrzais at Rúdbár, and the government of Sistan was then restored to
the hereditary chief, Malik Bahrám, in subordination to Tymúr’s governor
of Lásh, an Afghan noble named Zamán Khán, Popalzai. This joint authority
failed in its purpose, and the Shahrki, rebelling against the Kayáni,
defied the authority of the king. Tymúr consequently sent a force of
Afghans under Barkhurdár Khán, Achakzai, to reduce them to subjection.
This he did by the victories of Kandúrak and Mykhána, the ferocity and
slaughter attending which are commemorated in the popular songs of the
country to the present day.

Farther on from Kandúrak, at about a mile from Nasírabad, we were met by
an _isticbál_ party of sixty horsemen, headed by Hájí Asad Khán, before
whom were led a couple of _yadak_, or fully caparisoned horses. He holds
the rank of _yúzbáshí_ or captain in the service of the Prince-Governor
of Khorassan, by whom he has been deputed to this country expressly for
the purpose of carrying back a reliable account of the real state of
affairs here. Major Smith introduced us successively, and the Yúzbáshí
on each occasion nearly bowed himself over the horse’s side. There was
a momentary pause, and then the Persian, with the national facility,
freed himself of some choicely-expressed commonplaces, which, under
the circumstances, would have been better unsaid, for they sounded so
much like irony. He hoped we had made a pleasant journey and found all
we required, when he well knew we had not. He hoped we should find
everything to our comfort and satisfaction, when he was certain we should
not; and so on. The ceremony of introduction over, we went on together
in a mixed crowd to the south face of the fort, and then along the side
of its ditch up the west face to our camp, pitched on the plain a few
hundred yards beyond the north-west corner of the citadel.

In the course of the afternoon, Khán Baba Khán, Hazárah of Herat, now
in the service of the Amir of Ghazn, the Persian governor of this
country, called for _hálpursí_ (a ceremonial visit to inquire of our
health and welfare). He is a stout middle-aged man, with decided Tátár
cast of features, but, contrary to the type, has a long bushy beard and
mustaches. His manner was cold and impassible, and he performed his part
of the ceremony in a thoroughly perfunctory manner.

Aware, probably, that we were unprepared to receive his visit with the
requisites demanded by Persian etiquette, he was accompanied by some
attendants bearing his _calyán_ or smoking apparatus, and the essentials
for brewing tea. A slight hint paved the way to their introduction, and
our visitor puffed and coughed, and coughed and puffed, until it was time
for him to depart. From his stoutness of body, the effort appeared more
laborious than any pleasure the habit could afford him, for he seemed
sometimes almost to lose his breath, whilst beads of perspiration stood
upon his forehead. I had never before nor since seen the _calyán_ produce
such marked effects.

His visit was followed by that of the son of the Persian Commissioner,
Sartipiaurval Mirzá Máctúm Khán, on a similar errand. He was a
pale-faced, beardless youth, of timid and reserved manner, but
intelligent conversation. With him again we sipped tea according to rule,
and in due course he took his leave, and, following his predecessor, went
from our tent to visit the Afghan Commissioner. After their departure, a
servant of the Amir of Ghazn arrived with a few oranges and some lumps of
sugar on the part of his master, and he was followed by another bringing
back our requisition for supplies on payment for the same, with a verbal
request that a detailed list of our party and each item required might
be submitted. This was done, and meanwhile our cattle and followers
remained without food all day. Late in the evening, after we had retired
to rest, another messenger arrived with an intimation that the supplies
were ready for issue inside the fort; but it was too late to get more
than a modicum of fodder for the cattle.

Nasírabad, under the Persian rule, has been established as the capital
of Sistan. It is the residence of Mír Alam Khán, chief of Ghazn, who has
been appointed the Persian governor, with the title of Hashmat-ul-Mulk,
and is the headquarters of the Persian authority in this country. Its
garrison is stated at eight hundred _sarbáz_ or Persian infantry, two
hundred horse, and eight guns. The town or _shahr_ (city), as it is here
called, is merely the original village of Nasírabad enclosed within
fortified walls surrounded by a ditch. They have evidently been very
recently constructed, and are meant more for show than for real defence.
Adjoining the north-west corner of the town, but distinct from it, is
the citadel, which is a strongly-built mud structure, with eight turret
bastions on each face, and a covered way between the ditch and glacis.
The curtains between the bastions are high, loopholed, and crenated.

Near the north-west angle of the citadel, on the verge of the ditch, and
at no distance from our camp, is one of these windmills so common in and
so peculiar to this country. It was evidently out of repair, and the
mournful creaking of its flanges, as they were revolved by the midnight
breeze, effectually deprived us of sleep during the hours of darkness.
This sort of windmill, or _ásyáe báb_, as it is called, is scientifically
though very roughly constructed, in adaptation to the prevalent wind in
this region.

It consists of two parallel mud walls, running north and south; one of
these, usually the eastern wall, is curved round so as to nearly close
the northern face, leaving only a gap three or four feet wide between
it and the opposite wall; the southern face, on the contrary, is left
completely open. In the centre, on the ground between these walls, are
placed the millstones; the upper one working on a pivot fixed in the
centre of the lower one by means of an upright pole fixed in its upper
surface, and playing above through a hole in a great beam that rests
transversely on the tops of the side walls. This upright pole or mast
is furnished with wings or paddles, made of light frames of wood fixed
perpendicularly, and along their outer halves covered with bands of reed
matting or wickerwork, which form flanges to catch the wind and turn the
mill. The following horizontal and vertical sections will illustrate the
plan of these mills.

[Illustration: Horizontal Section.]

[Illustration: Vertical Section.]

The wind enters at A, marked in the horizontal section, and turning the
flange opposite, brings round the next, and so on, and escapes at the
wide southern opening. In some parts of the country these mills are
adapted to work horizontally for the raising of water, but we did not see
any of these.

The weather had been cloudy throughout the day, and at night a cold
north-west wind set in, and the thermometer sunk from 78° Fah. at three
P.M. to 40° Fah. at daybreak. The elevation of Nasírabad is about 1520
feet above the sea.




CHAPTER VIII.


_8th March._—Nasírabad to Banjár, six miles, and halt two days. After
passing along the north face of the fort, our route went north-east
across a jangal of tamarisk, more or less flooded by overflowings from
a great canal, which we crossed twice by rustic bridges thrown across
projecting piers formed of alternate layers of clay and fagots. The
pools between which we picked our path were swarming with wild-fowl of
all sorts. The ground of the road was so soft and deep in mud that it
was impossible to get within range of them, and we thus lost several
specimens that were quite unknown to us.

Beyond this strip of flooded jangal we turned eastward across an open
plain towards Sir F. Goldsmid’s camp, pitched close to the south of the
village of Banjár, and at half a mile or so from the tents were met by
an _isticbál_ sent out _more Persico_ from the camp. It was headed by
Major E. B. Smith (who came on yesterday from Nasírabad), preceded by
two led horses, or _yadak_, and comprised the several members of Sir F.
Goldsmid’s party, namely, Major Lovett, R.E., and Messrs Thomas, Bowyer,
and Rozario, supported by a party of thirty or forty of the Mission
servants mounted for the occasion. With them we proceeded to the camp,
and, pending the arrival of our tents, alighted under the Union Jack
flying from a movable flagstaff, guarded by a few Persian sentries, in
front of the principal tent, where we were received by Sir F. Goldsmid.

Bordering the west of our camp is a great sheet of water, crowded with
vast numbers of water-fowl of all sorts. It is formed by the overflow of
a great canal that branches off from the Kohak Rúd, or Mádariáb (which
we crossed at Kimak), and passing Banjár, goes on to Jalálabad, and
irrigates the country north of the Atashgáh ridge near Kimak.

Due west of our camp, standing out very distinctly on the plain, at
twenty miles off, is the Koh Khojah. It is an isolated black block with a
flattened summit. Major Lovett, who has visited it, tells me it is about
four hundred feet above the level of the plain, and of a hard crystalline
black rock resembling basalt. The rock is divided into two main portions
by a central gorge, and there are many ruins of mud and stone on its
summit, and also a large reservoir excavated in the rock. The lower
slopes are covered with banks of hard compact clay. Until four years ago
this hill was surrounded by a reed-grown swamp of muddy and saline water,
two or three feet deep, and was approached from the shore by passages
cut through the reeds, either on foot or on the native _tútín_ propelled
by a pole. It now stands in the midst of a desiccated marsh many miles
from the nearest water. This is owing to the droughts that have prevailed
in this country during the past three or four years, and the consequent
drying up of the marshes formed by the overflowings of the two lagoons
formed by the commingling of the waters of the several rivers that
converge to this point, as will be more fully described further on.

Koh Khojah is also called Kohi Zál or Zor and Kohi Rustam, and from
ancient times has afforded an asylum for retreat to the princes of the
country when pressed by an enemy. Malik Fata, Kayáni, when pressed by
Nadír, is said to have abandoned his capital, Calá Fata, and to have
taken refuge in this stronghold, where he held out seven years against
his troops, who were ultimately obliged to retire through pressure of
famine.

Banjár is a flourishing village of about four hundred houses. It
originally belonged to the Kayáni tribe, but during the past half century
has been in the possession of the Sárbandi, and now only contains four
or five families of the original tribe. In the possession of one of
these families, we were informed, there is a very ancient scroll or
_tumár_, in a language not now known in the country. It is supposed to
be a record of the ancient history of the people at the time when they
were fire-worshippers. It is said to be held in great estimation, and
is not to be purchased for gold; its existence indeed is denied by the
reputed owners for fear of their being deprived of it, as they were of
some valuable records in this unknown language by Prince Kamrán of Herat,
when he invaded the country in the early part of the present century. He
is said also to have carried off some illuminated tablets, and an ancient
copy of the Curán and other Arabic manuscripts.

During our stay here the weather was more or less cloudy, and a strong
north-west wind blew with unabated force. It is the most prevalent wind
in this region, and during the hot season blows without intermission for
four months, and is, from this circumstance, called _bádi sado biat_, or
“wind of a hundred and twenty (days).” It usually commences about the
_nan roz_, or vernal equinox, and continues to the end of the harvest,
or about the 20th July. To the prevalence of this wind is attributed the
absence of trees from the plain country, and this is easily understood,
unless, as in the gardens about some of the villages, the trees be
protected by walls or other means of shelter, for the violence of
the wind is of itself sufficient to wither the blossoms and destroy
fructification.

In our experience of it the wind was a cold cutting blast, with the force
of a moderate gale. It commenced on the day of our arrival at Nasírabad,
on the 7th instant, and continued daily till we crossed the Sistan border
into Lásh territory, six days later. It generally commenced soon after
sunrise, subsided somewhat at midday, and gradually recovered its force
after sunset. It owes its cause, apparently, to the rarefaction of the
atmosphere by the rays of a hot sun playing upon the vast sandy region
to the south, and its coldness at this season is derived from the snowy
mountains of Ghor, whence it proceeds. In the hot season it raises clouds
of sand, that obscure the sky and prove extremely injurious to the eyes.

From Banjár we got a very good view of the Nihbandán range of hills
bounding Sistan on the west. It is marked about midway by a deep valley
or glen, which conveys its drainage after rains into the lake north-west
of Koh Khojah. Towards the north the range appears continuous with the
Farráh mountains, and towards the south with those of Sarhadd. The
elevation of Banjár is about 1580 feet above the sea.

_11th March._—Banjár to Bolay, seven miles, and halt a day. These
villages are hardly five miles apart by the direct route, but our path
turned from north to east and then due north again, in order to avoid the
deep mud of the flooded fields, which are here irrigated by a number of
considerable canals. Within the first three miles from Banjár we forded
two, with the water up to the saddle-flaps, and crossed three others
by rustic bridges. Beyond these we crossed, in an easterly direction,
a strip of wind-scooped sand, similar to that already described on
the march to Nasírabad, and a little farther on passed the village of
Dih Afghan to our right. It is a strong little fort, surrounded by hut
settlements of the Tokhi Ghilzais and other Afghans. The fort itself is
now garrisoned by Persian _sarbáz_. Across the plain, at about three
miles to its west, is the fortified village of Shytávak. It formerly
belonged to the Kayánis, but has for the past half century been in the
possession of the Sárbandis. In the opposite direction, away to the east
and south-east, is seen a vast mass of ruins, that cover several square
miles of country. We could learn nothing more regarding them than that
they are in the vicinity of Casimabad and Iskil.

From Dih Afghan our route turned north, and at a couple of miles brought
us to Bolay, which consists of two open villages close to each other. We
passed these, and camped on a bit of hard, flat, wind-swept, and bare
ground, a few hundred yards farther on. At a few miles across the plain
to the eastward are the extensive ruins of Záhidán. They extend as far as
the eye can reach towards the north-east, and are said to be continuous
with those of Doshák, about nine miles from the Helmand.

These ruins, with those of Pulkí, Nádálí, and Pesháwarán, are the most
extensive in Sistan, and mark the sites of populous cities, the like of
which are not to be found at this present day in all this region between
the Indus and the Tigris. Their melancholy solitudes now merely exist as
the silent memorials of the destruction wrought by that “Scourge of God”
Tamerlane. This Tátár invader, whose real name was Tymúr, is said to have
been wounded in the ankle by an arrow at the siege of Doshák, from the
effects of which he became permanently lame. Hence the epithet _lang_
added to his name—_Tymúr lang_, or “Tymúr the lame,” our Tamerlane.

According to local tradition, the Tátár was so enraged at the opposition
he experienced here, that he destroyed every city in the province,
massacred its people wholesale, and reduced the whole country to a
desolate waste; and it has never since regained its former prosperity.

Kinneir, in his “Memoir of the Persian Empire,” supposes the ancient
Zarany of Ptolemy to be the same as Doshák, or more properly Dahshák, as
I was informed by a native, from the ten branches of the canal which were
at this spot taken from off the Helmand.

Zarany, or Doshák, was the residence of Yácúb bin Leth, the founder of
the Sufári dynasty of Sistan, who made it the capital of his kingdom
about 868 A.D. It was ultimately sacked and destroyed by Tamerlane in
1384 A.D., and has ever since remained a desolate waste of ruins, amongst
which stands the modern town of Jalálabad, which at the commencement of
the present century was the seat of the Kayáni chief Bahrám Khán. It
is now in the possession of the Sárbandi, Bahrám’s son and successor,
Jaláluddín, having been finally driven out of Sistan in 1839 by Muhammad
Kezá Khán, their chief, whose seat was Sihkoha.

We halted a day at Bolay, owing to some difficulty and delay on the
part of the Persian governor of Sistan in providing camels for our
party. During our stay here the north wind blew with unabated force, and
swept the ground around our camp as clean as a board. I observed that
the hard clay soil was striated in long lines from north to south by
the persistent action of this wind, and we found some plants curiously
affected in their growth by the same cause.

Some wormwood, saltworts, and a species of zizyphus, here called
_kuvár_, were all growing prostrate on the ground, with their stems and
twigs projecting only in the direction of the wind. The thorny branches
of the zizyphus formed long slender trails recumbent on the ground, and
here and there formed fresh attachments by little shoots striking root
into the soil. These plants are very sparsely scattered, and only rise
six inches or so above the surface, whilst not a single bush or tree is
to be seen on the plain.

Koh Khojah and the Nihbandán range are seen very distinctly to the west
of our position. The first stands out boldly on the open plain, and
the other bounds the prospect beyond it. The horizon towards the north
is marked for many miles east and west by a continuous line of black
columns of smoke curling up into the air, and forming a vast stratum of
dense obscurity. The explanation of this great conflagration is that the
natives at this season annually set fire to the reeds and rushes belting
the borders of the pools or lagoons, in order to make way for the fresh
shoots on which their cattle pasture.

From Bolay we marched twenty-eight miles in a northerly direction, and
camped amidst the ruins of Silyán, which form but a small portion of the
vast extent of ruins collectively styled Pesháwarán.

Our route, at first across a bare, hard, wind-swept flat, afterwards led
across a rough, wind-scourged, sandy tract, evidently a deposit from
floods, on which was a thin jangal of tamarisk and saltworts. Farther
on, passing the ruins of a village called Kohak, we came to a thick belt
of tall tamarisk jangal, and following it for half-an-hour, at about the
tenth mile turned to the left into it to a large canal, now dry, where
we halted for breakfast The bushes in this jangal are marked at about
eighteen inches from the ground by a line of drift and shreds of dry
scum of confervæ and similar water-weeds caught in the branches, and all
directed from north to south, and indicating a rush of waters draining in
that course.

The canal, which we were told had been dry for four years past, is called
Rúdi Jahánábád, or “the river of Jahánábád.” It runs from Jahánábád on
the Helmand midway between Kohak and Jalálabad, to the Koh Khojah. We
found some pits of yellow putrid water in its bed. They were apparently
used for watering cattle, as there were drinking troughs formed of
loosely laid bricks attached to each. In the dry mud of the canal we
found some large mussel shells, and its banks were overgrown with tall
reeds.

Proceeding from this, and leaving behind us the village of Rindan to the
right and that of Calá Nan to the left, the last habitations on this
border of Sistan, we at four miles came to the Naizár, which forms the
boundary between Sistan and Hokát.

The Naizár, as the name implies, is a belt of reeds and rushes. It
extends for many miles east and west, and connects the pool or lagoon of
the Helmand with that of the Farráh Rúd by a strip of swamp. During the
past four years this swamp has been dry. Where we crossed it the belt is
about six miles wide; its reeds had been cut and burnt to the stumps, and
its soil was desiccated, and marked by beaten tracks over the stubble.

Previous to its desiccation this swampy tract used to be crossed by
the natives on foot or on horseback, or on the _tútín_ rafts already
described, by passages cut through the dense growth of reeds. Usually the
swamp was covered to the depth of a foot or so with a thick muddy water,
undrinkably saline; but in flood seasons its height rose to three or
four feet and inundated the country to the south. In some parts where we
crossed the Naizár the reeds had not been cut or burnt, and they rose to
a height of ten or twelve feet in impenetrable patches. Away to the right
of our path tall pillars of smoke rising from the burning reeds filled
the sky with dense clouds of obscurity. Vast herds of horned cattle,
described as of a superior breed, are fed on the young shoots that sprout
from the burnt-down reeds.

Beyond the Naizár we entered on a wide waste of solitude, a very
embodiment of desolation and despair. The surface was everywhere thrown
into small tumuli of soft spongy soil, here and there white as snow with
saline efflorescence, and strewed all over with red bricks belonging
to old graves, many of which were sufficiently preserved to be readily
traceable. Going across this weird tract in a north-westerly direction,
we presently came to the wilderness of ruins known as Pesháwarán, and
marching amongst them for five or six miles, camped near a cluster called
Silyán, with the fort of Pesháwarán bearing due west at about three
miles. Beyond the fort is seen a solitary, low, round-backed hill called
Kohi Ghúch, in which sulphur is said to be found. To the south of this
hill is the lake or lagoon of the Farráh Rúd, which empties into it on
the east side of the hill, whilst the Harút Rúd empties into it on the
west side of it. The Naizár, which we crossed midway on this day’s march,
extends up to this lake along the southern border of the Pesháwarán
ruins. In the opposite direction, towards the east, it extends up to the
lake or lagoon of the Helmand, which is described as much larger than
that of the Farráh Rúd, being about twenty miles long by twelve broad. It
is formed by the convergence at one spot of the rivers Helmand, Khosh,
and Khuspás. In flood seasons this lake overflows and joins that of the
Farráh Rúd, over the Naizár belt we crossed, and fills the whole of the
reed-grown swamp down to Koh Khojah. If in excessive flood, the waters
then flow into the Sarshela, which is a channel along the western border
of the ancient lacustrine basin, and thus find a passage to the Zirrah
marsh, a deep hollow away to the south of Sistan. Such floods rarely
occur now-a-days, and all this southern tract has been dry as long as the
memory of man goes back.

We halted a day at this place, and took the opportunity to visit the
fort of Pesháwarán and the other principal ruins around. It is quite
beyond my power to describe these ruins, which cover many square miles
of country, and are known by different names for the different groups,
such as Silyán, Dih Malán, Kol Márút, &c. Suffice it to say, that the
readily distinguishable mosques and colleges, and the Arabic inscriptions
traceable on the façades of some of the principal buildings, clearly
refer their date to the period of the Arab conquest, and further, as is
evidenced by the domes and arches forming the roofs of the houses, that
then as now the country was devoid of timber fit for building purposes.
The most remarkable characteristic of these ruins is their vast extent
and excellent preservation. The material and style of architecture are
both equally good, and in some parts are so little damaged that they
could be easily restored with an ordinary outlay of capital and labour.
Passing amongst the ruins are the traces of several canals, and one of
these, which has recently been restored by the chief of Hokát, now brings
a stream of good water up to the Silyán ruins for the irrigation of some
land in the vicinity, which it is proposed to cultivate so soon as the
country recovers from its present state of anarchy and discord.

The great extent of these ruins, which cover an area of about six miles
by eight, leads to the suspicion that they are not the remains of one
and the same city existing in its entirety throughout their extent, but
rather the out-growths of successive cities rising on the ruins of their
predecessors upon the same spot. We were unable, however, to trace any
differences in the appearances of the several groups to bear out such
a suspicion. On the contrary, they so exactly resemble each other that
any one group may be taken as representative of the others. In this view
these ruins do certainly represent a most flourishing period in the
history of this country.

The ruins of Pesháwarán resemble in point of architecture those of
Záhidán and Calá Fata, but differ from those of Kaikobád, which are
evidently of much older date, though amongst them are found some
structures dating from the Arab period.

On crossing the Naizár we passed out of Sistan, or the district known
by that name, in the restricted application of the term current at the
present day. Its limits have been already mentioned, and I may here state
that it is about sixty miles broad from north to south, and about one
hundred long from east to west. Within this area the general aspect of
the country is a wide undulating plain of a light sandy soil, singularly
bare of trees, except on the borders of the two lagoons, which are
fringed with forests of the tamarisk, whilst the swamp connecting them is
crowded with a dense growth of tall reeds.

Surrounded as it is by desert wastes, this district of Sistan presents
a very populous and highly cultivated area. Its territory is divided
between four distinct tribes, who are now under the rule of the Persian
possessors of the country since their occupation of it seven years ago.
Previous to 1865, when this district formed an integral portion of the
Afghan kingdom, these several tribes were constantly warring against each
other, and encroaching upon the lands of the weaker party.

The tribes above alluded to are the Sistani, Sárbandi, Shahrki, and
Baloch. They are distributed very unequally over about sixty villages,
averaging 250 houses each, and their dates of settlement in the country
also differ very considerably.

The most ancient inhabitants, and apparently the original possessors of
the country, are included in the Sistani tribe, which at the present
day consists of aboriginals and representatives of various tribes, who
have been thrown together and incorporated here by successive waves of
conquest and revolution during many centuries. Much obscurity hangs over
the original Sistani; but their ruling family have long been known,
under the appellation of Kayáni, as the hereditary princes of the
country, and are supposed to trace their descent to the ancient kings
of the period when the seat of government of the Persian empire was
in Sistan. Tradition is at variance on this point, as I was informed
by an intelligent native of the country. According to the commonly
accepted account, the Kayáni family are the lineal descendants of
Kaikobád, the founder of the Kayáni dynasty in the romantic age of Zál
and his son Rustam, of whose birth and principal exploits Sistan was
the theatre. Other accounts assign their descent to Yácúb bin Leth, the
potter of Sistan, who, turning the times to his own advantage, usurped
the government of Sistan, and in 868 A.D. founded the Sufári dynasty,
which was finally extinguished in the person of Kulif, when Mahmúd of
Ghazni conquered the country towards the close of the tenth century.
Be this as it may, the Kayánis were the dominant family in Sistan up
to the commencement of the present century, and their chiefs figure
prominently in the history of Khorassan during the first half of the
preceding century, memorable for the decline and fall of the Persian
empire of the Suffairs, the invasion and devastation of their country
by the Afghans under Mír Mahmúd, the son of Mír Wais, Ghilzai, and the
rise of the conqueror, Nadír Sháh, whose death in 1747 was followed by a
redistribution of the map of Central Asia between the Cajars in Persia,
the Uzbaks in Bukhára, and the Afghans in Khorassan.

It was during the revolution attending the revolt of the Ghilzais
and Abdalis, and the establishment of Kandahar as an independent
principality, under their leader Mír Wais, Ghilzai, in 1810, that the
Kayáni chiefs of Sistan, who had heretofore held their lands and titles
under firmans from the Persian kings, first threw off their allegiance to
the throne of Persia. During the successive invasions of Persia through
Sistan in 1720-21, under Mír Mahmúd, the son and successor of Mír Wais,
the Kayáni chief Malik Asadullah was the independent ruler of Sistan,
and he accorded the invading Afghans an unopposed passage through his
territory.

About this period a cousin of the Sistan chief above named, one Malik
Mahmúd, profiting by the confusion of the times, issued from his
desert-girt home, and quickly seized the adjoining district of Khorassan.
Having secured Gháyn and Tabbas and Herat, the successful adventurer next
captured Mashhad and subdued Nishabor and Sabzwár, at the very time that
his Afghan namesake and rival was prosecuting his successes against the
Persian capital.

The unprecedented success of the Afghans now roused the jealousy of
the Kayáni, who, fearful of their ascendancy, hurried to Ispahán to
support his lawful sovereign against the invader. His loyalty, however,
was not proof against the ready concessions of the Afghan; and Malik
Mahmúd being acknowledged by Mír Mahmúd in the independent possession of
his conquests, hastened back to Mashhad and assumed the crown and title
of the Kayáni. His enjoyment of the purple was neither long continued
nor peaceful; for he was presently opposed by the rising soldier Nadír
Culi, and, after successive contests, was finally captured by him and
executed, together with a younger brother named Muhammad Ali, at Nishabor
in 1727. On this, Nadír reinstated the former chief, Malik Asadullah,
in the government of Sistan, and with him sent back Mahmúd’s family and
belongings to their homes.

Asadullah shortly after died, and was succeeded by his son Malik Husen.
He soon followed the example of his neighbours, and revolted. Nadír then
appointed his own nephew, Ali Culi, governor of Sistan, and he proceeded
with a strong force to subdue the refractory chief. On his approach,
Malik Husen and his brothers, Fath Ali and Lutf Ali, took refuge in the
island-fort of Koh Khojah, and there held out against Nadír’s troops for
several years. They were finally conciliated, and took service under
Nadír, but not until their country had been devastated, and their own
power thoroughly broken by the importation from Persia of the Sárbandi
and Shahrki tribes as feudal colonists.

On the death of Husen, his son, Malik Sulemán, succeeded to the chiefship
of the Kayáni family, but his authority was of a doubtful nature, and
limited to the north-eastern portion only of the district. On the
partition of the empire following on Nadír’s death in 1747, Sistan
was incorporated in the Durrani monarchy founded by Sháh Ahmad, and
Malik Sulemán was recognised as its hereditary chief, and his position
strengthened by a matrimonial alliance with the new king, the Afghan
sovereign taking his daughter to wife.

The alliance does not appear to have brought any material advantage to
the position or authority of the Kayáni family, and in the intestine
struggles constantly waged between them and the new settlers they
gradually succumbed to their superior force. Sulemán was succeeded by his
son, Malik Bahrám, at Jalálabad. He was so pressed by the Sárbandi and
Shahrki, that he called in the aid of ’Alam Khán, Nahroe Baloch, whom
with his following he settled at Kimak, Burj ’Alam, &c., as a check upon
the encroachments of his enemies. This measure appears to have given
offence to Sháh Tymúr, the son and successor of Sháh Ahmad; for on his
accession to the throne of Afghanistan in 1773, he deposed the Kayáni,
Malik Bahrám, and in his place appointed the Shahrki chief, Mír Bey,
governor of Sistan. This chief was killed four years later in one of
the many faction fights that seemingly form a part of ordinary life in
Sistan, and Bahrám was then restored to the chiefship and government of
Sistan, in subordination to the Afghan governor of the adjoining district
of Lásh or Hokát.

This arrangement did not work well, and the Shahrki soon rose in
revolt against Bahrám’s authority, and Tymúr in consequence sent a
force of Afghans under Barkhurdár Khán, Achakzai, to reduce them, a
task he performed very effectually, as has been before mentioned, by
the victories of Kandúrak and Mykhána. After this, weakened as they
already were by the encroachments of their enemies, the Kayáni influence
rapidly declined, and was at length reduced to a nullity by the family
dissensions that led to the estrangement of Bahrám from his son and
successor, Jaláluddín. Malik Jaláluddín was the last of the Kayáni family
who exercised any authority in Sistan. He appears to have been a very
dissolute character, and was in 1838 expelled the country by the Sárbandi
chief Muhammad Razá. Kamrán, the Herat prince, reinstated him in the
following year, but he was again driven out, and for a while found an
asylum with the chief of Ghazn. Hence he returned some years later to
Sistan in beggared circumstances, and died in obscurity, leaving a son
named Nasír Khán, and his son Azím Khán is now in the service of the
Persian governor of the country. Malik Jaláluddín had a brother named
Hamza Khán. He left three sons—namely, Abbas now residing in Jalálabad,
Gulzár in Bahrámabad, and Malik Khán in some other village. These are the
representatives of the ancient Kayáni family, and, viewing their present
condition, one may truly exclaim, “How the great have fallen!” Their
immediate relations hardly number twenty families, and the whole tribe
does not exceed a hundred families, who are scattered about the district,
mostly in very poor circumstances.

The rest of the Sistan tribe were formerly the serfs or subjects of the
Kayáni, and they now hold the same position under the other dominant
tribes of the country. They are styled generally _dihcán_, or peasant,
and comprise representatives of various tribes, such as Tátárs, Mughals,
Turks, Uzbaks, Kurds, Tajiks, converted Gabars, and Persians. They are
principally employed in agriculture, cattle-herding, fishing and fowling,
and the various handicrafts, and are a very poor and simple people. They
are said to be deficient in courage and energy, and in respect to their
military qualities, are held in little estimation by the other tribes
amongst whom they are distributed as vassals. Those of them we saw in
our progress through the country appeared an inferior race physically,
and had sallow unhealthy complexions.

The Sárbandi and Shahrki are described as divisions of the Nahnai tribe,
and their settlement in Sistan dates only from the time of Nadír Sháh, by
whose orders they were transported hither from Burujurd near Hamadán. The
Sárbandi are reckoned at ten thousand families in Sistan, and the Shahrki
at an equal number, scattered over Sistan, Ghazn, Kirmán, and Lár.

The Sárbandi were at first settled at Sihkoha, Warmál, Chiling, and other
villages on the south of the _hámún_, under their chief Mír Cambar. He
was succeeded by his son Mír Kóchak, and he by his son Muhammad Razá,
in whose time the tribe doubled their possessions by encroachments upon
the lands of the Kayáni. Mír Khán succeeded his father, Muhammad Razá,
and was in turn succeeded by his eldest son, of the same name, about the
year 1836. This Muhammad Razá drove Malik Jaláluddín, Kayáni, out of
Sistan, and becoming independent at Sihkoha, was recognised as the most
influential of the local chiefs in the country.

These were Ali Khán of Chakansúr, son of Khán Jahán Khán, Sanjarání
Baloch, a dependant of Kandahar, Háshim Khán, Shahrki, at Dashtak, and
Dost Muhammad Khán, Nahroe Baloch, at Burj ’Alam, both dependants of
Herat.

In the beginning of 1844, after the evacuation of Afghanistan by
the British, Kuhndil Khán, the chief of Kandahar, returned to his
principality from his retreat at Tehran, and on his way through Sistan
received the submission of the Sárbandi, Shahrki, and Nahroe chiefs above
mentioned. In the following year he annexed the Garmsel as far as Rúdbár
to Kandahar, and was in treaty with Muhammad Razá for a more perfect
establishment of relations. The negotiations were prolonged for a couple
of years, and then fell through owing to the death of that chief in 1848.

Kuhndil was at this time diverted from his projects against Sistan by the
menacing attitude of Yár Muhammad at Herat, and in the meantime Muhammad
Razá was succeeded at Sihkoha by his son Lutf Ali as a dependent of Yár
Muhammad, who supported him with a contingent of Herat troops and Afghan
officers posted at Sihkoha, Dashtak, Burj ’Alam, Kimak, and other places.

The deceased chief’s brother Ali Khán, who was in the service of Kuhndil
at Kandahar, in the following year set out for Sistan to oust his nephew,
and furnished by Kuhndil with an army of six thousand men under the
command of his brother Muhrdil for the purpose. The army was joined by
the Nahroe and Sanjarání Baloch chiefs with their respective contingents
at the Rúdbár frontier; Sihkoha was captured, Lutf Ali seized and
deprived of sight, and his uncle, Ali Khán, established in the government
of Sistan on the part of Kuhndil Khán, who then deputed his son Sultán
Ali to the Persian court to secure the Sháh’s approval and support.

Yár Muhammad, finding the country thus taken from him, set out from Herat
to attack Ali Khán; but on arrival at Lásh was suddenly taken seriously
ill, and died on the way back to his capital in 1851.

In the confusion following on this event, Ali Khán threw off his
dependence on Kandahar, and sent an envoy to the court of Persia with
a tender of allegiance. His messenger was well received, and returned
with presents and the Persian flags as an emblem of his allegiance. Ali
Khán hoisted the flag on his fort at Sihkoha, and then sent his sons
as hostages to Mashhad in 1853. A few years later, after the siege of
Herat by the Persians, Ali Khán proceeded to Tehran, where he met with
a distinguished reception, and his loyalty was further secured by a
matrimonial alliance with the royal family, a daughter of the Prince
Bahrám, the Sháh’s cousin, being given to him in marriage.

In the spring of 1858, he returned to Sistan with his Persian bride
and a military escort; but the new regime introduced by him, and the
interference of his Persian companions in the internal affairs of the
country, soon led to a general revulsion of feeling against him and his
foreign supporters; and a plot, headed by Táj Muhammad, the brother of
the deposed Lutf Ali, was formed to get rid of him and his myrmidons.
The Sistani were raised in revolt, and, in a night attack upon Sihkoha,
Ali Khán was surprised and slain by his nephew Táj Muhammad. His Persian
supporters were then driven out of the country, and Táj Muhammad assumed
the government as an independent chief in 1858. The Persian Government
was restrained by treaty engagements from carrying out their purposed
measures of retribution; and Táj Muhammad on his part expressing regret
for the mishap that befell the Persian princess (she was slightly wounded
in the head in her attempts to protect her husband), and pleading
excuses in justification of his conduct against his uncle, was pardoned.
Subsequently, through the medium of Mír Alam Khán, the Persian governor
of Ghazn, he was conciliated and won over to the Persian interest; and
in 1862, when the late Amir Dost Muhammad Khán advanced against Herat,
he, fearful of losing his independence, and preferring allegiance to
a distant master than to one close at hand, appealed to the Persian
Government for protection, as a Persian subject, against the Afghan,
and deputed his brother Kuhndil to the Persian court in earnest of his
professions.

In the following year, Dost Muhammad, having restored Herat to his
kingdom, died there on the 9th of June in a ripe old age, and was
succeeded by the appointed heir, the present Amir Sher Ali Khán. He
hastened to Kabul to take up the reins of government; but ere he reached
the capital commenced those plots and divisions that presently involved
the country in a long-foreseen anarchy and bloodshed.

At this juncture Táj Muhammad’s envoy to Tehran returned to Sistan,
accompanied by some of the principal Persian officers who, on a former
occasion, had come to the country with the late Ali Khán. The chief of
these, Sartip Sálih Muhammad, not finding the Sistani quite so amenable
as he had wished for, suddenly broke off his relations with them, and
hastily retired from the country to Ghazn, vowing condign vengeance on
the part of the Persian Government.

The Sárbandi chiefs, now fearful of the consequences, deputed one Sohráb
Bey, a trusty agent, to the Kandahar governor, deprecating his neglect of
Sistan affairs, and, as a part of Afghanistan, seeking protection against
the encroachments of Persia. This was in 1864, at a time when the new
Amir had his hands full of more important and more pressing troubles that
threatened the very existence of his throne, and the affairs of Sistan
were consequently left to adjust themselves as best they could; but an
envoy, Ahmad Khán, Kákarr, was sent with the returning agent to reassure
the people and learn the true state of affairs.

Táj Muhammad, now finding that there was no hope of support from
Kandahar, again deputed his brother Kuhudil to Tehran. He was here
detained as a hostage; and a Persian army invaded Sistan, and took
possession of the country in the name of the Sháh in 1865. In the spring
of 1867 Táj Muhammad was deposed and sent prisoner to Tehran, and Mír
’Alam Khán of Gháyn was appointed Persian governor of the district, with
the title of Hashmat-ul-Mulk.

With the deportation of Táj Muhammad ended the influence of the Sárbandi
in Sistan. Under the Persian rule the power of the local chiefs has
become centred in Sharíf Khán, the Nahroe Baloch, who has risen from an
insignificant position entirely by his Persian connection.

The Shahrki tribe, who were brought into Sistan at the same time as the
Sárbandi, were first settled under their chief, Mír Chákar, at Dashtak,
Pulkí, Wásilán, and other villages on the Hámún. Mír Chákar was succeeded
by his son Mír Beg, and he by his son Mír Háshim, in whose time their
possessions were considerably increased by encroachments on the lands of
the rapidly declining Kayáni. Mír Háshim was succeeded by his son Mír
Mahdi, and he by his brother Mír Muhammad ’Ali, who is now a hostage at
Tehran. The tribe occupy twelve or fourteen villages, and number about
three thousand families in Sistan.

By some accounts, the Shahrki are said to be a section of the Muhammad
Hassani or Mammassání division of the Brahoe tribe; and according to
local tradition, they were driven out of Sistan by the invasion of Tymúr,
and sought refuge in the adjoining province of Kirmán. Tymúr’s son and
successor, Sháh Rúkh, collected their scattered families, and located
them at Búrújard, near Rúm, in Persia, where they were known by the
name of Sháh Rukhi or Shahrki. From this they were resettled in Sistan
and the adjoining districts of Kirmán and Lár by Nadír Sháh, at the
same time that he transported the Sárbandi from the same locality near
Hamadán to Sistan. The Sárbandi are supposed to be the descendants of the
ancient Persians or Gabars (or Guebres), and in Persia occupied the lands
adjoining those given to the Shahrki. Their name is said to be derived
from that of the locality occupied by them.

Such, in brief, is a history of the several tribes now occupying Sistan.
Their rival interests, and their constant struggles for ascendancy one
over the other, sufficiently account for the anarchy and confusion that
have characterised the normal condition of this country during the past
century, or, in other words, since the death of Sháh Ahmad, Durrani. The
decline of the government, commencing in the reign of his successor,
Sháh Tymúr, and ending in its overthrow in the succeeding reign of Sháh
Zamán, and the subsequent transference of the rule from the Saddozais to
the Bárakzais in the time of Sháh Mahmúd, was not without its influence
on the political condition of Sistan; and we find that the province,
which was incorporated as an integral part of the empire established by
the founder of the Durrani monarchy, gradually, on the decline of the
paramount power, lapsed from its allegiance, and, perforce of the local
circumstances at the time determining, became divided into more or less
independent chiefships, which, for the furtherance of their individual
interests, attached themselves as dependencies of the nearest provincial
governments, of Kandahar on the one side and Herat on the other. And
such continued to be the political relations of the country until the
Persian occupation of Herat in 1856. After the ensuing Persian war, and
the evacuation of Herat territory by the Persians, the Sistan chiefs
continued more or less under the influence of Persian intrigue, a course
in which they were encouraged by M. Khanikoff’s mission in the spring of
1859; and the result of their dealings with the Persian court, as already
detailed, ended in their invasion and annexation of the country in 1865.

Of the ancient history of Sistan we have no connected record. Such
notices of the country as are met with in the pages of various authors
are very few, scant in detail, and separated by wide intervals of time.
Malcolm’s “History of Persia” contains a full account of the early
Persian dynasties, and the country of Sistan, or Zabulistan, as it was
also called, is frequently mentioned as the theatre of their military
exploits.

For the Persians the country has a peculiar interest, as being the
birthplace and home of their legendary hero, the renowned Rustam, son
of Zál, the fifth in descent from the Persian Jamshed by a princess of
Sistan. Zál, says the authority above quoted, married Rúdábah, daughter
of Mehráb, king of Kabul, and of the race of Zohák. Their offspring,
Rustam, was cut out of her side when stupefied by drugs, according to
the secret imparted to Zál by the Griffin of Elburz. The romance of this
hero’s life is as varied as it is improbable, and affords an untiring
theme of delight to the Persian story-teller and his auditors. His fame
is the subject of song in every village, and there is hardly a hill in
the country that does not possess a spot sanctified by tradition as the
scene of some of his many exploits and feats against dragons, demons, or
genii, and other such figures of fancy.

Later mention of this country is found in the pages of the historians of
Alexander’s Asiatic conquests, under the name of Drangia, so designated
from its principal river, the Drangius, now called Helmand or Hermand,
whose course Alexander followed in his progress eastward, probably
through the Garmsel. On the return march of the Macedonian army from
India in 325 B.C., this country was traversed by the force under the
command of Craterus.

The Rev. J. Williams, in his “Life of Alexander the Great,” following
the account by Arrian, states that whilst Alexander himself took the
route parallel to the littoral, and the fleet voyaging under command of
Nearchus, which led across the desert of Gedrosia, the modern Makrán, to
Carmania or Kirmán, Craterus had already proceeded “with the elephants,
the heavy baggage, the feeble, the old, and the wounded, and with three
brigades of the phalanx,” towards the same destination, through the
fertile countries of the Arachosi and Drangæ.

In this march it is probable that Craterus followed the ancient caravan
route between India and Persia, which led from Dehra Gházi Khán on the
Indus, to Kirmán and the Persian Gulf by the Tal Chhotiyálí road to
Peshín and Kandahar, and thence by the valley of the Helmand to Sistan,
and onwards by the Nihbandán road to Kirmán. At this period the country
must have been in a much more flourishing and populous condition than it
is now.

The rule of the Greek satraps was followed, 226 A.D., by the dynasty of
the house of Sassan, which commenced with the reign of Ardshir Bábakán.
Under the Shapori sovereigns of this family, Sistan appears to have been
a flourishing seat of the Zoroastrians, since most of the coins now found
in the country belong to this period.

The Sassan dynasty fell before the rising power of the Arabs, and ended
with the death of Yezdijird, the last sovereign of that house, who,
fleeing to Sistan before the conquering Arabs, ultimately escaped to
Marv, where he was murdered, 651 A.D., by a miller with whom he had taken
refuge. During the two centuries of Arab rule, Sistan appears to have
attained to the highest state of prosperity, and to have enjoyed a stable
and just government, as is evidenced by the character and vast extent of
the ruins pertaining to that period.

About the middle of the ninth century the Arab rule in Sistan was
replaced by that of the Sufári dynasty, of native origin. According
to Malcolm, to whose excellent History I am indebted for most of my
information on this interesting country, the founder of this dynasty,
Yácúb bin Leth or Lais, belonged to a family of potters of Sistan. In
youth he abandoned the peaceful calling of his ancestors for the more
exciting life of a robber, and in 851 A.D. took service with one Sálih
bin Nasr, who had usurped the government of Sistan. Proving a man of
parts, he was appointed by Sálih’s successor, Dirham bin Nasr, to the
command of his army, and soon made use of his position to usurp the
government for himself, establishing his capital at Doshák. In 868 he
added Herat, Kirmán, and Shiraz to his possessions, and a couple of years
later extended them to Kabul in one direction, and Nishabor in the other.
He was succeeded by his brother, Amir bin Leth, who was made prisoner by
the Tátár Ismáil Sámání, and sent to Baghdad, where he was executed in
901. With him fell the Sufári dynasty, but his descendants continued to
hold Sistan till it was taken from Kulif, the last prince of the Leth
family, by Mahmúd of Ghazni, towards the close of the century.

In Mahmúd’s time, Sistan, as described by Ibn Haukal, was a most
flourishing country, and the lower course of the Helmand as far as Búst
presented an uninterrupted succession of populous cities, whilst the
country as far as Zirrah was intersected by numerous great canals that
rendered the land proverbially fertile. At this period, too, Sistan was
noted for the existence of a gold-mine, which, after yielding a rich
store of the precious metal for many years, was suddenly swallowed up and
its site obliterated by an earthquake. Tradition points to no particular
spot as the locality of this mine, and at this distance of time, with
our scant knowledge of the country, it is useless to speculate on the
subject, particularly if we bear in mind the fact that the limits of
Sistan in the time of Mahmúd, were far more extensive than they are at
the present day.

At that period, now eight centuries ago, Sistan comprised all that
extensive region drained by the several rivers that converged and emptied
their waters into the _hámún_ or “lake basin” of Sistan and its accessory
the marsh of Zirrah. According to Ibn Haukal, who wrote in the reign of
Mahmúd, this extensive region was known under the names of Zabulistan
and Sijistan or Sistan, and comprised the whole of the southern portion
of the present kingdom of Afghanistan, or all that portion not included
within the limits of Kabulistan. It included the districts of Ghazni,
Síbí, Shál, Mastung, and Peshín to the east and south, and those of
Zamíndáwar, Ghor, Gháyn, and Nih on the north and west.

The term Sijistan or Sistan applied commonly to the whole of the region
thus bounded, and Zabulistan was restricted to its northern parts,
whilst the southern were also known by the name of Nímroz, and included
the modern Sistan, which represents but a trivial portion of the area
included in the Sakistan of the Greeks and the Sagestan or Sijistan of
the Arabs. Further, the whole Sijistan country is included in the more
extensive region of Khorassan, which comprises all that elevated mountain
tract bounded by the valley of the Indus on the east, and that of the
Oxus on the north, the salt desert of Kirmán and Yazd on the west, and
the sea of Omán on the south.

At the present day it is difficult to define the precise limits of
Sistan. The old name of Sagestan or Sijistan it appears applied to the
great basin of the hydrographic system that centred in the ancient lakes,
and which is represented by the plains of Kandahar and the valleys
connected with it through their drainage. It extends eastward to the
vicinity of Ghazni, and southward to the plain of Shorawak; whilst to
the northward it includes the valleys of the Argandáb and Upper Helmand,
called Zamíndáwar, and farther westward those of the Farráh river and the
Harút Rúd or Adraskand, which drains the Sabzwár, or, as it is commonly
written, Ispzár district.

The modern name of Sistan is applied only to the actual bed of the former
lake that at some remote prehistoric period occupied the south-west
portion of Afghanistan, and is besides limited _par excellence_ only to a
small portion of its area in the immediate vicinity of the present lakes
or lagoons formed by the disemboguement of the several rivers converging
to this point.

Of this limited area, called _hámún_, the boundaries have already been
described. The more extended area of the great lacustrine basin is
clearly marked by a bold coast-line of desert cliffs. Those on the north
and east borders are formed by the prolongation westward of the Kandahar
steppes, and on the south and south-east by the cliffs and bluffs of
the great sandy desert of Balochistan, whilst to the south and west
its borders are formed by the hill-skirts of the Sarhadd and Bandán
mountains respectively.

The coasts thus indicated present a very irregular outline, ranging
from two hundred to four hundred feet above the level of the lacustrine
basin, and towards the west and north form long estuaries represented by
the valleys of the Helmand, Khásh, Farráh, and Harút rivers. The basin
itself extends upwards of two hundred miles from north to south, that is,
from the Farráh mountains to those of Sarhadd, and presents a remarkable
variation in the level of its surface. Its northern portion, occupied by
the two lagoons formed by the convergence in it of the several rivers
draining thereto and the intervening and surrounding swamps, is separated
from the southern and much lower portion by a tract of elevated waste
land, which presents a coast-line similar to that bounding the whole
basin, but of much inferior elevation.

Where we saw this coast-line, in the vicinity of Burj Alam, it evidently
formed the boundary of a long-deserted delta of the Helmand, the present
_hámún_, and stretched across the plain from east to west, presenting an
irregular front of clay banks and bluffs from sixty to eighty feet high.
Towards the west the land sinks to a wide channel called Sarshela, or
“head ravine.” It runs north and south from the _hámún_ near Koh Khojah
to the _Godi Zirrah_, or “Zirrah hollow,” which occupies the southern
portion of the lacustrine district.

In seasons of excessive flood, when the lagoons and surrounding swamps
are overfilled, the superfluous waters find a passage through the
Sarshela to the Godi Zirrah, the lowest hollow of which is, except in
seasons of drought, occupied by a swamp similar to that of the Koh
Khojah. We did not visit the Zirrah hollow, and consequently did not see
the swamp said to exist there. We were informed, however, that, like the
swamps in the northern portion of the basin, it had been dried up owing
to the drought of the last four years.

The desiccation of these swamps and the reduced size of the existing
lagoons may point to the manner in which the original lake diminished
in size and gradually dried up, the main cause in both cases being a
diminished volume in the streams terminating at this point. In the
general aspect of the country we observed no indications of any cataclysm
by which the waters were drained off from this basin. The deposits
brought down by the Helmand and other rivers entering at the north of the
lake raised its bed in this direction, and displaced the waters farther
south; and it is not difficult to understand how they might have been
entirely dissipated by the process of evaporation, for they appear to
have been spread over the surface in a shallow sea, without the aid of
other causes that have obtained during the historic period.

Were the Helmand and other rivers allowed to empty into the _hámún_ the
full volume of their floods, they would again cover the whole basin with
an uninterrupted sheet of water bordered by swamps, as is now the case in
a small portion only of its northern part, but subject to variation in
extent and depth by the effects of evaporation and other causes.

It is probable that the basin has never been thus submerged during the
period that the region draining into it has been an inhabited country.
The ruins now existing on the surface of the lacustrine bed are evidence
in support, whilst the enormous quantities withdrawn for purposes of
irrigation, and the vastly increased surface thus exposed to evaporation,
aided by the drying effects of the north-west wind, which prevails here
for nearly half the year, are of themselves sufficient causes to explain
the limited area of the present lagoons and marshes. These owe their
continued existence to the hot-weather floods, otherwise the rivers are
mostly exhausted by evaporation and diversions for irrigation before they
reach the _hámún_, which, after all, can only be viewed as the receptacle
for the hot-weather floods, for during several months of the year the
rivers, with the exception of the Helmand, are completely exhausted
by the causes indicated long before they reach the _hámún_. Even the
Helmand, since the Persian occupation of the country, has been diverted
from its course at Kohak, and carried off in the Mádariáb channel
to irrigate the country south of the Koh Khojah, as has been before
mentioned.

To return, however, to the history of the country. On the downfall of
the dynasty of Mahmúd of Ghazni, Sistan, in common with the rest of
Khorassan, fell under the sway of the Afghan princes of Ghor, and under
their empire maintained its former prosperity, until the Mughal invasion
under Janghiz Khán in 1222, when it was laid waste by his destructive
hordes of Tátárs. The country had scarcely recovered from the shock of
this invasion, when (A.D. 1383) Tymúr the Tátár swept over it with his
ruthless hosts, and reduced it to a state of utter ruin and desolation.
His son, Sháh Rúkh, attempted to restore its prosperity, but effected
no more than the settlement of a few thousand Persian colonists on its
devastated lands. About eighty-five years after Tymúr’s invasion, Sistan
fell under the power of his descendant, Sultán Husen, Bykara, whose
capital was at Herat; but it appears to have been still a neglected
country, abandoned to the robber tribes thrown together here by the
convulsions of the age.

On the establishment of the Saffavi dynasty in the beginning of the
sixteenth century, Sistan became settled, and to some extent recovered
its prosperity and population gradually under native chiefs descended
from the ancient ruling family, and holding their patents from the
Persian kings of the Saffavi dynasty. But on the destruction of this
dynasty at the hands of the Afghans of Kandahar, it once more became the
sport of the conqueror; and in 1737 was reduced to its present state of
ruin and desolation by Nadír Sháh, the Afshár robber, the usurper of the
Persian throne, the invader of India, and the author of the massacre and
plunder of Delhi in 1739.

After the death of this great conqueror in 1747, the vast empire he had
brought together under his sovereignty, from the Jumna to the Tigris,
rapidly fell asunder, and, after many vicissitudes of fortune under
the conflicting aspirations and interests of a host of claimants, was
ultimately partitioned between the Cajars in Persia, the Uzbaks in
Bukhára, and the Durranis in Khorassan. The division was a natural one,
geographically, politically, and ethnologically; the elevated plateaux
and desert wastes of Persia for the Irani, the fertile plains and wide
steppes of Turkistan for the Uzbak Tátár, and the mountain fastnesses
and tablelands of Khorassan for the Afghan. Each in his own limits was
the rightful lord of the soil, and each was separated from the other by
natural geographical boundaries, which came to be recognised also as the
political limits of the three new nationalities of Central Asia.

Thus Persia, with its Shia population and organised form of government,
was separated from Afghanistan and its Sunni population, with their
patriarchal form of government, by the long strip of desert extending
from Kirmán in the south to Mashhad in the north, and forming a belt
of division between the highlands of Irani Khorassan and the more
extensive region of that name known by the national appellations of
Afghanistan and Balochistan, whilst each was separated respectively from
the slave-hunting Turkmans of Khiva and the priest-ridden Sunni bigots of
Bukhára by the saline deserts of Sarrakhs and Marv on the one side, and
the Afghan states of Bulkh and the river Oxus on the other.

In this division of Nadír’s empire, Sistan, as much from natural
geographical position as from political necessity, became incorporated
with the new kingdom of Afghanistan, and it has since continued to form
an integral part of the Durrani monarchy until its recent annexation and
occupation by the Persians.

The climate of Sistan is decidedly insalubrious, and unfavourable alike
to the healthy growth and comfort of both man and beast. The seasons are
characterised by extremes of heat and cold in the summer and winter.
Sand-storms, extremely injurious to the eyesight, are of frequent
occurrence in the spring months; whilst in the autumn a hot steamy
vapour, rising from the evaporation of the summer floods, pervades the
atmosphere, and to the plague of gnats and musquitoes adds the pestilence
of malarious fevers.

Sheep and cows thrive upon the rank pastures bordering the marshes; but
horses and buffaloes cannot live in the country for several months of the
year, owing to the worry of myriads of gnats and stinging flies.

The natives of the country are of inferior physical development, and
the common people remarkable for their repulsive features and personal
untidiness. Most of the people we saw about the villages had unhealthy
sallow complexions; and I observed a marked prevalence of chlorotic
anœmia from chronic disease of the spleen. The common diseases of the
country are fevers, ophthalmic affections, rheumatism, and small-pox.
The principal employments of the people are agriculture and breeding
cattle. Some families are occupied solely as hunters, fowlers, and
fishermen, and others live exclusively by handicrafts, as weavers,
cobblers, potters, &c. During the cold season immense numbers of
wild-fowl, swans (here called _cú_ or _ghú_), and pelicans are trapped
and shot for their feathers and fat, which fetch a high price in the
Kandahar market.

The language current in Sistan is a mixed dialect of Persian, in which
are found many Pushto, Baloch, and Turki words; but amongst themselves
the several tribes speak their own mother tongues, as the Afghans Pushto,
the Baloch Balockki, the Sárbandi and Persians Persian, and so on.
Our short stay in this country and the unfavourable conditions of our
relations with the people, prevented our learning much concerning their
manners and customs or their language and its affinities.

Some native words applied to localities from some distinguishing
characteristic appear to belong to an ancient stock, and afford a field
for speculation to the philologist. Such are Biring Hissár, or “the fort
on a mound” (Arabic, _hissár_ = fort, and Sistani, _biring_ = mound);
Biring Kaftár, or “the mound of hyænas” (Persian, _kaftár_ = hyæna);
Daki Tír, or “the arrow (straight) ridge” (Sistan, _dak_ = ridge, and
Persian, _tír_ = arrow, and, metaphorically, straight); Daki Dela, or
“the cyperus reed-ridge,” (Pushto, _dela_ = cyperus grass); Chakná Súr,
or “the fort of birds” (Brahoe, _chak_ = bird; _ná_, sign of genitive;
and Arabic _súr_ = a fort), so named probably from its situation at the
spot where wild-fowls and swans have from time immemorial been yearly
snared and hunted; Sih Koha, or “the three hills” (Persian, _sih_ =
three, and _koh_ = hill); Chilling or Shilling, (the place of) “bursting”
or “overflowing,” probably from its situation where the _hámún_ or lake
overflows and bursts its barriers (Brahoe, _chilling_ = bursting, and
_shilling_ = overflowing); Gódor “the hollow” (Persian, _god_ = lap or
hollow), &c. Other suggestive words, the names of villages in Sistan,
are Bolay, Warmál, Banjár, Iskil, Khadang, Kechyán, Laff, Kimak, Shitak,
Pulkí, Jazínak, Tiflak, Ishkinak, Sadkí, &c. Many villages are named
after their founders, and generally they are found to occupy the sites
of more ancient towns. These modern names in many cases serve to fix the
dates of the new settlements or the restoration of old ruins.

For example, the present Jahánábád, built on the site of Biring Hissár,
is named after Khán Jahán, Sanjarání Baloch, who restored the ruins of
the old fort and repeopled the town at the commencement of the present
century. Similarly Burj ’Alam, the “tower” or “citadel” built by ’Alam
Khán, Nahroe Baloch, also about the commencement of the present century;
Jalálabad, amongst the ruins of Doshák, named after Jaláluddín, Kayáni;
Bahrámabad, named after Malik Bahrám, the Kayáni chief during the last
quarter of the preceding century; Sharíf Khán, the village built by
Sharíf Khán, Nahroe Baloch; Nasírabad, the town of Nasír Khán, Kayáni;
Burj Sarband, the citadel or castle of the Sárbandi; Burj Afghan, the
castle of the Afghans. Záhidán retains the name of the ruins amongst
which it is situated. The name means “monks,” and is the Persian plural
of the Arabic _záhid_, a monk; perhaps in the Arab period it contained a
monastery or Muhammadan college, and hence the name.

The study of these local names is full of interest, and not without
advantageous results. I believe if the inquiry were fully followed up,
it would confirm the statements of history, and prove that the present
population are, with the exception of the Kayáni and their Sistani
subjects, only immigrants since the period of Nadír’s usurpation of the
throne of Persia; and further, the inquiry, by tracing the genealogy and
traditionary accounts of the chiefs after whom the villages are named,
would enable us to form a tolerably correct idea of the progress of the
population of the country since the period of its devastation by the
Tátárs under Tymúr, and serve as a guide to the illustration of its local
history and politics.




CHAPTER IX.


_15th March._—Silyán to Lásh, eighteen miles, and halt two days. Our
baggage proceeded by the direct route northward across the ruin-covered
plain. The road is three or four miles shorter than that followed by
ourselves, and passes the shrine of Saggid Icbál, the lofty dome of which
overtops the surrounding ruins, and is a prominent object in the midst of
their desolation.

We ourselves made a detour to the westward, and visited the ruins of Kol
Márút, where we were told we should find an inscription to the following
effect, viz.—

  “Kol Márút khúshá ba sari ráh o guzar.
  ’Abash zamzam o khákhash hama zar.
  Agar khwáhi jamáli Kába daryábi biram be masjidi Kol Márút ba
     wacti sahar.
  Chaf chaf chafri chafúr, chapi dasti chop haft khumi zar.”

Which, translated into English, runs thus—“Welcome Kol Márút on the very
high road and passage. Its water is that of Zamzam (a celebrated well
at Mecca), and its earth is all gold. If you desire to enjoy the beauty
of the Kába (the square temple at Mecca), go to the mosque of Kol Márút
at day-dawn. Chaf chaf chafri chafúr (cant words), on the left of the
left hand are seven jars of gold.” On arrival at the ruins, however,
nobody could point out the inscription; and after wandering amongst the
buildings for some time in a fruitless search of it, we proceeded on our
way rather disappointed at our failure, and confirmed in a suspicion
that the inscription and the wealth enigmatically alluded to were alike
mere myths.

The mosque of Kol Márút is a large building, and still retains some very
fairly preserved plaster moulding on the façades of its portal. The
designs are in Arabesque, and worked into sentences from the Curán in
the ancient Cufic character. Adjoining the mosque are some quadrangular
buildings, said to be the remains of colleges. The cloisters were easily
traceable; and in one of the vaulted chambers we found, in a recess of
the wall, imprinted on the plaster, a masonic design of crossed triangles
and stars.

After clearing the ruins we struck on the high road between Hokát and
Sistan, and following it in a north-east direction for four or five
miles, at half-way came to Khyrabad, where we alighted for breakfast in
some ruins hard by.

Khyrabad—the abode of welfare and goodness—is a sad contradiction to the
import of its name, for a more dreary, poor, and unhappy place we have
not seen in this country. It is the first inhabited spot we have come to
since crossing the Sistan boundary at Naizár, and is merely a dilapidated
castle containing twenty or thirty houses of Popalzai Afghans. Outside
the walls, within gunshot range, are a few fields of corn, irrigated from
the small water-cut from the Farráh river, which flows a couple of miles
to the north-west of the fort. Around it the plain is thickly dotted with
tall ruins, which, on the opposite side of the river, are massed together
in the form of a considerable town. These ruins are called Kogháh, and
are situated at the foot of a low hill called Koh Ghúch, on which we were
told there are the ruins of numberless smelting furnaces and heaps of
iron slag. The hill overlooks the pool or _hámún_ of the Farráh river
from the north.

The ruins around Khyrabad have a very peculiar appearance. Each house is
detached from the others, and stands apart by itself, and all are built
on exactly the same model. We examined several of them, and finally took
refuge in one of them for breakfast from the keen blasts of the north
wind, which swept over the plain with considerable force. Each house
consists of two lofty walls strengthened by buttresses, and running north
and south parallel to each other at a width of about twenty feet. The
front faces the south, and is open; the rear faces the north, and is
closed by a high wall connecting the parallel side ones. In its upper
half, towards the western side, this rear wall presents a vertical gap
two feet wide and about eight feet deep from above downwards.

The open front facing the south presents two stories, formed by a
vaulted arch thrown across between the two side walls for their whole
length, about thirty feet from north to south. The interior below the
arch formed the dwelling-house of the occupants, and was furnished with
several little recesses in the sides of the walls. These evidently
served the purpose of cupboards and shelves for domestic utensils and
stores. The lower surface of the arch was generally found stained with
soot, indicating that the fires were burnt on the floor. No means of
ventilation or light were traceable except through the open front.

The stage above the arch was unroofed, and, when these buildings were
peopled, was occupied by the windmill peculiar to this country, and which
has already been described. This explains the reason of the narrow gap
in the upper part of the rear wall. These buildings are all built of raw
brick, and are in many instances remarkably well preserved, apparently
in the actual state of demolition in which they were originally left.
The following diagrams represent the front, rear, and side view of these
curious buildings.

[Illustration: Front S.]

[Illustration: Rear N.]

[Illustration: Sides E. and W.]

Beyond Khyrabad we struck the Farráh river, near the ruins of Sumúr,
on its opposite bank, where it sweeps round the high desert cliffs to
the south-west. We followed up the stream in an opposite direction, and
passing through the ruins of Luftán, amidst which are the remains of
two forts of evidently different dates, came to a wide basin formed by
the talus of the river, and camped on its left bank, directly opposite
the fort of Lásh, which occupies a remarkable position on the verge of
a sheer cliff about four hundred and fifty feet high. It rises straight
up from the river bed, and in the flood season its base is washed by
the swollen stream of the Farráh river. The name is derived from the
situation, for in Pushto _lásh_ or _lákh_ signifies a cliff or precipice.

During our stay here we visited the fort, and were very hospitably
received by its chief, Sardár Ahmad Khán, Isháczai, the lord of Hokát.
His family have only been settled here since the beginning of the present
century. In the time of Sháh Ahmad, Durrani, an ancestor named Kamál
Khán separated from the tribal chief, Madad Khán, at Kandahar, and took
service as a soldier with Tymúr Mirzá at Herat. He left a son named
Rahmdil, who was a man of no parts or influence; but his son, Sálih
Muhammad, became the favourite and confidant of Tymúr’s son, Muhammad,
and followed him in his varied fortunes for many years.

When Mahmúd succeeded to the throne of Kabul in 1810, he gave this
district of Hokát in military fief to his faithful servant, on whom he
had bestowed the title of Sháh Pasand Khán. At this period the district
had hardly recovered from the state of desolation to which it had been
reduced by the invasion of Tymúr Lang, and was merely the winter resort
of Afghan nomads of the Isháczai and Núrzai tribes. The new owner
quickly rebuilt the fort of Lásh on the site of its former ruins, and
also founded the fortress of Júwen on the plain, three miles off, on the
opposite side of the river. He also restored the ruins of Calá Koh and
some other important forts.

Later, when Mahmúd’s misfortunes, crowding fast on each other, drove him
from Kabul, and afterwards lost him the sovereignty in Herat, he found a
refuge here with his former trusty adherent, and lived in quiet obscurity
for some years, till, on the invitation of his rebellious son, Kamrán, he
returned to Herat in 1829, and shortly after died there, under suspicious
symptoms, called cholera.

Sálih Muhammad died, at the age of seventy years, in 1850, having taken
an active part in the political revolutions that mark the history of the
Herat frontier during the half century. His son Abdurrasúl died during
his own lifetime, at Farráh, where he had found an asylum with the
governor against the hostility of Yár Muhammad; and his son Ahmad Khán,
the present Sardár, who resided at Calá Koh, succeeded his grandfather in
the chiefship; and after Yár Muhammad’s death, in the following year,
moved his headquarters to Lásh, his brother, Samad Khán, holding the
fortress of Júwen.

Lásh is a strongly situated little fort, and commands an extensive view
of the surrounding country, and a more desolate prospect it is difficult
to imagine. On either side are vast arid deserts abutting upon the valley
of the Farráh river and the Hokát basin in high cliffs of bare clay,
whilst the low lands between, as far south as the eye can reach, present
a dreary waste of ruined towns, dilapidated forts, and obliterated
water-courses. The only objects varying the monotony of the dismal scene
are the hills closing the view towards the north.

Formerly this district contained twelve flourishing villages, and in the
winter months was crowded with the camps of nomad Afghans, but since
the Persian occupation of Sistan, and the hostilities waged against the
invaders during the past six or seven years, the country has suffered
great loss, and is, in fact, almost depopulated. Seven of its villages
have been abandoned, and their inhabitants, to the number of four
thousand families, been forced to emigrate to Sistan as Persian subjects,
in order to avoid the raids made from that quarter, whilst the Afghan
nomads have entirely deserted the country, owing to the losses suffered
by the forays upon their cattle from the same direction.

Júwen is a strong little fortress, built on the wide talus formed by
the alluvium on the left bank of the river. Its walls are solid and
substantial, and are surrounded by a deep ditch. These two forts and Calá
Koh axe the chief strongholds of the Hokát district, which in former
times was evidently very populous and highly cultivated, as is testified
by the ruins of towns and castles that meet the eye in every direction.
They are of far superior construction to the wretched mud hovels
of the villages now existing in the country, and, in their state of
demolition and desolation, are reproachful memorials of the invasions and
revolutions that have, during successive centuries, reduced a fertile and
populous country to a thinly-peopled waste. The ruins in their character
resemble those of Pesháwarán and Záhidán, and are evidently of Arab
origin; but amidst them here and there are found less artistic and every
way inferior structures, plainly of more recent date.

The ancient road between Kandahar and Herat passed through Sistan and
Hokát to Farráh and Sabzwár or Ispzár, and was the route always followed
by invading armies, on account of the abundant supplies it furnished,
as well as from the necessity of securing the subjection of its people
before the direct route by Girishk could be safely adopted. The incursion
of Tymúr completed the destruction commenced by the irruption of
Changhiz, and the subsequent invasions of Bábar and Nadír again destroyed
the partial restorations that time had effected.

The former, in 1522, captured and dismantled the important fortress
of Hok or Ók, from which the district takes its name; Hokát being the
Arabic plural of _hok_, and applying to the district of which it was the
capital, just as Gháynát applies to the territory of which Gháyn is the
capital. The latter, more than two centuries later, when marching against
Kandahar, destroyed all the principal forts on his route from Farráh
through Sistan and Garmsel up to Búst; and from this period, about 1737,
up to the present time, this country has remained in much the same state
of ruin that it was left by Nadír. Hokát possesses all the requisites for
a very prosperous little chiefship, so far as the natural conditions of
the country are concerned, for its soil is fertile, and water abundantly
at command; but it pines under the curse of anarchy, and groans under the
load of its oppressions. The district is about sixty miles from east to
west, and about fifty from north to south. Its boundaries are Harút or
Adraskand river on the west, the Calá Koh and Farráh hills on the north,
the Khásh desert on the east, and the Naizár on the south.

From its position on the frontier between the Mughal and Persian empires,
this district has suffered the full force of the revolutions and
political vicissitudes marking the history of those rival sovereignties,
and consequently has never thoroughly recovered from the havoc wrought by
the Tátárs; and its present state of desolation is only the consequence
of the long period of anarchy and misrule that have characterised the
history of this region since the downfall of the Arab dominion. Of
the capabilities of the soil, and the command of water, the existing
memorials of former populous cities are sufficient evidence; and, under
a strong government and enlightened rule, there appears no reason why
it should not once more become the fertile and prosperous country it is
known to have been.

_18th March._—Lásh to Panjdih, six miles. This was a sorrowful day for
us all. We had sent our baggage across the river during the forenoon,
and were about to follow at midday, when a courier arrived from Kandahar
_viâ_ Farráh, bringing our post from Peshawar with dates up to the 16th
February. The joy produced by the receipt of these eagerly-looked for
budgets, containing as they did letters from those we hold near and
dear, and news of the world we had left behind us, was on this occasion
sadly shocked by the mournful intelligence of the assassination of the
Viceroy of India on the 8th February, at the hands of a convict in the
Andamans. The news of Lord Mayo’s death cast a gloom over our party for
many days, and for some of us the calamity was invested with a peculiarly
painful interest, from the fact of our having known the perpetrator of
the tragedy for many years as a well-conducted and loyal servant of the
British Government. He was an Afridi Pathan, and had during several
years done good service as personal orderly to successive Commissioners
of Peshawar, and, through the inflexible administration of our law, was
condemned to transportation for life for the murder, within British
territory, of a fellow clansman in satisfaction of a blood-feud; both
being natives of independent territory.

His name was Sher ’Ali, and, like all Pathans with a grievance, he was
deterred by the fear of neither God nor man in seizing an opportunity
for revenge; and thus it happened that, by an extraordinary accident,
the head of the Government fell a victim to his sense of injury, India
plunged into mourning, and the country deprived of one of its most
popular and able governors.

Leaving our camping-ground, we forded the river a little below the Lásh
fort. It flowed in a clear quiet stream, about sixty yards wide, over
a firm pebbly bottom; the water reaching half-way up the saddle-flaps.
Beyond the river we passed through a wide pebbly gully round the western
face of the fort, and gradually rose on to a strip of the desert, which
here projects up to the river bed in a promontory half a mile wide. From
this elevation we got a good view of the Júwen fort and the ruin-covered
basin of the Farráh river; and descending from it, passed north-west over
its alluvium, and camped in the midst of the ruins of a considerable town
close to the little castle of Panjdih, on the right bank of the river.

In the cliffs of the desert bounding the alluvium on our left we
passed a couple of caves said to have been originally inhabited by
fire-worshippers. I dismounted to explore them, and found that they
extended for a considerable distance under the cliff. They are very low
roofed, and divided into numerous passages by thick pillars formed of the
clay soil. The ceiling is very roughly cut out in the shape of a vault,
and the hard clay is charred with soot. The floor is covered with human
footprints, but farther in is marked by the pads of the hyænas or wolves.
The caves could accommodate thirty or forty people according to the
estimate of my native attendants.

From Panjdih we marched sixteen miles to Khúshkrodak, or “the dry
rivulet,” and camped in its wide bed a little off the high road, and
on the edge of a thready stream trickling down its centre, amidst an
abundant growth of a tall coarse pasture grass called _kerta_.

For the first half of our march the road crossed a wide sweep of
alluvium, and then, at a bend of the river called _’Kárwán rez_, rose on
to the desert, which here abuts upon it in high bluffs. The river flows
in a brisk stream, that winds tortuously over a wide channel full of
thick jangal, in which the tamarisk, willow, poplar, and acacia are the
most prominent trees.

The desert stretches away towards the south-west in a great undulating
waste of firm gravelly soil, thickly covered with pasture plants, now
sprouting into leaf, and here and there dotted with shallow pools in
the hollows of the surface. It supports great herds of wild asses and
gazelles, and swarms with lizards, snakes, and scorpions. Hares, foxes,
and wild cats abound in its coverts, and in our passage over it we found
numbers of bustard, sand-grouse, and plover of sorts.

Formerly this desert waste used to be frequented by nomad Afghans, but
they have abandoned its pastures owing to the anarchy and insecurity
that has prevailed here during the last ten years or so. As we found it,
the whole surface is covered with pasture herbs and bushes suited for
camels, horned cattle, and sheep. The principal plants are a dwarf mimosa
called _chughak_, the wormwood, spiny astragalus, caroxylon, and other
saltworts, called here _lána_, _shorai_, and _zmai_, a species of ephedra
called _hóm_, two or three kinds of caryophyllæ, and a woody shrub
bearing yellow flowers and thick fleshy leaves, and having a three-winged
fruit. It is called _mákoi_ in Pushto, and _ghích_ in Persian, and is
considered excellent food for camels and sheep. Its wood also furnishes
good fuel.

Khúshkrodak is a wide and deep ravine with high banks of stiff clay.
It drains the Calá Koh hills, and running across the desert plain in a
southerly direction, joins the Farráh river some way below Lásh. Where
the high road crosses it the banks are shelving, and present loose blocks
of conglomerate rock, but the bed is a stiff clay charged with salines.

Our next stage was fifteen miles across the plain, first north-west and
then north, to Calá Koh, or Káh, as it is usually pronounced, at the foot
of a range of hills running east and west, and connecting those of Farráh
on the north-east with those of Bandán on the south-west.

Calá Koh is the principal of a collection of fortified villages that
extend for many miles along the foot of the hills. The others, from
east to west, are Shúsh, Fareb, Calá Páyín, and Júrg. Interspersed
amongst them are the ruins of several villages and forts that have been
demolished by different invaders. Calá Koh, which was the residence of
the present chief of Lásh up to 1851, was dismantled in 1863 by orders
of the late Amir Dost Muhammad Khán, as a punishment for the contempt
of his authority shown by its chief, Sardár Ahmad Khán, Isháczai, the
present lord of Hokát.

Since the fall of the Saddozai family this chief had always maintained an
independent attitude towards the Bárakzai rulers of Kabul and Kandahar,
and was favoured by the isolation of his position in resisting their
attempts to reduce him to submission. He was, moreover, estranged from
them by reason of a blood feud existing between the families, Ahmad
Khán’s grandfather, Sálih Muhammad, having taken part in the cruel
butchery of the Wazír Fata Khán, the brother of the Amir Dost Muhammad
Khán. On the occasion of Dost Muhammad’s move upon Herat he summoned
Ahmad Khán to his camp at Farráh, but this Afghan noble, mistrustful of
the Amir’s designs, and fearful of losing his independence, hastily left
his domain and took refuge with the Persians at Mashhad. Consequently
the Amir detached a force under his son Sardár Muhammad Sharíf Khán to
destroy Calá Koh and plunder the district. The fort has remained in a
dismantled state ever since.

The land about Calá Koh is irrigated from streams brought off from the
Farráh river, and produces wheat and barley abundantly. The soil is very
highly charged with salines, and in wet weather the roads are almost
impassable by reason of the depth of mud. We had to cross a small patch
of land that had been flooded by a break in the bank of an irrigation
canal, and found the mud knee-deep and very tenacious. Many of our
baggage cattle fell in it, and were extricated with considerable trouble.

We found the midday sun here had unusual force. The thermometer in our
tents rose to 92° Fah. at three P.M., and sunk to 52° Fah. at daylight.
The height of this place above the sea is about 2100 feet. Along the
water-courses grows in abundance a strong thorny bush, much resembling
the barberry, but different from it. Its local name is _sag angúrak_, or
“dog’s grape.”

From Calá Koh we marched fifteen miles in a westerly direction, and
camped on the bank of the Harút Rúd, the bed of which we found quite
dry, though water in sufficiency was found by digging a few feet into
its gravelly soil. Our route skirted the hills to the right, and passing
through a gap in them, opened on the wide basin of the Harút river, which
is a dismal wilderness without a trace of habitation or cultivation. The
surface is covered with a thick growth of tamarisk bushes, caroxylon, and
other saltworts, carthamus, wild almond, _ghích_, and a profuse variety
of other plants, but the hills about are perfectly bare.

At the castle of Júrg we took leave of Sardár Ahmad Khán, who had
accompanied our party since we first met on the march from Daki Dela to
Cabri Hájí. He and his party then went on to pay their devoirs at the
shrine of Imám Záhid, at the foot of a hill a couple of miles ahead. It
is called _Reg Rawán_, from the “moving sand” on its slope.

A little later we ourselves were obliged to follow their path, owing to
the land in our front being impassably deep in mud from the overflow of
an irrigation stream. Imám Záhid we found to be a collection of fifteen
or sixteen wretched huts round the shrine of that saint, and hard by
are a few date-palms of stunted growth. Overlooking all, at a few yards
to the north, is the _reg rawán_ hill with its covering of loose red
sand, which exactly resembles that we met with in the desert bounding
the Garmsel on the south, and from which locality it has probably been
drifted here at some remote period, for there is no similar sand anywhere
in the vicinity.

The sand fills a wide concavity on the southern slope of a bare rocky
ridge detached from the Calá Koh range, and forms an isolated mass, as
remarkable from its position as from the sounds it emits when set in
motion. As we passed on, our late companions on the march toilfully
plodded their way up the sandy slope to the summit of the hill. Their
steps set the loose particles of sand in motion, and their friction, by
some mysterious acoustic arrangement, produced a sound as of distant
drums and music, which we heard distinctly at the distance of a mile. The
sounds were not continuous, but were only now and again caught by the
ear, and much resembled those produced by the Æolian harp, or the wind
playing on telegraph wires. These sounds are often emitted by the action
of the wind on the surface of the sand, and at other times without any
assignable cause. The phenomenon has invested the locality with a sacred
character, and visitors to the shrine consider their devotions incomplete
till they have toiled up the sands and repeated their prayers on the
hill-top. There are similar collections of sand on other hills of this
range some miles farther on, as we observed in the next march, but they
are divested of interest to the natives since they produce no sound.

At the Harút river we found the sun hot, and a south wind blowing all day
produced a sensible change in the climate. The bed of the river where
we camped presented a shallow pebbly bed with low shelving banks, and
the soil on either side was covered with great patches of white saline
efflorescence. This river, after leaving the Anárdarrah valley, forms the
western boundary of Hokát, and the hills bounding its basin to the west,
joining the Nih Bandán range farther south, form the western boundary
of Sistan. Beyond this range, to the west, is a long strip of desert,
called Dashtí Náummed, which extends north and south, and forms the limit
between Afghanistan and Persia.

_22d March._—Harút Rúd or river to Cháhi Sagak, twenty-four miles. Our
route was westward, by a well-trodden path, across a wide basin covered
with thick jangal of two kinds of tamarisk, called _gaz_ and _tághaz_,
interspersed amongst a profuse growth of caroxylon, salicornia, spiny
astragalus, wild almond, carthamus, mimosa, artemisia, Syrian rue, blue
iris, tulips, and other bulbous plants, and various species of herbs.

Beyond this we passed through an interrupted chain of hills trending
north and south, and entered on an undulating surface covered with a
profusion of pasture plants, of which the asafœtida is prominent from its
abundance. This plain is called Arwita, and extends northwards up to the
Cháhi Shor, or “saline well” hills, beyond which, through the valley of
the Harút river, it joins the Anárdarrah glen.

Crossing this, we passed through a gap in the Regoh hills, so named
from an isolated drift of sand on the southern slope of its principal
ridge, similar to that of the Reg Rawán already described, and entered on
another pasture plain called Damdam. The Regoh hill is of red granite,
and the soil of the plain is a firm gravel strewed with bits of cellular
lava, with here and there some remarkable outcrops of white quartz
resembling cairns.

Near one of these, on the roadside, we found a number of burrows or
trenches, roofed over with the branches of bushes growing around, and
covered over with soil. Each was only large enough to contain a man lying
full length, and must have been entered feet foremost, as there was but
one opening, and it only admitted of this mode of entry. They were
formerly used as shelter from the weather by the shepherds tending their
flocks here; but these pastures have been abandoned by the Afghan nomads
for many years, owing to the insecurity of the country, although the
whole tract up to Cháhi Sagak is their recognised pasture limit.

This road too, which from remote times has been the caravan route between
India and Persia, by Kandahar and the Bolán on the one side, and Lásh and
Birjand on the other, has long been abandoned as a trade route, owing to
its unsafety, and the risks from plundering bands of Sistanis and Baloch
on the one hand, and Afghans and Gháynís on the other.

At about midway on the march we halted at the Cháhi Damdam for breakfast.
It is a wide-mouthed well or pit at the foot of a low hill, the southern
slope of which is covered with a mass of loose red sand like Regoh and
Reg Rawán, but of smaller size, and contains some coffee-coloured water
of most uninviting appearance, but it was free from smell, and not bad
tasted.

Beyond this we passed through an interrupted ridge of hills, the highest
of which, away to the south, is called Tagi Atashkhana, and is said to
produce flint stones, and then sloped gently down to the Dashtí Náummed,
or “desert of despair,” which is the great boundary between Afghanistan
and Persia. It is here about six miles wide, and runs north and south
between parallel ranges of hills. The surface is covered with a profusion
of excellent pasture plants and asafœtida in great abundance. In former
times it used to be the common grazing-ground for the cattle of the
Afghan tribes in the vicinity, from Sistan, Hokát and Farráh; but owing
to the border disputes between the Persian and Afghan governments it
has been deserted for several years, and its pastures are now the
hunting-ground of marauding Baloch and Afghans, who harry the country
from all sides.

Though hardly six miles wide where we crossed it, this belt of desert
is said to expand considerably towards the north and south, and in the
former direction extends up to the limits of Mashhad. On its farther side
we camped at the outlet of a gully draining the range of hills dividing
Afghanistan from Persia, near a well called Cháhi Sagak, or “dog’s well.”
It is the farthest point claimed as Afghan territory in this direction,
and is a mere camping-stage, without a vestige of habitation or
cultivation; in fact, there are no signs of such in all this tract west
of Imám Záhid. The name of the well is applied in a disparaging sense,
and very appropriately too, for its water was the worst we had anywhere
met with on the whole of our long march. The liquid hardly deserved the
name of water, for it was a thick, muddy, putrid brine, which it was
impossible to drink disguised in any way. We tried it with tea and coffee
and brandy, but neither lessened its salt taste, nor concealed its smell
of sulphureted hydrogen, and we were content to do without. Our cattle
one and all refused it, and the only ones who used it were some of our
baggage-servants, with stomachs stronger and instincts weaker than those
of the brutes they drove.

The land rises gently all the way in this march, and at Cháhi Sagak is
about 1100 feet higher than at Harút Rúd. The weather was mild and cloudy
all day, with occasional north-westerly breezes. We saw a number of
gazelles on the line of march, and fresh signs of wild asses, a herd of
which had been startled out of sight by our baggagers ahead.

_23d March._—Cháhi Sagak to Duroh, twenty-eight miles. At first our route
was westerly up the course of a winding drainage gully, flanked on each
side by low hills of friable slate, in the clefts and hollows of which
were scattered a few pistacia trees (the _khinjak_ of the Afghans), here
called _bannáh_, and shrubs of the wild almond and barberry.

At about the sixth mile we reached the watershed, and ascended an
adjoining eminence for a view of the country. Towards the north and
west the prospect was obstructed by hills, but to the south and east
we obtained an extensive view of the great desert of Gháyn and Kirmán,
called Dashtí Lút, and the wide plan of Sistan, on either side of the
range we were crossing. Each bore a striking resemblance to the other
in the vast extent of level surface unrelieved by any more attractive
objects than great patches of saline encrustation on the one side, and
long silvery streaks of water on the other.

By the indications of the aneroid barometer, I estimated the height of
this watershed at 3870 feet above the sea. Beyond this we crossed a
hilly country drained by a number of wide pebbly channels that converge
towards the south. The principal of these are the _Rúdi ushtur ran_, or
“the camel-track river,” and the _Rúdi míl_, and both, though now quite
dry, bear traces of the action of considerable floods at certain seasons.
Their beds and banks supported a thin growth of tamarisk and other
bushes, and here and there their channels were obstructed by huge blocks
of granite rock.

On the west of the Rúdi Míl rises a high hill called Calá Koh, from the
resemblance of its summit to a fort, and its name is applied to the whole
range, the different peaks of which are distinguished by their several
distinctive appellations. The scenery amongst these hills is very wild
and rugged. Great ridges of bare rock close the view in every direction,
whilst the hollows between the lesser heights present a very broken
surface, dotted here and there with thorny bushes, as rough and hardy
looking as the rocks amongst which they grow.

Beyond Rúdi Míl we passed through a gap in the Calá Koh range, and
entered a circular basin enclosed by low hills of grey granite. Its soil
is a firm gravel, and the surface abounded in tulips, orchids, lilies,
and other bulbous herbs. From this we passed into another similar basin,
in which we found some cattle at graze, the first we have seen since
leaving Sistan; and beyond it emerged on to the Duroh _júlga_, where we
camped at the foot of the hills, close to the village of that name, the
first we have come to in Persia.

The climate here is notably different from that of the country we have
left behind. During the day the air was delightfully mild and balmy, and
at night fresh and bracing. In crossing the Calá Koh range, we have in
fact entered a different country. The change too is observable no less in
the characteristics of its people than of its climate. The people here
are much fairer skinned than the Afghans, are differently clothed, and
appear a more orderly community.

Duroh is a flourishing little village surrounded by corn-fields and
walled gardens. It is supplied with water from a spring in the hills
hard by, and is protected by a couple of fortified towers on some rocky
heights overlooking the village. Below it is a wide sandy ravine, and
beyond lies a long level valley extending north and south between hills,
and covered with a profusion of pasture herbs, on which we found some
large herds of cattle at graze.

From Duroh we marched twenty-seven miles in a north-westerly direction
to Husenabad, where we camped. For the first sixteen miles our path
led diagonally across the valley, and then followed up the course of
a drainage gully bounded by hills of chlorite slate, through which at
intervals projected masses of a dark close-grained granite. The soil
of the valley is a firm gravel, thickly carpeted with plants in great
variety. The _ghích_, wormwood, wild rue, and asafœtida were remarkably
abundant, but the caroxylon and other saltworts found to the eastward
were here altogether absent.

We halted for breakfast at the mouth of the gully, where is an artificial
cistern called Cháhi Bannáh, from a few _bannáh_ trees (Pistacia sp.)
growing close by, and on the glistening chlorite mounds around found the
wild rhubarb in some quantity. The gully winds a good deal, and narrows
as it ascends, but the slope is gradual and the road not difficult. On
the skirts of the hills on either side are a number of small heaps of
clay produced by the disintegration of the rock; they are of different
colours, as ash grey, bluish, fawn colour, and white, and from their
bright hues form an attractive feature in the general scene.

At about three miles we came to a watershed called Gudari Mesham.
Its elevation is about 4900 feet, and the ridge is composed of white
magnesian limestone, which is almost entirely bare of vegetation.

On our way up this pass we met the first travellers it had been our lot
to see or pass on all the road from Kandahar westward. They formed a
small party of about twenty men, with double the number of asses and
bullocks, and were on their way from Birjand to Sistan for grain, like
Israel of old from Canaan to Egypt, for the famine was sore in the
land. They were very poor and submissive-looking people, and, to our
surprise, bowed respectfully as we passed. We had been so accustomed to
the independent bearing of the Afghans, and their haughty indifference
towards strangers, that we were unprepared for this voluntary mark of
deference. One of their party, who lagged in the rear, appeared from
his patchwork frock and dissolute looks to be a member of some order
of religious mendicants, and, on seeing us, at once assumed the air of
impudent defiance it is the privilege of his class to exhibit. As we
approached he still kept the road, and shouted with stentorian voice,
“_Hacc! Hacc! Allah! Gushnaam! Bakhshi Khudá!_” (or, “Just one! just
one! God! I am hungry! the portion of God!”), the while stretching out
his hands for contributions. Another noteworthy circumstance about these
travellers was the fact of their being for the most part disarmed.
None of them carried guns, and only two were armed with swords. I
will not attempt to explain this custom of travelling unarmed, being
insufficiently acquainted with the conditions under which the people
live, and the internal state of the country. I may observe, however,
that it explains the facility with which Afghan, Baloch, and Sistan
marauders harry the country, and carry off its people into slavery in
Afghanistan. I was informed on reliable authority, that most of the slave
girls employed as domestics in the houses of the gentry at Kandahar were
brought from the outlying districts of Gháyn.

Beyond the watershed, our path sloped down to a wide upland plain,
similar to that of Duroh, and, like it, extending from north to south.
We skirted the hills along its eastern border for some miles, and then
turned off to the Husenabad fort in the centre of the plain.

The fort is a very neat little structure of apparently recent
construction. At each of its four corners is a round bastion, and over
the gateway is a turret; on each of two sides are neat rows of domed huts
close under the walls, and around are some corn-fields, but no trees
nor gardens. The water here is from a _kárez_, or, as the subterranean
conduits are here called, _canát_, and though clear and fresh to look at,
is so briny as to be almost undrinkable; yet the people use no other. We
halted here a day, and during our stay got our supplies of water from a
sweet spring at the foot of the hills across the plain to the east. Its
site is marked by the ruins of an ancient castle called Caláta Cáimáb.

The plain of Husenabad is a wide pasture tract of light gravelly soil,
covered at this season with a bright green carpet of short grass, on
which we found some large flocks of goats and sheep at graze. Standing
on the open plain, a couple of miles to the north-east, is the old fort
of Husenabad. It appears in very good preservation, though it has been
abandoned for some years owing to the drying up of its water supply.

Since we crossed the Afghan border at Cháhi Sagak, the weather has been
more or less cloudy, frequent showers have fallen, and occasional storms
have burst over the hills, topping the higher ones with a coating of
snow. The climate here at this season is very delightful. The air is
mild, light, and fresh, and the sun shines with an agreeable warmth, very
different from the oppressive heat of its rays in Sistan. The elevation
of Husenabad is about 4480 feet above the sea. In winter its climate is
described as very severe, owing to the cold blasts of the north wind that
sweep across the plain.

_26th March._—Husenabad to Sarbesha, twenty-nine miles. We set out under
a cold and cloudy sky, and proceeding in a north-westerly direction
across the plain, and over an upland pasture tract, at about seventeen
miles came to the Abi Ghunda Koh, a large pool of fresh water fed by a
strong spring situated at the entrance of a gully in the hills.

On our way over the plateau we passed a number of Elyát tents, dotted
in threes and fours over the surface, and saw large flocks of goats and
sheep. Some of the women came out of their tents with platters of burning
_sipand_, or Syrian rue, the _spelanai_ of the Afghans, and _harmal_
of the Indians, and raced across the mead, shouting in very unfeminine
tones, “_Pul bidih, gushnaem!_” (“Give us money; we are starving!”), and
a chorus of other complaints, which happily were easily appeased at the
cost of a few _kráns_. These women, and some of the men who accompanied
them, were neither young nor good-looking, but they had hardy features,
and tough bronzed skins, and appeared to me physically inferior to the
Afghan nomad, and certainly poorer.

Seeing these people scattered widely in their tents, and considering the
nature of their country, overrun as it is by interrupted hill ranges
affording concealment to the robber, one can easily understand how a
dozen horsemen, suddenly dashing out from their shelter in the hills,
could surprise one of the small camps, and carry off its women and
children before succour could arrive. Formerly these frontier Elyáts used
to be regularly hunted by the Afghan and Baloch, and sometimes even the
Turkman, their cattle carried off, and themselves sold into slavery. Of
late years, however, this miserable species of raid has been put a stop
to. But the Elyát of Gháyn very seldom venture beyond the protection of
the frontier forts, such as Husenabad. Their wealth principally consists
in goats and sheep, the former particularly, and also camels.

Immense flocks of goats are reared on the rich pastures of this elevated
region. They are almost all of a black colour, with long coarse hair that
hangs in matted tangles. We noticed that most of the goats were shedding
a very soft light-brown down that grows at the roots of the hair. It
adhered in flocks to the matted tresses of hair, and was easily picked
off. Some flocks I gathered were extremely soft and fine and downy, and
seemed to have been shed with the outer skin, for dry scales of cuticle
were caught in its meshes.

This down is picked off and collected under the name of _kurk_, and is
used in the manufacture of a soft, warm woollen stuff known by that name.
This _kurk_ is made up into the cloaks called _chogha_, _jubba_, &c., and
the finer kinds fetch a high price. The camels and sheep shed a similar
down, and the materials manufactured from them are called respectively
_shuturi pashmína_ and _barrak pashmína_. The coarser kinds of all three
materials are called _pattú_, and somewhat resemble baize in texture.

We alighted at the Abi Ghunda Koh for breakfast. Its preparation proved
as difficult a task as its discussion afterwards was a disagreeable
duty. A steady rain had set in, and squally gusts of wind from the
south whirled drifts of its drenching showers upon us with unmitigated
persistence, in the poor shelter afforded by the lee of the rocks around.
Our Persian servants were, however, quite equal to the occasion, and
speedily produced a number of hot dishes from the stores concealed in the
recesses of the capacious bags of their packhorses, with more facility
than we experienced in their disposal.

The rain had washed the rocks, and brought out their bright colours with
unusual distinctness, and the mounds of amygdaloid trap and speckled
granite shone out handsomely. For three miles onwards from this pool
our route followed the course of a drainage gully, the surface of which
sparkled with bright-coloured stones; fragments of green, red, and brown
trap, light blue and pink water agates, cellular lava of cream, orange,
and chocolate hues, and masses of a striated and starred rock of rust
colour, resembling iron ore, with sharp angular fragments of “pepper and
salt” trap, strewed the path everywhere.

At the top of the gully we rose suddenly by a narrow path over a great
ridge of granite on to a small gap called Gudar Ghanda Koh. It forms the
watershed boundary between the Husenabad and Sarbesha plateaux, and is
about 6885 feet above the sea, the aneroid on its summit figuring 22·91.
The descent on the other side is by a long slope, skirting some low hills
to the left down to the great Sarbesha plateau, which we crossed at its
southern extremity, and camped at the village from which it takes its
name.

In our route over this pass we found a good deal of wild vegetation in
the hollows of the hills. The principal plants were the wild almond and
tamarisk, dwarf ephedra, camel-thorn, and the _ghích_, also caroxylon,
wild rue, artemisia, orchids, crocus, and other similar plants.

We halted a day at Sarbesha, owing to the inclemency of the weather, and
saw enough to prove that its winter must be a rigorous season. Rain fell
more or less continuously during our halt here; the air was cold, raw,
and cheerless, and wintry blasts of a south wind howled over the wide
plateau in dismal tones quite in keeping with the bleak and wild nature
of the country. During our stay here two couriers overtook us with posts
from Peshawar. They arrived within a few hours of each other, the one
with Peshawar dates up to the 26th February from Jacobabad _viâ_ Calát
and Kandahar, and the other with dates from the same place up to the 1st
March by the direct route of Kurram and Ghazni to Kandahar.

Sarbesha, or “wilderness head,” is an open village of 350 domed huts at
the foot of a high detached hill. It is named from its position at the
head of a great wilderness or waste, that extends away to the north-west
for many miles as an open plateau bounded by bare hills. It is the
residence of the _zábit_ or governor of this frontier district, who came
to meet us at Husenabad. His name is Saggid Mír Asadullah Beg, and he has
the power to cut off noses and ears at discretion, and to mutilate in
other forms, but not to deprive of life. He discharged his special duties
towards us with no unnecessary grace, and left no more notable memorial
of his character than his steady devotion to the _calyán_, which he kept
going throughout the march, lighting and relighting its replenished bowl
I am afraid to say how often, but much oftener than could be good for
anybody.

The Sarbesha plateau, though yet dreary, bleak, and wild in the
transition state from the snows of winter to the balmy airs of spring, is
not always the waste it now looks.

In summer its wide surface is clothed with the richest pastures, on
which vast flocks of goats and sheep find sustenance, and covered with
the tents of Elyát tribes occupied with their care, whilst the numerous
villages now barely discernible in the sheltered nooks along the hill
skirts bursts into full view with the budding of the gardens amongst
which they are nestled. The climate of this region is described as most
delightful and salubrious, but the winter is rigorous. If the appearance
alone of the people be taken as the test, they certainly speak well in
its favour, for they are remarkably fair, robust, and healthy-looking
as a whole. They appear to be a prosperous and peaceable community,
being well clad and well conducted. They are principally employed in the
manufacture of woollen carpets of the kind called _cálín_, but those
produced here are of inferior quality.

Our next stage was twenty-two miles to Calá Múd, where we camped close
to the village, under the ruins of an old fort. Our route was in a
north-west direction along a beaten track skirting the Sarbesha hill at
first, and then across a small plain enclosed by hills. It is called
Bayaban-i-Hanz, from a reservoir of water in its centre. After marching
nine miles, we halted at this reservoir for breakfast. It is a masonry
cistern covered by a dome, and flanked on each side by a couple of
vaulted chambers for the shelter and refreshment of wayfarers. Similar
reservoirs are common on all the highroads throughout this Persian
province of Khorassan, and are found generally at intervals of four or
eight miles. They are called _ábambár_, or “water store,” and are all
built on the same plan, though not always provided with the flanking
chambers. The cistern is mostly stocked from the surface drainage after
rains, and consequently some of them are often found dry. Many, however,
are fed from natural springs, or from some adjoining subterranean
conduit, called _kárez_, and contain a constant supply of generally sweet
water. They are sometimes built as an act of charity by the piously
disposed, but most owe their construction to the actual requirements of
the country, and the interest of the local governors or chiefs. Without
them, indeed, travelling would be almost impossible in this region, for
the villages are so far apart, and the hill spring so far away from the
beaten track, that neither man nor beast could support the privation
conveniently.

Beyond the reservoir our path continued across the plain towards some
broken country and low ridges of rock that separate the Sarbesha plateau
from the valley of Múd. On our passage over this ground we saw several
villages in the nooks of the hill range bounding the Sarbesha valley to
the northward. The principal of these, Bedár and Shíka, are prosperous
and populous-looking places, surrounded by fruit gardens just now
beginning to bud.

Múd or Mód is an open village of neatly-built domed housed, situated
below a mound occupied by the ruins of a castle, and at a short distance
to the south-east are the more recent ruins of a considerable square
fort. The latter was dismantled some fifteen years ago, when this
district passed into the possession of the reigning dynasty of Persia.
The ground around its walls is now occupied by _zirishk_ or barberry
plantations, the fruit of which is made into preserves, and largely
exported into the interior in the dried state.

The village of Múd is only half-peopled; many of its houses are deserted,
and others are fallen to decay. This is partly owing to the emigration
during the past three years of famine, but principally to the insecurity
of the country during the past century. It is only within recent years
that the country has enjoyed immunity from the forays of Baloch, Afghan,
and Turkman robbers, who used to harry their villages, and carry off
their cattle and people.

Múd is situated at the top of a long and narrow valley, that slopes
rapidly to the south-west down to Birjand. The valley to the northward
is separated from the western prolongation of the Sarbesha plateau by a
low ridge of sandy hills, and is bounded to the south by a high range
of snow-covered hills called Bághrán. This range consists of chlorite
and slate, and its base is studded by a close succession of villages,
castles, and hamlets, surrounded by gardens and watered by springs, all
the way down to Birjand.

During our stay here the weather was cloudy, cold, and wintry, and the
scenery, singularly wild naturally, now bore an unusually inhospitable
aspect. The valley and lower heights have only lost their winter snows
during the present month, and the highest elevations are said to keep a
more or less scattered coating of snow throughout the year. For three
months the whole country is covered deeply with snow, over all the more
elevated region between this and Duroh, but on the lower level of Birjand
it does not lie so long.

From Múd we marched twenty-five miles west by north down the slope of
the valley to Birjand, where we camped outside the town under the walls
of the castle occupied by the governor. The valley has an average width
of less than four miles, and its surface slopes up to the Bághrán range
of hills, forming its southern boundary. In the opposite direction its
hollow is occupied by a drainage ravine. The soil is a firm gravel, from
which were commencing to sprout a variety of herbs, such as wild rue,
orchids, tulips, &c., and a thin grass in abundance. No trees are seen
on the plain, but the hill skirt to its south is fringed with a close
succession of fruit gardens and vineyards, amongst which are nestled
numerous villages, castles, and country-houses. The principal villages
are, from east to west, Cháhikan, Nanfiris, Banjár, and Bahuljird. Their
gardens produce the jujube, barberry, apricot, peach, plum, apple,
mulberry, &c., &c., and give the place a look of prosperity and plenty,
strangely in contrast with the wild character of the country and the bare
aspect of its hills. Those to the south, below the snow-streaked summit
of the range, present a bare glistening surface, and are set at their
bases by a succession of mounds, very prominent objects of attraction
from their bright hues of green, blue, and orange, evidently formed by
the disintegration of the chlorite and schistose slates of the range,
which altogether wear a richly metalliferous look. There is said to
be a copper mine in this range, some ten or twelve miles south-west of
Sarbesha. It was worked in the time of the late Mirzá Hamza, governor of
Mashhad, but was abandoned four or five years ago, owing to the expenses
exceeding the yield of ore.

To the north the valley is bounded by a low ridge of bare sandy hills,
scored in every direction by sheep-walks. Through a gap in the ridge,
which gives passage to the Múd ravine, we got a good view of the Sarbesha
plateau, which here stretches away in a wide upland to the hills closing
the prospect towards the north, where is situated the district of Alghór.

Proceeding from the _ábambár_ where we halted for breakfast, we marched
down the valley in sight of Birjand, at its lower end, and at three miles
came to the village of Bojd. In Yár Muhammad’s time, it was the residence
of the Afghan revenue collector for the district of Gháyn. It is now a
decayed and nearly depopulated collection of some eighty houses, on the
slope of a ridge, overlooking corn-fields and fruit gardens, that cover
the here widening valley up to Hájíabad, a couple of miles farther on.
This last is a neat country-house, standing in its own grounds, and is
the residence of the mother of Mír Alam Khán, the present chief of Gháyn,
and Persian governor of Sistan. She is said to be a very clever and
wealthy old lady, and exercises considerable influence in the government
of the province.

Away to the south, on the open plain, is another similar country-house,
the summer residence of Mír Alam, the son. It stands in the midst of an
ornamental garden, and commands a wide view of the surrounding country.
At about a mile from Birjand we were met by an _isticbál_ party, and
conducted to our camp, pitched outside the town under the walls of the
palace of the governor. The party was headed by a little boy, Hydar
Culi, the youngest son of the chief of Gháyn. He was preceded _en règle_
by two led horses, and attended by eight horsemen. Though only eight
years old, he rode a high horse both positively and figuratively with the
composure and _savoir faire_ of one of mature years. His eldest brother,
Sarbang Ali Akbar, who, during his father’s absence in Sistan, manages
the government of the province, excused his absence on the plea of
ill-health. We halted here three days.

In our march this day we have descended about 1200 feet, the elevation of
Birjand being 4880 feet, and that of Múd 6100 feet above the sea. There
is a sensible difference in the climate, the air here being delightfully
pure, mild, and light, and the sun’s rays agreeably warm. The nights,
however, are yet cold, and keen gusty winds circle about the lower part
of the valley, which forms a wide basin in the hills. The summer here is
described as a temperate and salubrious season, and the winter mild in
comparison with the more elevated regions of the district. Snow lies on
the ground from one to two months, and during the past winter, which has
been a severer one than any for the last fifteen years, fell in unusual
quantity.

Birjand, the modern capital of the district of Gháyn or Cayn, is an open
town of about two thousand houses, and is protected by a fort on some
rising ground on the west side. On the south side is the palace of the
governor, enclosed by fortified walls, and on some detached mounds to
the north are three or four towers in a state of decay. The town has a
very neat and prosperous look, and its people appear to have altogether
escaped the pressure of the famine that has prevailed over other parts
of the country. We saw no beggars here, and the mass of the people were
remarkably well dressed, and seemed comfortably off. The population is
estimated at twelve thousand, which is, I think, considerably over the
real number.

Birjand is the centre of a considerable trade with Kandahar and Herat on
one side, and Kirmán, Yazd, and Tehran on the other. It is also the seat
of the carpet manufactures, for which this district has been celebrated
from of old. These carpets are called _cálín_, and are of very superior
workmanship and of beautiful designs, in which the colours are blended
with wonderful harmony and incomparable good effect. The best kinds fetch
very high prices, and are all bespoke by agents for the nobles and chiefs
of the country. The colours are of such delicate shades, and the patterns
are so elaborate and tasteful, and the nap is so exquisitely smooth and
soft, that the carpets are only fit for use in the divans of oriental
houses, where shoes are left without the threshold. The best kinds are
manufactured in the villages around, and those turned out from the looms
of Duroshkt Nozád, enjoy a pre-eminent reputation for excellence.

The Gháyn district consists of nine _bulúk_ or divisions, each of which
contains from twenty to thirty villages and a great number of _mazrá_ or
hamlets. The _bulúk_ are Nih, Zerkoh, Khusp, Nárjún (includes Sarbesha
and Birjand), Sunnikhána, Alghór or Arghol, Gháyn, Nímbulúk and Shahwá.
The population of the district was formerly reckoned at thirty thousand
families, but what with losses by death and emigration during the famine,
it does not now contain half that number.

The natural products of the country are very varied. The low-lying plains
of Khusp produce wheat, barley, millet, beans and pulses, excellent
melons, and all the common vegetables, such as carrots, turnips,
beetroot, &c. Cotton, and tobacco are also grown, and fruit gardens
and vineyards also flourish. In the higher plains of Birjand and Gháyn,
saffron is extensively cultivated, and the silkworm is reared with
success. Here too are found large barberry plantations, and almost all
the orchard fruits common in Europe. At higher elevations in the little
glens amongst the hills are extensive vineyards and fruit gardens, whilst
rhubarb grows wild on the hill, and asafœtida on the plains almost
everywhere.

The industrial products are carpets, woollen materials called _kurk_,
_pashmína_, and _pattú_, silk raw and manufactured, and felts called
_namad_. These with dried fruits, asafœtida, and wool are all exported
in greater or less quantity. In return are imported corn from Sistan,
_kirmiz_ (scarlet dye) from Bukhára by Herat, indigo from India by
Kandahar, sugar refined at Yazd from the Indian raw sugar, _postín_ or
fur coats (mostly sheepskin) from Herat, rice, spices, tobacco, and
European hardware from Tehran, as also calicoes, prints and broadcloths.

The Gháyn district is an elevated mountain region, separating the waste
area of western Afghanistan from the wide tract of similar and more
perfect desert on the adjoining border of Persia. Towards the north-west
it is continuous through the highlands of Tún and Tabbas with the rest of
the mountain system of Persian Khorassan, as represented by the highlands
of Záwah on the one hand and Turshíz on the other. Between its hill
ranges it supports a number of wide plateaux and fertile valleys, that
mostly trend from north-west to south-east, and range in elevation from
four thousand to seven thousand feet above the sea.

To the south it is separated from Kirwan and Sistan by the Dashtí Lút, or
“Desert of Lot.” To the east the Dashtí Náummed, or “desert of despair,”
intervenes between it and the districts of Hokát and Farráh. On the west
it is separated from Yazd and Káshán by a vast salt desert called Daryáe
Kabír, or “the great ocean,” or simply _kavír_ or _kabír_. Towards the
north, at Yúnasi, a narrow arm of this salt desert cuts the mountain
chain from west to east, and spreads out into the desert of Kháf, where
it joins the Dashtí Náummed on the south and the deserts of Herat and
Sarrakhs on the north.

The inhabitants of Gháynát, which is the name by which the district is
known, are of various races and tribes, classed under the collective
appellations of Arab and Ajam, or those of Arab descent and those of
foreign descent. The former appear to have been settled here since the
time of the Arab conquest, and have for several centuries furnished
the ruling chiefs of the country. The present chief belongs to this
tribe, and the rule of the country has descended in his family since
the establishment of the Saffavi dynasty. Formerly the residence of the
family was at Gháyn, but in the time of Nadír, the chief, Mír ’Ali,
transferred his headquarters to Birjand. He was succeeded in the rule
by his son Mír Alam, and he by his son Mír Asadullah, both of whom were
subjects of the Durrani kings. On the break-up of this dynasty, Mír
Asadullah became independent to all intents, and as such took his part
in the political struggles between the Cajar and Afghan for supremacy
on this contested frontier, that characterise its history since the
commencement of the present century.

During the period that Aleahyár Khán, Asafuddaula, was governor of
Khorassan on the part of Persia, the Cajar king, finding his designs
against Herat frustrated by the action of the British Government,
resolved on accomplishing piecemeal what he was prevented from effecting
by a _coup de main_; and his governor of Khorassan, during the thirteen
years of his rule at Mashhad, brought under subjection all that portion
of the province lying to the north of the latitude of Herat, viz.,
the districts of Turbatain, Turshíz, and Tabbas, as the fruits of his
successive campaigns on this border. Asafuddaula twice marched a force
for the subjugation of Gháyn, and each time unsuccessfully. On the first
occasion, in 1835, shortly after his installation in the government of
the province, the chief, Mír Asadullah, retired to Sistan, and, as an
Afghan subject dependent on Herat, sought the aid of its ruler. The
Prince Kamrán sent his wazír, Yár Muhammad, with a contingent of Herat
troops to the aid of the fugitive chief. And these, joined by the Sistan
army under Muhammad Razá, Sárbandi, defeated the Persians at Nih, and
restored Mír Asadullah to his rule in Gháyn as a dependent of Herat.
On the second occasion, a couple of years later, Mír Asadullah, on the
approach of the Persian troops under Muhammad ’Ali, son of Asafuddaula,
abandoning his province, repaired to Herat for aid in its recovery.
Yár Muhammad furnished a contingent of Herat troops, who defeated the
Persians in a battle fought at Sih Calá, and reinstated Asadullah in the
government of Gháyn. In the succeeding siege of Herat, however, Gháyn
was annexed to Persia, and the chief, Mír Asadullah, and his son, Mír
Alam, the present chief, were taken prisoners to Mashhad. On the retreat
of the Persian army from Herat, and the restoration of peace on this
border, they were restored to Gháyn as Persian subjects; and the father
dying shortly afterwards, was succeeded in the government by his son Mír
Alam, who during his stay at Mashhad and Tehran was reconciled to the
change of masters by conciliatory treatment and very advantageous terms
of allegiance. Mír Alam, who is now Persian governor of Sistan, with
the title of Hashmat-ul-Mulk, is a very popular governor here, and has
the character of being an energetic and liberal-minded man. He pays no
revenue direct to the Persian Government, but is held responsible for the
maintenance of the royal troops employed in his province, and, further,
sends an annual tribute to the Sháh. In other respects he is pretty much
of an independent chief in his own limits.

He has taken advantage of the troubled state of politics in Afghanistan
ever since the British occupation of the country, not only to extend his
possessions up to their natural limits, but to cross the Perso-Afghan
border, and take possession of Sistan on behalf of the Sháh of Persia. Up
to the death of Yár Muhammad in 1851, all the border districts of Gháyn,
including Sunnikhána and Nárjún as far as Bojd, were held as dependencies
of Herat, and Afghan revenue collectors were posted in the frontier
villages, such as Gizík and Bojd, on the part of Yár Muhammad. On the
death of that ruler, and during the succeeding changes and struggles that
led to the occupation of Herat by the Persians in 1856, these border
districts fell away from the control of the Herat Government, and lapsed
to their rightful lord, the chief of Gháyn. The transgression of the
border into Sistan was effected at a later period, during the anarchy
that convulsed Afghanistan on the death of the Amir Dost Muhammad, and
the accession of his son, Sher ’Ali, to the throne.

Mír Alam is now the most influential and wealthy chief on the Khorassan
frontier of Persia. His power and independent action, it is said, have
rendered him an object of jealousy and suspicion to the prince-governor
of Mashhad, who is also governor of the whole province of Khorassan; and
neither conceals his hatred and distrust of the other. The Gháyn chief,
however, is strong in his position, and the policy he is carrying out
gains him the support of the court of Tehran. He has three sons, namely,
’Ali Akbar, aged eighteen years, who, with the title of Sarhang, resides
at Birjand, and carries on the government during his father’s absence in
Sistan; Mír Ismáil, aged fourteen years, who is now on a pilgrimage to
Karbalá; and Hydar Culi, the little boy who officiated in the honours of
our reception at Birjand.

The other tribes included under the term _Ajam_ are mostly Persians,
with a few scattered families of Turks, Kurds, Mughals and Balochs. They
constitute the rural population, and are employed in agriculture and
the tending of cattle. Physically they are a fine people, with light
complexions and hardy features.




CHAPTER X.


_2d April._—Marched from Birjand to Ghíbk or Ghínk, eighteen miles. The
weather, which during our stay at Birjand had been delightfully mild
and balmy, now changed and became bleak and stormy. During the night, a
strong east wind blew in eddying gusts that threatened the stability of
our tents. In the forenoon it changed to the west, and towards sunset
veered round to the north, and closed the evening with a storm and heavy
rain.

We had been promised a relay of camels at this place, and up to the
last were deceived by false assurances of their being ready at the time
appointed for our departure. But as they were not produced at the time
agreed, and we had seen enough to shake our faith in the ready promises
of their immediate arrival, it was decided that we should leave our large
tents and heavy baggage here, to be brought on after us so soon as the
promised camels should be provided, and proceed ourselves with the small
tents and mule carriage, according to the original intention.

At noon, therefore, we set out in light marching order, and after passing
clear of the town, crossed a wide ravine that courses through it towards
the west, and entered on a wide plateau that gently slopes up towards the
east, in which direction it is continuous with the Sarbesha valley. Our
route across this was in a north-easterly direction by a beaten track
skirting the base of a high ridge of mountains that close the plateau
towards the west. At about eight miles we rose over some low mounds
of fissile slate covered with red marl that project on to the plateau,
and beyond them, crossing the deep boulder-strewn ravine of Ishkambár,
followed the highroad between the villages of Bújdí on the right and
Ishkambár on the left, and passing a roadside _ábambár_, at a couple of
miles farther on reached the hamlet of Mahiabad, near the entrance of
a deep gorge in the hills, and halted awhile to let the baggage get on
ahead.

The rise from Birjand to this, though gradual, is considerable—850 feet
as indicated by the aneroid—and from its elevation we got a good view
of the Bagrán range of hills to the south, and the great tableland that
forms the prospect on its north, in which direction it is bounded by
the Múminabad range of hills, that separate it from the Sunnikhána and
Alghór districts. This extensive tableland descends considerably towards
the west, and is divided unequally into the valley of Múd and plateau of
Sarbesha by a low ridge of rocks that run from east to west. The drainage
of the whole surface is conveyed by the Fakhrábád ravine through the town
of Birjand down to the Khusp river, which is lost in the great desert
of the west. We crossed this ravine on leaving camp, and saw that it
received the Múd and Ishkambár ravines as tributaries.

The general aspect of this tableland, bounded on all sides by hills,
is singularly wild, and at this season its climate is bleak and
inhospitable. A cold north wind swept down from the hills in numbing
blasts, and howled over the wide waste dismally. Beyond the three little
castellated hamlets in our vicinity, not a vestige of habitation or
cultivation was anywhere to be seen. Yet in summer, we were assured,
the now deserted pastures are covered with nomad tents, and swarm with
teeming flocks of goats and sheep and camels.

Mahiabad, like Bújdí and Ishkambár, is a collection of eighteen or twenty
miserable huts, protected by a small castle. Like them, too, it is almost
depopulated by the effects of the famine, which still presses sorely,
notwithstanding the imports of grain from Sistan. In Mahiabad, only four
families are left out of its original population of fifteen families.
The rest have either died of starvation, or emigrated in search of food.
The remnant who still cling to the village are miserably poor, and carry
starvation depicted on their features. Their lot now is undoubtedly a
cruelly hard one, and in the best of times, could not have been a very
favourable one, for the soil is sterile, and composed for the most part
of the débris of trap and granite rocks, that strew the surface with
sharp angular stones; whilst the water supply, which is from a pool fed
by a _kárez_, is so bitter and saline that it is barely drinkable. We
tried some tea prepared with it, and that was all, for it was impossible
to drink it even thus disguised.

On the plain opposite Mahiabad, and a little distance from Bújdí, is a
singular conical hill called _márkoh_, or “serpent hill.” It looks like a
volcanic crater, and stands out alone by itself. We could not learn that
the name had any reference to the existence or not of snakes upon it.
Beyond Mahiabad our path entered the hills, and followed the windings of
a wildly picturesque defile, the general direction of which is northerly.
On our way up the gorge, which widens and narrows alternately, we
passed the castellated hamlets of Pisukh and Piranj, each occupying an
eminence overlooking the road, and at about the fifth mile reached the
watershed, at a narrow pass called Gudar Saman Shahí. Its elevation is
about 7020 feet above the sea, and 2140 feet above Birjand. The ascent is
considerable all the way, and the road very rough, with sharp angular
blocks of trap strewing the surface. Here and there the hard rugged
rocks approach and narrow the path, so as to render it difficult for the
passage of laden cattle. In the pass we overtook our baggage, which had
left camp at Birjand at ten A.M., and it did not all arrive in our camp
at Ghíbk till past nine P.M., the cattle being much exhausted by the
march.

Beyond the watershed, the road slopes gently to a little dell full of
vineyards, orchards, and fruit gardens; and farther on, crossing a deep
boulder-strewn ravine, passes over a flat ridge of slaty rock down to
the glen of Ghíbk, in which we camped at a few hundred yards below
the village, a strip of terraced corn-fields intervening. This is the
roughest and most difficult pass we have seen in all our journey so far;
and it was the more trying both to man and beast by the inclemency of
the weather. A cold north wind blew down the pass in chilling gusts, and
at six o’clock, just as we had alighted on our camping-ground, a heavy
storm of rain broke over us and drenched everything, so that it was with
difficulty we got a fire lighted to warm ourselves till the arrival of
our baggage, which did not all come up till three hours later, owing to
the men having lost the path in the dark.

We halted here the next day to rest our cattle, and were so fortunate as
to have fine weather, with a delightfully clear and fresh atmosphere,
which enabled us thoroughly to enjoy and appreciate the climate and
scenery of this really charming little eyrie in the hills, of which our
first experience was so unfavourable. Our camp is pitched at the bottom
of a narrow dell half a mile due west of Ghíbk, which is a romantic
little village picturesquely perched on the summit and slopes of a mound
at its top. From the midst of the huts, rising tier above tier, stands
out their protecting castle, now in a sad state of decay, as indeed is
the whole village. Around it are crowded together vineyards and fruit
gardens on the terraced slopes of the hills, whilst the dell itself is
laid out in a succession of terraced corn-fields, freely watered by
sprightly little streams.

The situation is a charming one in this wild region of barren hills
and rugged rocks, and in summer must be as agreeable and salubrious a
residence as in winter it is bleak and inhospitable. The elevation of our
camp at the bottom of the dell is estimated at 6650 feet above the sea,
and that of the village itself about a couple of hundred feet higher. In
winter, snow falls here very heavily, and the people are shut up in their
houses for fully two months. The main range of mountains rises several
hundred feet above the elevation of Ghíbk, and runs from north-west to
south-east, throwing out spurs on either side, that enclose a succession
of glens or narrow valleys draining east and west. The Ghíbk valley is
one of these, and is continuous towards the west, through the gully of
the ravine we crossed on approaching it, with the glens of Arwí and
Zarwí, the drainage of which ultimately reaches the Khusp river, to be
lost on the sandy desert of Yazd. The main range has different names to
distinguish its several portions; thus at Ghíbk it is called Alghór or
Arghol, to the north of this it is called Sághí, and to the south Saman
Shahí. The Alghór range gives its name to one of the principal divisions
or _bulúk_ of the Gháyn district.

The Alghór _bulúk_ is said to contain upwards of three hundred villages
and hamlets and farmsteads (_mazrá_), scattered about in nooks and
dells amongst the hills. Arwí and Zarwí are amongst the largest of
the villages. We visited these during our halt here. They are very
picturesquely situated in adjoining dells only two or three miles
off, and each contains about two hundred houses. They have a neat and
prosperous look, and are surrounded by vineyards and orchards and small
patches of corn cultivation. Ghíbk is a smaller village, and contains
about seventy or eighty houses. Alghór is the chief town of the _bulúk_,
and is said to contain three hundred houses. It is the residence of
the agent of the governor of the district, Mír ’Alam Khán. All these
villages have suffered more or less severely during the famine, and some
have become entirely depopulated. The population of Ghíbk was formerly
nearly four hundred souls. It now only contains about two hundred and
fifty. During last year fifty-three persons, we were told, had died of
starvation, and the village has further lost thirty families who have
emigrated to Sistan.

From Ghíbk we marched eighteen miles, and camped at Sihdih. Our route
was generally north by west, up the course of a drainage gully, winding
amongst hills, and passing from dell to dell up to a watershed formed
by a spur from the Sághí range on our right. It runs east and west, and
is about 6750 feet above the sea. The hills are of disintegrated trap
overlaid by a soft friable slate, the surface of which has crumbled into
a marly soil. Vegetation, though there are no trees nor large bushes,
except in the gardens, is more abundant than the wild and rugged look
of the hills would lead one to expect. We noticed camel-thorn, ephedra,
asafœtida, rhubarb, wormwood, tulip, crocus, bluebell, and other similar
plants and grasses, along the line of march.

Beyond the watershed the road slopes gently along the course of a long
drainage gully, which winds through a gradually widening country with
hills on either side, and at about twelve miles enters the Sihdih valley,
an open plateau extending east and west for thirty miles or so. In the
first few miles from the watershed we passed in succession the villages
of Nokhán, Cháhikan, and Pistakhan on the left, and Sághí and Husenabad
on the right. The country between the hills is much broken by low mounds,
all more or less ploughed up and sown with corn. The extent of this
cultivation indicates the existence of a much larger population than we
see in our passage through the country. The fact is, they are concealed
from view in the secluded nooks and glens of the hills around, each
of which has its own farmsteads and hamlets, with their vineyards and
fruit gardens. The fruits produced here are the plum, apricot, jujube,
apple, peach, quince, almond, mulberry, &c. The chief crops are wheat
and barley, and the common vegetables are the carrot, turnip, onion,
cabbage, beet, &c. In summer the hill pastures are resorted to by nomads
with their flocks of goats and sheep and herds of camels. Snow still lies
on the higher ranges, and patches are found in the sheltered hollows
lower down. The hills abound in game, such as the _márkhor_ and _ibix_
(both species of wild goat), and the wild sheep. The leopard, hyæna, and
wolf are also found on them, but not the bear. The country generally is
devoid of trees, but supports an abundant growth of pasture plants and
bushes suitable for fuel. We here found the surface covered with the
wormwood, and a dwarf yellow rose with a dark purple centre. It is called
_khalora_, and affords a good pasture for cattle. I observed it all over
the country as far west as Kirmánshah, and generally in company with the
wild liquorice.

Sihdih, as the name implies, is a collection of three villages on the
plain to which they give their name. Only one of them is now inhabited,
the other two being in ruins. Very superior carpets are manufactured
here, and they seem to fetch also very superior prices, to judge from
those asked of us for some specimens we had selected. The fact is,
the natural propensity of the merchants to overcharge the stranger,
particularly the Britisher, who is always supposed to travel about with
untold wealth, had been stimulated by the very liberal ideas of our
Persian servants as to their own rights of perquisite or _mudákhil_,
as it is termed; and prices were at once doubled or trebled, to the
detriment of all parties, for we refrained from purchasing as freely as
we would with fair dealing, the merchants lost an opportunity of ready
profit, and our servants, the cause of the whole mischief, received but
diminished returns, as the fruit of their greed and chicanery.

Our Afghan companions, who well knew the market price of these carpets,
and had come prepared to lay in a stock of them for transport to
Kandahar, were so disgusted at the _be-ímáni_, or want of conscience, on
the part of the Persians, that they altogether refused to treat with them
on the terms, and contented themselves by leaving an agent to purchase
what they required after our departure, when prices would return to their
normal rates. The evils of _dastúrí_ in India are bad enough so far as
they affect the foreigner, but here, under the name _mudákhil_, they are
ten times worse. The _dastúrí_ or customary perquisite taken by servants
on all purchases made by their master through or with their cognisance,
is usually limited to an anna in the rupee, or six and a quarter per
cent., but the _mudákhil_, which may be rendered, “all that comes within
grasp,” has no recognised limit, and ranges high or low, according to the
conscience of the exactor and the weakness of his victim. With us, as our
subsequent experience proved, it ranged from ten to three hundred per
cent., and was an imposition from which, under the circumstances of the
case, we could not escape.

The Sihdih _júlagah_ or plain is a fertile valley running east and west,
and presents a number of castellated villages along the hill skirts on
either side. Its soil is light and gravelly, and in the vicinity of the
villages the surface is covered with long strips of corn cultivation. The
general slope of the land is to the west, in which direction it drains
by a wide ravine that ultimately joins the Khusp river. The water of
the _kárez_ on which our camp was pitched proved too brackish to drink,
and we were obliged to send to another _kárez_ beyond the village for a
fresh supply. The weather here was very changeable. North-westerly gusts
of wind raised clouds of dust, and drove it in eddying drifts across
the plain, till a thunderstorm with a smart fall of rain cleared the
atmosphere, and allowed the sun to shine out a while before setting for
the day.

We heard different accounts here of recent raids by the Turkmans, but the
accounts were so conflicting that we could make nothing of them, more
than that these slave-hunting freebooters were really on the road and
somewhere in the vicinity. The people have such a terror of them that
they cannot speak of them without evincing fear, and running off into
extravagances as to their ferocity and irresistible prowess.

From Sihdih we marched ten miles to Rúm, and camped on the sloping bank
of a brisk little hill stream draining westward, at a short distance from
the village. Our route was mostly northward across the plain, but for
the last two miles, on entering the hills, was north-eastward. Rúm is
a miserable little village of seventy or eighty huts, clustered around
a crumbling castle on the very brink of a hill torrent of no depth or
width. It now only contains thirty families of wretchedly poor people,
who have so far struggled through the great pressure of the famine. Last
year, we were told, forty of the people died of starvation, and between
twenty-five and thirty families emigrated in search of food. The remnant
were so reduced and broken-hearted that they were unable to bury their
dead decently, and merely deposited the bodies in shallow pits covered
over with loose soil. I observed some broken skulls and human bones in
the little stream washing the walls of the village, and noticed that
the whole air of the locality was tainted with putrid odours from the
insufficiently covered graves. From Rúm we marched twenty-two miles to
Gháyn, and halted there two days. Our route for the first few miles was
north-easterly up the course of the Rúm rivulet, and then northerly over
a hilly tract, gradually rising up to a watershed at seven miles. The
ridge runs east and west, and is about 6550 feet above the sea, and 964
feet above Sihdih. The rock is of friable brown slate, here and there
crumbled into clay. The ascent up to the pass is very gradual, over a
hillocky hollow between high hills. The surface is everywhere ploughed
and sown with corn, and abounds in a variety of weeds, crocus, tulip,
anemone, and other plants. We saw no villages, but the cultivation
indicates their existence in the secluded nooks and dells around. The
morning air was delightfully fresh, a hoar-frost whitened the ground,
and our march was enlivened by the clear song of the nightingale and the
familiar notes of the cuckoo.

The view from the watershed is very picturesque, and looks down in the
distance upon the valley of Gháyn, which stretches east and west beyond a
long vista of irregular hills of bare rock, flanked on either side by a
high range streaked with snow at the summit.

The descent from the watershed is by a narrow stony path on the steep
slope of the hill, down to a winding ravine at its foot. We followed this
for some distance, passing three little hamlets with their orchards,
saffron gardens, and mulberry plantations in successive little glens, and
at about five miles from the watershed came to Kharwaj, a flourishing
village of eighty or ninety houses, on the terminal slopes of a spur that
causes the gully draining this hollow to make a considerable sweep. The
people of this village are Saggids, and appear very comfortably off. They
are well clad, and present no signs of suffering from the famine. Both
the men and women have remarkably fair complexions and ruddy cheeks, and
what surprised me more was the decidedly Tátár cast of their features.

From this we went on down a narrow glen, that, widening gradually, at
last expands on to the valley of Gháyn by a long and gentle slope,
half-way on which is a roadside _ábambár_ fed by a _kárez_ stream. Before
us lay a crowded mass of fruit gardens and mulberry plantations, all in
full foliage, and above them rose aloft the high-domed mosque of Gháyn.
We passed amongst these walled gardens, and skirting the fortifications
of the town, camped on a small rivulet a little way to its west. As we
cleared the gardens we came upon a crowd of the townspeople, collected
on the roadside to see us pass. They were remarkably well dressed, and
conducted themselves with commendable propriety and decorum. Most of
them bowed civilly as we rode past, and many raised the hand to the head
in military style, whilst a venerable old priest with a flowing beard
as white as the turban under the weight of whose capacious folds he was
buried, standing apart on a slight eminence with half a dozen acolytes
clad in white, offered up a prayer to avert any evil that this first
visit of Europeans to their town might entail. The plaintive trembling
voice of the old man, echoed by the shrill tones of his young disciples,
struck me as peculiarly impressive, but they were unheeded by the crowd,
who were much too deeply absorbed in the novel spectacle presented by
our party to their eyes for the first time. We were assured that we
were the first Europeans who are known to have visited this town, and
the statement is supported by the fact that all our maps of the country
were wrong as to its proper location, Gháyn being placed to the south of
Birjand, whereas the reverse is the case.

Gháyn has a very decayed look, and quite disappoints the expectations
raised by the first sight of its gardens and lofty mosque. The town
covers a considerable extent of ground enclosed within fortified walls,
now everywhere in a state of decay. The area within the walls is capable
of containing from eight to ten thousand houses, it is said, though
at this time only about fifteen hundred are occupied, corn-fields and
gardens occupying the intervals between the ruins of its former mansions.
A prominent object of attraction in the town is its lofty domed mosque,
which in outward appearance is in keeping with the general look of
decay pervading the locality. Its walls, which are supported in their
perpendicular by buttress arches built against them laterally, are
dangerously cracked from top to bottom, either from original defect
of architecture or from the effects of earthquakes. The population is
estimated at about eight thousand, amongst whom are many Saggid families,
and others of Arab origin. The mass of the people, however, appear to be
of Tátár origin, as indicated by the very marked traces of that typical
race in their features.

Silk and saffron are produced here in considerable quantity, and a
variety of fruits. The asafœtida grows wild in great abundance all over
the plain, and rhubarb on the surrounding hills. The asafœtida is of two
kinds—one called _kamá-i-gawí_, which is grazed by cattle and used as a
potherb, and the other _kamá-i-angúza_, which yields the gum-resin of
commerce. The silk is mostly sent to Kirmán in the raw state, but a good
deal is consumed at home in the manufacture of some inferior fabrics for
the local markets. The carpets known by the name of this town are not
made here, but in the villages of the southern divisions of the district.

Gháyn is the name of a very ancient city, supposed to have been founded
by a son of the blacksmith Káwáh of Ispahán, the hero of the Peshdádí
kings, who slew the tyrant Záhák, and whose leather apron—afterwards
captured by the Arab Sád bin Wacáss—became the standard of Persia, under
the name of _darafshi Káwání_, or the “Káwání standard.” It was studded
with the most costly jewels by successive kings, to the last of the
Pahlavi race, from whom it was wrested by the Arab conqueror, and sent as
a trophy to the Khálif ’Umar.

The son of Káwáh was named Kárin. His city, the ruins of which are here
known as _Shahri Gabri_, or “the Gabr (Guebrc) city,” was built on the
slope and crest of a hill ridge overlooking the present town from the
south-east. The hill is called “Koh Imám Jáfar,” and is covered with the
remains of ancient buildings, and large reservoirs excavated in the solid
rock. The city, according to local tradition, was sacked and destroyed by
Halákú Khán, the son of Changhiz, and the present town afterwards rose
on the plain at the foot of the hill in its stead. In the days of its
prosperity this new city must have been a very flourishing and populous
centre of life. The environs for a considerable distance are covered
with extensive graveyards, in which are some handsome tombs of glazed
tiles and slabs of white marble, elaborately carved and inscribed. The
valley of Gháyn is a wide plain extending east and west between high
mountains, the summits of which are still covered with snow. A high
snow-streaked range closes the valley towards the west. It is called Koh
Báras, and trending in a north-westerly direction, connects the elevated
tablelands of Sarbesha and Alghór with those of Bijistan of the Tún and
Tabbas district. Its eastern slopes drain into the Gháyn valley, where
its several streams form a considerable rivulet (our camp is pitched on
its shore), which flows past the town to the eastward. To the northward,
the Gháyn valley is separated from the plains of Nímbulúk and Gúnábád by
a low range of bare hills over which there are several easy passes.

The elevation of Gháyn is about 4860 feet above the sea, or much on the
same level as that of Birjand, and a little higher than that of Bijistan,
from both of which it is separated by tablelands of considerably higher
elevation. The climate of Gháyn is described as temperate and salubrious
during spring and summer, but bleak and rigorous during autumn and
winter. During two or three months of winter the roads over the high land
between this and Birjand on the one hand, and Bijistan on the other,
are closed to all traffic by the depth of snow then covering the hills.
Gháyn, like Birjand, appears to have escaped the horrors of the famine,
for we saw no traces of its effects amongst the people, who appeared a
fine healthy and robust race, of mixed types of physiognomy, in which the
Tátár characters predominated. During our stay here, the weather, though
fine and sunny, was decidedly cold, and a keen north-west wind swept down
from the hills in stormy gusts. The temperature of the air ranged from
35° Fah. to 75° Fah., and rendered warm clothing not only agreeable but
necessary.

From this place, it had been arranged that we should proceed to Turbat
Hydari by the direct road through Nímbulúk and Gúnábád, but a very
fortunate accident determined us to follow a safer route, particularly as
in our unprotected state—the Persian authorities having failed to furnish
our party with any escort—we were unprepared to face any unnecessary risk.

On the day after our arrival here, the Afghan Commissioner, Saggid Núr
Muhammad Sháh, sought an interview with General Pollock, to consult
about our onward journey, as he had received alarming accounts of the
dangers on the road it was proposed we should follow. At the interview
the Saggid introduced an old acquaintance of his, one Hájí Mullah Abdul
Wahid, a merchant of Gizík in the Sunnikhána district. Hearing of our
arrival in this country, he had set out for Birjand to see the Saggid,
but finding our camp had left the place, followed and overtook us here.
The Hájí was an asthmatic old gentleman of nearly seventy years of age,
and had seen more prosperous times than fortune had now allotted to him.
By way of preface he mentioned that he had cashed bills for Colonel
Taylor’s mission at Herat in 1857, and claimed acquaintance with me on
the score of having met me at Kandahar with Major Lumsden’s mission. He
expressed great respect for the British, and assured us it was only his
good-will towards us, and interest in the welfare of his countryman the
Saggid, that had prompted him to dissuade us from pursuing the route
he had heard we proposed taking. “This route,” said he, “is beset with
dangers, and God alone can extricate you from them. You may escape them
in Nímbulúk and Gúnábád, but in the Reg Amráni beyond, you must fall
into the hands of the Turkmans. They are known to be on the road, and not
a week passes without their raiding one or other of the _júlagah_ between
this and Turbat.” He told us he knew them well, for he had himself been
carried off prisoner by them at the time of Yár Muhammad’s death, and was
ransomed a few months later, together with six or seven hundred other
Afghan subjects, by his son Syd Muhammad. He described the Turkmans as
being very well armed with rifles and double-barrelled guns, and as never
charging in parties less than fifty, and sometimes with as many as five
hundred. They respect no class, nor sex, nor age, except the Arabs, and
sell all they capture in the markets of Khiva, only killing the very
aged and infirm, and those who offer resistance. They have been in this
vicinity for the last three weeks, and have already carried off from one
hundred and sixty to one hundred and eighty of the peasantry of Gháyn.
Their favourite routes are by the Dashna-i-Gharcáb in Nímbulúk, and the
Reg Amráni to the north of Gúnábád.

He most strongly and repeatedly urged us, as we valued our own safety,
not to trust ourselves on the plains of Gúnábád, and advised us to follow
one of the more western routes, where we should have the protection of
the hills, amongst which the Turkmans fear to entangle themselves. The
good old Hájí’s arguments were so just, and so clearly and strongly
advanced, that, left as we were to our own resources, there was no
hesitation in changing our course, and adopting a safer route through
the hills bordering the dangerous tract on the west; and our friend was
satisfied that his journey from Gizík, which is sixty miles north-east
of Birjand, over an elevated plateau dotted with villages, was not
altogether fruitless, since it afforded him the happiness of diverting
us from a dangerous route, and the pleasure of experiencing British
generosity and gratitude, for the General did not allow his good service
to pass unrewarded. The old man took leave of us with genuine expressions
of good-will and friendship, and heartily commending us to the protection
of God, warned us to be unceasingly on our guard against the cunning and
treachery of the Persians. “Be very careful,” said he in a mysterious
whisper, “how you drink the tea and coffee they offer you. Many of our
people have died with agonising stomachaches after partaking of this
refreshment at their hands.”

_9th April._—Gháyn to Girimunj, twenty-two miles. Our route was
north-westerly, seven miles across the plain, which is covered with
asafœtida in profuse abundance, to the little castellated hamlets of
Shermurgh at the foot of the hills.

We halted here for breakfast near a _kárez_ stream of intensely brackish
water. Here a noisy dispute occurred between our baggagers and a party
of eight or ten armed men, who came after them from Gháyn in hot haste
and tempers to match, with a couple of Persian officials, whose dignity
it was pretended had been offended by our _mirakhor_, or “master of the
stables,” having hired some asses for our baggage without a reference
to them. They made a great disturbance immediately in front of where we
were seated, pulled each other about, lavished _pidr sokhtas_ and _cabr
káshídas_ on all sides, and would not be appeased though the _mirakhor_
uncovered his head to them, kissed the frothy lips of the irate Persian,
and offering his beard as sacrifice, entreated his forgiveness. Even our
_mihmandár_, Ali Beg, was as useless in this emergency as he had proved
all along the march; and the offended officials, as heedless of his
presence as of ours, defiantly threw off our loads, and triumphantly
marched off with the asses we had hired.

Had the Persian authorities made the arrangements they were in duty
bound to do for our proper escort and treatment, this insult could
not have occurred. We were even left to provide our own escort on a
road acknowledged to be unsafe for travellers, and received such scant
assistance that it was with difficulty fifty matchlockmen were collected
to escort our party on this march. On starting from Gháyn it was arranged
that we should take the route by Nogháb and Asadabad, skirting the hills
on the western border of the Nímbulúk plain; but after proceeding a short
distance, some scouts sent out to examine the passes returned, and from
their reports it was deemed advisable to turn off into the more westerly
route through the hills.

From Shermurgh our route continued north-westerly up the course of a
wide drainage gully, bounded on the left by the snow-streaked Báras
range, and on the right separated from the Nímbulúk plain by a low rocky
range bare of vegetation. At eight miles we reached a watershed called
Gudari Gód, and on the way up to it passed a bend in the hills to our
left, in which we saw the villages of Nogirift, Razdumbal, and Mahanj.
The elevation at the watershed is about 6075 feet above the sea. From
it the descent is gradual, by a path that winds amongst ridges skirting
the base of Báras and its continuation, Koh Behud, and crossing the Rúdi
Myán Pyáz, traverses a hill slope stretching down to the Nímbulúk plain
up to Girimunj. The Myán Pyáz rivulet is a brisk stream that drains Behud
to the Nímbulúk plain, and of considerable size. Girimunj contains about
two hundred houses clustered round a central fort, and is situated at
the entrance to a picturesque glen, in which are seen the villages of
Dihushk and Buznábád with their rich orchards and vineyards. The Nímbulúk
plain presents a wide valley, extending from north-west to south-east
some thirty-five miles by twelve wide. On its surface to the northward
are seen the villages of Siláyáni, Mahyám, and Khidri. It is separated
from Gúnábád by a long curving range of hills, through which are several
passes. The hill range is called Mysúr, and the passes, from south to
north, are named Dahna Gharcáb, Mugri, Rijing, Bálághor, and Dahna
Sulemán. The first and last are the routes commonly taken by the Turkmans.

Shortly after our arrival in camp, a party of matchlockmen arrived from
Dashtí Pyáz to warn Girimunj that Khidri had passed on word to them to be
on the alert, as two hundred and fifty Turkmans had this morning swept
across Gúnábád, and taken the road to Kakhak, which is our stage beyond
Khidri. The news created a considerable stir in the village, and the
people warned us to be on the alert during the night, and to continue our
route by the hills to Munawáj, and on no account to venture into the open
plain. At sunset Sir F. Goldsmid and General Pollock went round our camp,
and posted the matchlockmen whom we had hired from the village to protect
the approaches during the night, as it was thought we might possibly be
attacked by them. We ourselves looked to our arms, and at a late hour
retired to rest prepared for an alarm. Morning dawned, however, and no
Turkman was seen, and we were inclined to think they were a myth, but for
the lively fear and strict caution of the peasantry, which warned us of
the necessity of vigilance.

From Girimunj we marched fifteen miles to Dashtí Pyáz. Our route was
north-west along the Nímbulúk plain, skirting the Isfyán range of hills
(a continuation of Behud) on our left. Out of deference to the Turkmans,
we marched in a compact column with the baggage, a party of thirty
matchlockmen leading the advance, and a similar party following in the
rear.

At a few miles from camp, we came upon the fresh marks of horseshoes
across our path. They were followed a little way on to the plain, and
unhesitatingly pronounced to be the tracks of Turkmans who had come to
reconnoitre our position during the night.

Our Afghan companions, who had some practical knowledge of these people
about Herat, were satisfied on this point, and described to us their
mode of attack, and how it behoved us to defend ourselves; whilst Hájí
Abdullah, Shahrki, a venerable old chief of Sistan, who had joined Sir
F. Goldsmid’s party at Kirmán, and used often to entertain us with
selections from his stories of traditional lore, propounded in most
classical language and with the purest accent, in tones delightful to
the ear, and with a captivating manner, was no less convinced of the
necessity for caution, and forthwith turned his camel a little closer
to the hills, and manfully followed the course of his own selection
in solitary dignity, holding his rifle all ready charged with both
hands across his lap, and keeping his sharp eyes steadily fixed in the
direction of the plain.

We passed two roadside _ábambár_ and three or four little hamlets at
the foot of the hills, then crossed a hill torrent, and rising over an
upland, at the twelfth mile came to Khidri, a flourishing village of two
hundred houses, buried in fruit gardens and mulberry plantations. We
halted here for breakfast, whilst the baggage proceeded to Dashtí Pyáz,
four miles farther on, at the top of the upland rise.

We halted two days at Dashtí Pyáz, in hopes of the heavy baggage we had
left at Birjand here overtaking us. But as it did not arrive, and our
Persian _mihmandár_ told so many and such contradictory lies about it—his
last report, told us with the coolest effrontery only at Khidri, assured
us that we should find all awaiting us at this place, Dashtí Pyáz—we were
fain to proceed, leaving it to overtake us farther on.

Dashtí Pyáz is a flourishing village of three hundred houses outside a
dilapidated fort, which is also crowded with habitations, and all around
are extensive fruit gardens and vineyards. The town is situated at the
entrance to a wide glen, formed by a bend in the Isfyán and Koh Syáh
hills to the west. It contains several flourishing villages, of which
Munawáj and Buthkabad are the chief, and the ruins of an ancient city
called Jáhul Fars, the capital of Isfandyár.

_13th April._—Dashtí Pyáz to Kakhak, sixteen miles. We were to have
marched yesterday morning, but at the last moment the order was
countermanded, as the Persian _mihmandár_ refused to consent to our
moving unless Sir F. Goldsmid gave him a written and sealed paper
exonerating him from all responsibility in case of accident or injury on
the road. He stated that he had received intelligence from his scouts
that from two hundred to four hundred Turkman horse had been seen last
evening on the plain at two _farsakhs_ or _parasangs_ (about eight miles)
from the Bálághor Pass, and that they may to-day be expected to raid
Gúnábád to Kakhak or this valley of Nímbulúk to-day. The day passed,
however, without our seeing anything of them, and our only consolation in
the delay was in the unfavourable state of the weather, which set in damp
and chill with drenching showers, and the new information we gathered
regarding the so-called Turkmans, of whom we have heard so much and seen
so little.

These would-be Turkmans are in reality Tymúri horsemen, lately in the
service of Ataullah Khán, their tribal chief. This man was one of the
chiefs of the Tátár tribes settled about Herat since the invasion of
Tymúr Lang or Tamerlane, and named after that devastating conqueror.
In 1857, when the prince-governor of Khorassan, Sultán Murád Mirzá,
Hisámussaltanat, of Mashhad, attacked Herat, this chief, with his
following, joined the Persian standard. On the retreat of the Persian
army from Herat territory, Ataullah, by way of reward for his services,
and compensation for the compromise his conduct had brought about, was
transported, with four hundred families of his tribe, to the Kohi Surkh
district of Turshíz, and granted the villages of Kundar, Khalilábád,
Dihnan, Majdí, Sarmujdí, Bijingar, and Argi, in military fief for their
support.

During the famine last year, these men, becoming hard pressed for food,
threw off the restraint of their chief, and took to the more congenial
occupation of plundering the caravans from Herat to Tehran, and were soon
joined by other adventurers and robbers, who grow in this country like
mushrooms on mould. Their depredations led to such widespread complaint,
that the governor of Mashhad sent the Imami Jumá to inquire into the
conduct of the tribe, redress complaints, and restore the plundered
property. Ataullah, hearing of this, himself fled and joined the robbers,
but was conciliated, and persuaded to tender his submission at Mashhad.
The subsequent conduct of his people, however, who waylaid and murdered
a party of government officials on their way across Reg Amráni towards
Tabbas, has still further compromised their chief with the Government,
and Ataullah is now a close prisoner at Tehran, and it is supposed will
answer with his life for the conduct of his tribesmen. This history,
interesting in itself, is eminently characteristic of the state of
society and weak government on this frontier.

Our route from Dashtí Pyáz was W.N.W., ascending a long upland or _chol_
separated from the Gúnábád plain on the right by the Laki ridge of hills,
and from the Munawáj glen on the left by a broken chain of hillocks.
Passing a roadside _ábambár_ about half-way, we halted at the sixth mile
at a willow-fringed tank near the picturesque little castle of Sihúkri
for breakfast. Here we found some fine elm and walnut trees. The rise is
about 900 feet above Dashtí Pyáz, and affords an extensive view of the
Nímbulúk plain and country to the southward. Our baggage, with the escort
of hired matchlockmen, went on ahead, and we followed an hour and a half
later.

Onwards from this, our route was N.N.W., through a narrow winding gorge
bounded by low hills of slate and magnesian limestone, in which we found
some fossil bivalves and oysters. A gradual ascent of four miles brought
us to the Gudari Kakhak, a narrow watershed pass that marks the boundary
between the districts of Gháyn and Tabbas. Its elevation is about 6838
feet above the sea, and 1408 feet above Dashtí Pyáz. It is closed for
two months in winter by snow, and in wet weather is difficult for laden
cattle, owing to the loose marly soil becoming a deep slippery mud.

The descent is gradual, through a long drainage gully receiving branches
on either side down to a wide boulder-strewn ravine with high banks,
which opens on to the Gúnábád plain, near Kakhak. At three miles down
the gully we came to an _ábambár_, where a road branches off to the left
direct to Kakhak over the hills, but it is difficult for laden cattle. At
this spot, too, a branch gully comes down from the right. In it is said
to be a copper-mine, which has been abandoned for some years, owing to
the vein being lost. We noticed that the surface was strewed with stones
of a bright greenish blue colour, as if coated with acetate of copper.

The hill slopes on each side of the gully are cultivated in terraces,
and irrigated by streams led along their brows; and on our way down,
we passed several black tents of _ilyát_ families occupied in the
preparation of cheese and the peculiar round balls of that substance
known by the name of _cúrút_. At the lower part of the gully we turned to
the left out of it, beyond the castellated village of Mullahabad, and at
a mile farther on came to our camp, pitched on an open gravelly surface
near some gardens at a short distance from Kakhak. This is a flourishing
town of about four hundred houses, surrounded by fruit gardens and
corn-fields, and protected by a citadel. A prominent object of attraction
is the mausoleum erected to the memory of Sultán Muhammad, a brother of
Imám Razá, the saint of Mashhad. It stands on a commanding eminence, and
has a handsome dome of glazed tiles, the bright colours of which are set
off to the best advantage by the whitewashed portals of its groundwork.
Ferrier, in his “Caravan Journeys,” mentions this place as being the site
of one of the most bloody battles ever fought between the Afghans and
Persians. It occurred in 1751, when Sháh Ahmad’s (Durrani) Baloch allies,
under their own chief Nasír Khán, defeated the Persians and slew their
leader, ’Ali Murád Khán, governor of Tabbas, who came here to give them
battle. By this victory Tabbas was annexed to the Durrani kingdom.

A finer sight for a fair fight could not be found. The ground dips down
to the wide plain or _júlagah_ of Junabad in an uninterrupted slope,
and affords a splendid field for the use of cavalry, as is expressed
in the name, applied generally to the succession of valleys or plains
that characterise the physical geography of this country. _Júlagah_ is
evidently the diminutive form of _júlangah_, which means a plain suited
to military exercises, or any level ground for horsemanship.

Kakhak seems to have suffered severely during the famine, but the
accounts we received as to the extent of loss were so contradictory that
it was impossible to get at the truth or an approximation to it. Numbers
of beggars, sickly, pale, and emaciated, wandered timidly about our camp,
craving in piteous tones a morsel of bread. Poor creatures! nobody cares
for them, even the small coins we give them are snatched away by the
stronger before our eyes. Truly if fellow-feeling makes wondrous kind,
fellow-suffering makes wondrous unkind.

_14th April._—Kakhak to Zihbud, sixteen miles; route nearly due west,
hugging the hill range on our left, with the great Gúnábád valley down
to the right. The centre of the valley is occupied by a succession of
considerable villages, with gardens, vineyards, and corn-fields, watered
by numerous _kárez_ streams. To the east it communicates through a gap
in the hills with the great desert of Kháf, which extends south-east to
Ghoryán and Herat. To the northward it is separated from Bijistan on the
one hand and Reg Amráni on the other by a low range of hilly ridges or
_tappah_, over which are some easy passes on the direct route through the
valley.

At Kakhak we parted from the _mihmandár_ appointed to accompany us on
the part of the governor of Gháyn, and were joined in the like capacity
by Muhammad Ali Beg, the _zábit_ or ruler of Gúnábád. He is a very
ferocious-looking man, with square bull-dog features, and a heavy
coarse mustache, that completely conceals the mouth, and curls over the
short-trimmed wiry whiskers, all dyed bright orange with _henna_. His
manner, however, is very quiet and friendly. He welcomed us to the Tabbas
district, and promised we should receive very different treatment from
that we had experienced at the hands of Mír Ali Khán of Gháyn. He had
heard of his conduct; considered he had acted host very indifferently;
reckoned he would be called to account for it by the Sháh; thought that
the prince-governor of Mashhad would profit by the opportunity to injure
him; and, for his own part, hoped he would come to condign grief.

Our new host proved an agreeable companion, and spoke very sensibly,
with a remarkable freedom from the bombast and gesticulation the modern
Persian so much delights to display. I learned from him that he was
connected with the Sháh by marriage with a sister of the Queen-mother,
and that he had been on this frontier for many years. In the time of
Kamrán of Herat, he accompanied Mír Asadullah of Gháyn in his retreat
to Sistan, and spent two years at Chilling and Sihkoha. More recently,
four years ago, he met Yácúb Khán at Mashhad, and subsequently his
father, the present Amir Sher Ali, at Herat. He made some pointed
inquiries regarding Sistan and the boundary question, but on finding
they were not acceptable, adroitly turned the conversation to the more
ephemeral, and perhaps to himself more congenial, topic of wines, their
varieties and qualities; and his familiarity with the names at least
of the common English wines and spirits not a little surprised me. He
expressed concern at finding that we were travelling without a store of
these creature comforts, and very good-naturedly procured us a small
supply of home-distilled arrack from Gúnábád. It proved very acceptable,
for our own supplies had been long since exhausted; and Mr Rozario, who
superintended our mess arrangements, cleverly converted it into very
palatable punch, of which a little was made to go a great way.

But to return from this digression to our march. We had set out with
the baggage in a closely-packed column, with matchlockmen in front and
rear, and ourselves with a dozen horsemen leading the advance, for the
dread of Turkmans was still upon us. We had proceeded thus about seven
miles, passing the castellated hamlets of Iddo and Isfyán in picturesque
little nooks of the hills on our left, when we turned a projecting spur
and suddenly came upon a wide ravine, beyond which were the gardens and
poppy-fields of Calát. Leaving the baggage to proceed ahead, we turned
off up the course of the ravine to a clump of trees at its spring-head
for breakfast. Our sudden appearance and martial array, for we were five
or six and twenty horsemen all more or less armed, struck the villagers
with a panic. Five or six of the boldest advanced into the mulberry
plantations and fired their matchlocks at us, but the rest, shouting
“_Alaman! alaman!_” “Raiders! raiders!” scrambled up the steep slopes
of the slate hill backing the town as fast as their limbs would carry
them. A bullet whistling by our _mihmandár_ with a disagreeably close
“_whish_,” sent him and his two attendants full gallop towards the
village, vowing all sorts of vengeance on the _pidri sokhtas_, who could
mistake their own governor and a party of respectable gentlemen for the
marauding Turkmans, on whom be the curse of ’Ali and Muhammad. Ourselves
meanwhile proceeded towards the clump of trees ahead. Here we came upon a
watermill. The people occupied in it, disturbed by the firing, rushed out
just in time to be confronted by us. If the devil himself with all his
host had faced them, they could not have evinced greater fear, nor more
activity to escape his clutches. There were four of them, all dusty and
powdered with flour, and they were up the hillside in a trice, going on
all fours, so steep was the slope, like monkeys. The sight was absurdly
ridiculous, and sent us into fits of laughter. Anon the fugitives stopped
to take breath, and turning their heads, looked down on us with fear and
amazement expressed on their faces. We beckoned them, called them, and
laughed at them. They only scrambled up higher, and again looked down
mistrustfully at us. Presently our _mihmandár_ rejoined us with two or
three of the villagers, who looked very crestfallen at this exposure of
weakness, and excused themselves as well they might on the grounds of
the frequent raids by the Turkmans they were subjected to. On seeing us
in friendly converse with their fellows, the startled millers slided
down from their retreat, and brought with them as a peace-offering some
rhubarb-stalks, the plants of which covered the hillside. A general
dispensation of kráns and half-kráns soon put us on the most amicable
terms, and restored a thorough confidence.

The scene was altogether too absurd and unexpected to suppress the
momentary merriment it produced, yet it furnishes a subject for
melancholy reflection, as illustrating the state of insecurity in which
these people live. Another fact of a yet more painful nature revealed by
this amusing incident was the frightful state of desolation and poverty
to which this village had been reduced by the combined effects of famine
and rapine. The alarm produced by our sudden appearance had brought out
the whole population on the hillside, and at a rough guess they did not
exceed eighty men and women, and not a single child was seen amongst
them. On resuming our march we passed through the village. It contains
about two hundred and fifty houses, but most of them are untenanted
and falling to decay. The people were miserably poor and dejected, and
looked very sickly. Yet the village is surrounded by gardens and mulberry
plantations, which, in their spring foliage, give the place an air of
comfort and prosperity by no means in accordance with its real condition.

Calát, indeed, like many another village our journey brought us to, in
interior condition quite belied its exterior appearance. I may here state
in anticipation, that in all our march from Gháyn to the Persian capital
we hardly anywhere saw infants or very young children. They had nearly
all died in the famine. We nowhere heard the sound of music nor song nor
mirth in all the journey up to Mashhad. We passed through village after
village, each almost concealed from view in the untrimmed foliage of its
gardens, only to see repetitions of misery, melancholy, and despair. The
suffering produced by this famine baffles description, and exceeds our
untutored conceptions. In this single province of Khorassan the loss of
population by this cause is estimated at 120,000 souls, and over the
whole kingdom cannot be less than a million and a half.

Beyond Calát our path followed the hill skirt in a north-west direction.
The surface is very stony, and covered with wild rhubarb and the yellow
rose in great profusion, to the exclusion of other vegetation. We passed
the villages of Sághí, Kochi, Zaharabad, and Shirazabad, and then
crossing a deep ravine in which flowed a brisk little stream draining
into the central rivulet of Gúnábád, passed over some undulating ground
to Zihbad, where we camped.

_15th April._—Zihbad to Bijistan, twenty-eight miles, and halt a day.
Our route was N.N.W., skirting the hill range on our left by a rough
stony path. We passed in succession the villages of Brezú, Kásum, and
Sinoh, each continuous with the other, through a wide stretch of fruit
gardens, mulberry plantations, poppy beds, and corn-fields watered
from a number of brisk little hill streams, and looking the picture of
a prosperity which our experience has taught us is very far from the
reality.

A little farther on, at about the eleventh mile, we came to Patinjo, and
halted for breakfast under the shade of a magnificent plane-tree in the
centre of the village. Proceeding hence, we continued along the hill
skirt, and at about four miles entered amongst the hills that close the
Gúnábád valley to the northward. We gained their shelter in a somewhat
hurried manner, owing to a false alarm of Turkmans on the plain flanking
our right. We had continued to hear all sorts of fanciful and exaggerated
reports of these gentry, founded undoubtedly on a basis of fact, and were
consequently kept alive to the chance of a possible encounter with them.
On the present occasion a cloud of dust suddenly appeared round a spur
projecting on the plain about two miles to our right. Our _mihmandár_
reined up a moment, looking intently at the suspicious object, and
shook his head. At this moment the cloud of dust wheeled round in our
direction. “Yá Ali!” he exclaimed. “They are Turkmans. Get on quick
into the hills;” and so saying, he unslung his rifle, and loaded as
he galloped. A few minutes brought us all to the hills, and ascending
some heights overlooking the plain, we levelled our glasses at the
cause of our commotion. After a good deal of spying and conjecturing,
we discovered, to our no small chagrin, that we were no better than our
friends of Calát, for our would-be Turkmans were no other than a flock of
goats and sheep, grazing along the hill skirts for protection against
surprise by those very marauders.

Our road through the hills was by a winding path, over ridges and through
defiles, everywhere rough and stony, and in some parts very wild and
rugged.

After passing the castellated village of Kámih we came to a very
difficult little gorge between bare rocks of trap, and farther on reached
a watershed called Gudari Rúdi, or “the pass of the tamarisk river.” It
runs north and south, and is about 5150 feet above the sea. The descent
is gradual, by a long drainage gully between gradually diverging hills.
At five miles from the watershed we turned to the left across a wide
gravelly waste to Bijistan, where we camped near a _sarae_ outside the
town. As we approached camp, along the eastern side of this waste, we had
the pleasure of seeing a long string of camels with our heavy baggage
from Birjand converging to the sarae spot on the western side.

Bijistan is one of the principal towns of the Tabbas district, and
contains about two thousand houses surrounded by gardens. It is a
charming spot in this wilderness of barren hills and desert wastes, and
lies at the base of an isolated ridge of hills, beyond which, to the
west, is seen, down in a hollow, portion of the great salt desert of
Yazd and Káshán. It is called _Kavír_, and its surface is of dazzling
whiteness from saline encrustations.

The people here have suffered dreadfully from the famine, and have lost
nearly all their cattle from the same cause. Our camp is surrounded by
crowds of beggars, famished, gaunt and wizened creatures, most sorry
objects to behold. Boys and girls, of from ten to twenty years of age,
wan, pinched, and wrinkled, whine around us in piteous tones all day
and all night, and vainly call on Ali for aid. “_Ahajo!_ (for _Agha
ján_) _gushna am, yak puli siyah bidih!_” (“Dear sir! I am hungry;
give me a supper!”) is the burden of each one’s prayer; whilst “_Yá
Alí-í-í-í!_” resounds on all sides from those too helpless to move from
the spots doomed to be their deathbeds. These prolonged plaintive cries
in the stillness of night were distressing to hear, and enough to move
the hardest hearts. To us these frequent evidences of such fearful and
widespread suffering were the more distressing from our utter inability
to afford any real relief. Poor creatures! there is no help for them.
Hundreds of those we have seen must die, for they are past recovery even
were relief at hand.

The district of Tabbas comprises the divisions or _bulúk_ of Gúnábád,
Kakhak, Bijistan, Tún, and Tabbas. The last contains the capital city of
that name. The whole district has suffered fearfully during the famine
by death, emigration, and raids. Some of the smaller hamlets have been
entirely depopulated, and many villages have been decimated. We heard of
one village in the Tún _bulúk_, in which not a man nor child was left,
and only five old women remained to till the ground, in hopes of some of
their people returning. It is not quite easy to understand the cause of
the famine in these parts, for the villages are mostly well watered and
their fields fertile.

_17th April._—Bijistan to Yúnasi, twenty-six miles. The weather during
our halt at Bijistan was close and oppressive, and on the eve of our
departure set in stormy, with violent gusts of wind from the south. At
daylight this morning a sharp thunderstorm with hail and rain burst over
our camp, and continued with violence for nearly three hours.

Our route was in a N.N.E. direction, down a long sloping steppe,
with interrupted hill ridges on either hand, down to the _kavír_ or
“salt-desert,” which here projects an arm eastward to join that of
Herat. At about the twelfth mile we passed the village of Sihfarsakh, at
the foot of a white marble hill to the right; and at three miles farther
on halted at a roadside _ábambár_ for breakfast. On the way to this we
passed a small camp of Baloch gypsies—a very poor, dirty, black, and
villanous-looking set. The vegetation here differs from what we have seen
in the highlands of Gháyn and Tabbas, and resembles that we observed on
the plains of Calá Koh. The characteristic plants are _ghích_, wormwood,
wild rue, caroxylon, and other saltworts, the wild liquorice, and a
variety of flowering herbs, such as gentian, prophet flower, malcomia,
and other crucifers, &c.

At four miles farther on, passing amongst some low hills, we left the
fortified village of Márandez a couple of miles to the left, and entered
on the wide waste of the _kavír_; and at another four miles reached the
village of Yúnasi, where we camped. The sun shone hotly here, and a
strong north wind blowing all day filled the atmosphere with clouds of
saline dust, very trying to the lungs and eyes. On approaching the town,
a number of its people, headed by an athlete wielding a pair of huge
wooden dumb-bells, came out to meet us, and merrily conducted us to our
camp. Yúnasi is a collection of about two hundred and fifty houses round
a central fort, and possesses a commodious _sarae_ built of baked bricks.
It stands on a small river flowing westward into the desert, and marking
the boundary between the districts of Tabbas and Turbat Hydari. There are
no gardens here, and a singular absence of trees gives the place a very
forlorn look, quite in keeping with the aspect of the desert around. The
place has been almost depopulated by the famine. Yúnasi is about 2860
feet above the sea.

Our next stage was Abdullahabad, twenty-five miles. After crossing
the river or Rúdi Kavír by a red brick bridge a little below the town
(there are said to be seven similar bridges across the river in different
parts of its course), we went across a wide lacustrine hollow, the soil
of which was light and powdery, and white with saline efflorescence,
and at half-way came to Miandih, “the midway village,” and halted at
its _ábambár_ for breakfast. The village consists of perhaps a hundred
domed huts, ranged outside a square fort fast falling to decay, and has
a vertical windmill similar to those used in Sistan, only made to work
with an east wind. The desert here runs from east to west between high
hill ranges, and is almost bare of vegetation beyond the wild rue and
liquorice, and a coarse grass growing in tufts, with here and there
strips of camel-thorn and salsolaceæ.

Along the line of march we passed several roadside graves, the last
resting-places of famine-struck travellers hastily buried by their
companions. Wild beasts had pulled out the bodies from three or four of
these shallow pits, and scattered their bones and clothes upon the road.
Thousands upon thousands have been so put away, or left to rot on the
roads where they lay. Their place knows them no more, and but too often
none are left to reck their loss.

From Miandih our route continued in an E.N.E. direction over a wide plain
covered with a scanty pasture, on which we found large herds of camels,
oxen, and asses at graze. They belong to Baloch nomads of the Mirzá Jahán
tribe, and are tended by small unarmed parties of their herdsmen. We
have all along noticed that the peasantry of Persian Khorassan, unlike
those of Afghanistan, are all unarmed. This is the more surprising as
a new feature on the scene here warns us that we have come into the
country which from time immemorial has been the hunting-ground of the
real Turkman. The whole plain is dotted all over with hundreds of round
towers as places of refuge from these marauders, and they serve also to
convey a very lively idea of the insecurity of the country. These towers
consist of a circular mud wall about twelve feet high, enclosing an
empty roofless space about eighteen feet in diameter, and are entered by
a small opening on one side, only large enough to admit of entrance on
all fours. On the appearance of the raiders the shepherds or husbandmen
desert their flocks and fields, and rush into these refuges till the
enemy has disappeared. The Turkman has a lively dread of firearms, and a
very wholesome respect for all armed travellers. He always gives these
towers a wide berth, and only attacks the unwary and unarmed. From all
we heard of them, they must be sorry cowards before a worthy foe, and
heartless tyrants over their helpless captives. Those who used formerly
to raid this country, and who do still occasionally as opportunity
offers, belong to the Sarúc and Sálor tribes, whose seat is in the
territories of Sarrakhs and Marv. With the Takka Turkmans of the latter
place, they habitually harry all this country up to the very gates of
Mashhad. In 1860, the Persian Government sent an expedition against the
strongholds of these miscreants. Though the Persian troops were driven
back with disastrous loss, they managed to inflict considerable damage
upon the enemy, and for several years their inroads upon this frontier
were put a stop to; but in the disorganisation and laxity of authority
produced by the famine they have again commenced their wonted forays,
and during the last three years have, it is said, carried off nearly
twenty thousand Persian subjects from Mashhad district alone, for the
slave markets of Khiva and Bukhára. During the pressure of the famine,
we are told, the citizens of Mashhad used to flock out to the plains on
purpose to be captured by the Turkman, preferring a crust of bread in
slavery to the tortures of a slow death under the heedless rule of their
own governors, who never stirred a finger to alleviate their sufferings
or relieve their necessities. This species of voluntary exile soon grew
to such alarming proportions that the Mashhad authorities were obliged to
post military guards to prevent the citizens from leaving the city.

At about ten miles from Miandih we came to the ruins of a very extensive
town, called Fyzabad, and beyond them passed the modern village of the
same name. It is a remarkable place, and consists of a compact little
town, sunk below the level of the ground, surrounded by a deep ditch, and
ramparts but little raised above the general level of the plain. Within
are many trees, the tops of which only are seen above the ramparts. Here
the road turns due north to Abdullahabad, four miles distant, leaving the
new fort of Husenabad standing boldly out on the plain away to the right.

At Fyzabad we were met by an _isticbál_ party of thirty or forty
horsemen, headed by Hájí Agha Beg and Muhammad Karím, expressly deputed
to meet us by the prince-governor of Mashhad and Husen Ali Khán, the
governor of the town. They received us in a very polite and friendly
manner, and conducted us to a garden house on the skirts of the town,
where, as we entered its gate, a couple of sheep were sacrificed on our
path, with such haste and clumsiness, that ourselves and followers
were sprinkled with the blood spurting from their severed throats.
The quarters prepared for us were tastefully furnished in the Persian
fashion, and on a carpeted platform, under the shade of some fine
mulberry trees, and on the edge of a sparkling little stream, we were
refreshed with iced sherbets and trays of sweetmeats, accompanied by the
inevitable _calyán_ and coffee.

We halted here a day, and received a post from India with dates from
Peshawar up to the 20th March. The packet came by the route of Kurram and
Ghazni to Kandahar, and thence by Farráh, Herat, and Ghoryán to this. Our
Afghan friends have certainly earned our gratitude for the promptitude
and safety with which they have maintained our postal communication with
India. Our weekly budgets from that side have seldom failed to reach
us punctually, notwithstanding the rapidity of our movements, and the
difficulties and dangers of the road on this side of Kandahar, where no
post is established. In this respect, at all events, Afghanistan may
favourably compare with Persia, where there are no proper established
posts at all. Sir F. Goldsmid’s party had only received two posts since
we joined them in Sistan—namely, one at Banjár, and the other only
yesterday as we set out from Yúnasi. It came _viâ_ Mashhad, with dates
from Tehran to the 8th March, and London of 14th January.

Abdullahabad is a charming place, and, like most Persian villages, lost
in a maze of gardens and vineyards. Through its centre flows a clear
hill stream, and to its south stands a strong little castle, now in a
state of decay, like all the other fortifications we have seen in all
this frontier. It appears as if they had all been dismantled on purpose
to prevent the people from entertaining any thought of revolt, and to
deprive them of the temptation to rebellion that such handy strongholds
might give rise to.

During our stay here a party of a hundred horsemen, under ’Abdul Husen
Khán, grandson of the celebrated Karai chief Ishák Khán, arrived here
from Mashhad as escort for our party. With them came a messenger to
Sistan, bearing a jewelled sword and letters of commendation from the
Sháh for Mír ’Alam Khán, the governor of that newly acquired province.

_20th April._—Abdullahabad to Turbat Hydari, thirty-two miles, and halt
two days. We set out at four A.M., and pursued a generally north-east
course over a wide upland pasture tract towards the Asgand range of
hills, which stretch across the plain from north-west to south-east. A
lofty mass away to our left, and separated from the rest of the range
by an intervening chain of lesser hills covered with a furrowed surface
of white marl, is called Koh Fighan, or “the hill of lamentation,” and
is said to be the site of Rustam’s retreat for mourning after he had
unwittingly killed his son Sohráb.

At eight or ten miles out we passed the villages of Doghabad and
Salmidasht, on the left and right respectively, and farther on, passing
over the undulating plain of Maháwalát, alighted at a _kárez_ stream for
breakfast. As a steady rain had set in, we pitched a bell-tent for the
more comfortable discussion of this repast, for which our appetites were
well whetted by the morning ride of twelve miles. Our escort of Karai
horsemen meanwhile dismounted and scattered themselves over the hillocks
around. They are a remarkably fine body of men, and excellently mounted,
but are indifferently armed, and are wanting in the dash and elasticity
so characteristic of the Afghan trooper. On the march they diverted
themselves and us too with a display of their horsemanship and mock
fights. Their movements appeared to me slow, and the firing at full galop
harmless, particularly when, in retreat, the fugitive loads, and turning
round in the saddle, with a wide sweep over the horizon, discharges his
rifle in the direction of his pursuer. Against a European armed with
a revolver the Khorassan horseman would have a poor chance of escape.
They are wonderfully hardy, however, both man and horse, and accomplish
incredibly long marches, carrying their own and horses’ food and
clothing, with little inconvenience. Our new companions, Hájí Agha Beg
and the _peshkhidwat_ Muhammad Karím, entertained us, in truly Persian
hyperbole, with amusing accounts of the Turkmans, and never failed to
enlarge on the prowess of the Persian cavalry against them. The Hájí, as
a piece of the latest news from Mashhad, informed us of the capture of
eight hundred of these _pidr sokhta_ (burnt fathers), and the release of
upwards of a thousand captives they were carrying off, by a brilliant
display of military tactics on the part of a son of the Hisámussaltanat.
The Turkmans, he told us, had entered the Burdjnurd lands through the
Darband pass, and were allowed to proceed well ahead unmolested, when
the pass behind them, which it seems is the only route of ingress and
egress, was occupied by a party of the Mashhad troops. On the return of
the raiders with their plunder and captives, they were suddenly attacked
in front and rear, and killed and captured, for exchange, to the number
of eight hundred.

“The heads of the slain,” said he, “have been brought in for exhibition
at the gates of the city. You will see them on reaching Mashhad.” This
was welcome news to me, for I was anxious to obtain a few skulls of
this race for the collection of my learned friend, and distinguished
anthropologist, Dr Barnard Davis, and therefore availed myself of the
opportunity to engage the interest of our companion in procuring me a
few specimens. “Any number is at your service,” replied he with charming
readiness. “How many, and of which kind, do you require?” I naturally
inquired what the different kinds were, and presently learned that some
were merely stuck on a lance, and allowed to bleach intact in the sun,
and that others were prepared so as to preserve the features. In these
last, the bones of the skull were smashed by blows with a wooden mallet,
and the brain, soft parts, and fragments withdrawn through the neck.
The interior was then stuffed with straw, and the integument allowed
to dry over it. “Thanks!” I said; “I should like two of each kind, and
shall esteem it a great favour if you will procure them for me.” “_Ba
chasm-házir!_” (“By my eyes—present!” or “With all my heart!”) “They are
ready,” was his prompt reply. “They are yours. I will bring them to you
myself so soon as we reach the city.” This was very satisfactory, and I
congratulated myself on my prospective good fortune. But to anticipate
the sequel. I did not then know the Persian character so well as I do
now, and was consequently completely deceived by the Hájí’s specious
politeness. On arrival at Mashhad, we found the whole story was a myth,
only created for our amusement. There had been no brilliant exploit
against the Turkmans, nor was a single head, stuffed or bleached,
procurable. So much for Persian veracity.

At a couple of miles from Turbat Hydari we were met by the governor
of the district, Hájí Mirzá Mahmúd Khán. He was attended by twenty
cavaliers, and preceded by a couple of _yadak_, or led horses,
handsomely caparisoned. He is a remarkably handsome man, with very
polished manners, and was richly dressed. He received us with graceful
civility, and conducted our party to the residence prepared for us in a
garden adjoining his own quarters.

Our road passed through a long succession of gardens and orchards and
villages, and finally led through the main bazár of Turbat, which is full
of life, and well supplied. It consists of two main streets crossing
at right angles, and covered in by a succession of domes built of red
brick. Altogether it is the most flourishing place we have seen on this
frontier. Turbat Hydari is picturesquely situated on the bank of a deep
and wide ravine, in the midst of lofty hills, and is surrounded by a
cluster of villages, each embosomed in luxuriant orchards, mulberry
plantations and vineyards. Its elevation is about 4562 feet above the
sea, and it enjoys a delightfully salubrious climate. During our stay
the weather was unpropitious, and rain fell constantly, with only brief
intervals of sunshine, and the air was damp, chill, and raw. In winter,
snow lies deep for a month or six weeks.

The town derives its name from the mausoleum of a Bukhára saint buried
here, and is the capital of the district of the same name, which
comprises the divisions or _bulúk_ of Maháwalát, Turbat, Záwah, Kháf,
Azghan or Asgand, Báyak, and Rúkh. Previous to the famine this district
was one of the most populous, fertile, and prosperous places in Persia,
but it has suffered fearfully in the dearth of the last three years.
Owing to deaths and emigration its population has been reduced by twenty
thousand, and several villages are now deserted. It is reckoned it cannot
recover its losses for another generation. Formerly, the silk crop alone
in this district produced an annual profit of forty thousand _tumans_,
or about eighty thousand dollars, but the yield now is less than a tenth
of that amount. Formerly, too, from fifteen to twenty thousand pilgrims,
mostly from Bukhára, annually visited the shrine here, but the famine has
quite put a stop to this source of wealth.

Turbat is the headquarters of the Karai, a tribe of Tátár origin, whose
settlement here dates from the time of Tamerlane. They subsequently
became dispersed in the successive revolutions and conquests that for
centuries convulsed this region, and their lands were left more or
less waste and depopulated. Nadír resettled seven thousand families of
the tribe in Turbat. On his death, Sháh Ahmad annexed the country to
Afghanistan, and secured the good-will of their chief, Ishák Khán, by a
liberal policy of protection and favour. On the decline of the Durrani
dynasty, and the extension eastwards of the Cajar rule, this district,
and the adjoining principality of Mashhad, wrested from the unfortunate
Sháh Rokh Mirzá, were restored to Persia. The Karai, however, proved very
rebellious subjects, and took a leading part in the successive revolts
marking the earlier years of the Cajar authority on this border. In 1816,
Ishák, and his son Husen ’Ali, were executed at Mashhad by Muhammad
Walí Mirzá, the governor, and another son, Muhammad Khán, placed in the
government of the district.

He too evinced a very dubious loyalty during the subsequent operations
of Persia against Herat, and in the rebellion of the Salár, Hassan Khán,
some years later, joined his standard against the Sháh. In 1849, Sultán
Murád Mirzá, Hisámussaltanat, having recaptured Mashhad, executed the
Salár and his son, and sent a number of the Karai and Kurd chiefs who
had sided with him as prisoners to Tehran. Since that time the power of
the Karai has steadily decreased, and now, under a Persian ruler of the
district, they are reduced to a complete subjection.

_23d April._—Turbat Hydari to Asadabad, twenty-eight miles. Weather
showery all day, cold and cloudy. We left Turbat as we entered it,
through its bazár, and passing round its ditch and fortified walls,
followed a good road leading due north over an undulating gravelly plain
covered with rich pasture. At the eighth mile we passed a roadside
_ábambár_, and at two miles farther on reached the foot of the hills, and
ascending a narrow drainage gully, at a mile farther reached the crest
of a ridge of chlorite slate. Its elevation is 5920 feet above the sea,
and 1358 feet above Turbat Hydari, and affords a very fine view, which,
though much obscured by clouds, is sufficient to convey a correct idea
of the wild and picturesque combined in the scenery of these mountains.
Descending into a deep little hollow, bright in the verdure of its spring
vegetation, we passed the village of Kámih Páyín, and rose up to the
_sarae_ Kistkat, where we took refuge from the rain, and smoked ourselves
dry at blinding and suffocating fires, raised with the stable litter
strewing its interior.

On our way up to this we found several human skeletons strewed along
the road, and I dismounted to pick up a tolerably bleached skull in my
path. “Why burden yourself with that?” exclaimed he who had promised me
the Turkman heads; “the road ahead is white with them, and you can pick
up any number, much better and purer.” The one I held was certainly not
as clear of its contents as it might have been, so I threw it aside and
remounted; and calling up one of my own servants, directed him to pick
up two or three perfect skulls as he went along towards camp. As events
proved, I might have saved myself the trouble, for we did not see another
skull on all our road from this to Tehran. So much again for Persian
veracity.

Opposite the _sarae_ is a collection of thirty or forty mud cabins,
and overlooking it from the north-west is the snow-topped and
cloud-beshrouded Bedúr mountain, with its bare slopes and rugged heights.
We set out from the _sarae_ in a steady set rain, and ascending a narrow
gorge, in forty minutes reached the Gudari Bedár, on which are three
observation towers for watching the movements of the Turkmans on the
_júlagah_ Rúkh below to the northward. This pass is over a watershed
ridge of chlorite and trap rocks running east and west, and forming the
boundary between the _bulúk_ of Turbat and that of Rúkh. Its elevation
is 7135 feet above the sea, and 2573 feet above Turbat, and from it is
obtained a full view of the _júlagah_ Rúkh running east and west.

The descent, at first steep, leads through a turfy dell, in which we
found the wild rose, barberry, prickly astragalus, tulips, lilies, and
a multitude of other herbs, with here and there arms and legs of human
skeletons strewing the path, and at about four miles emerges on the
plain at the little castle of Shor Hissár. We crossed the _júlagah_ due
north, and passing a new red brick _rabát_ or post-house about half-way,
at eight miles reached Asadabad, and camped on a gravelly slope covered
with fresh sprouting rhubarb. The weather was cold, chill, and damp, and
a strong north-west wind, with the thermometer at 46° Fah. at two P.M.,
intensified its severity. Asadabad stands 5790 feet above the sea, and
1228 feet higher than Turbat. Its vegetation is very backward; the corn
has hardly sprouted above the ground, and the fruit trees have not yet
expanded their buds.

Quarters had been hastily prepared for us inside the fort, but we found
them so filthy, and the stinks so disgusting, that we preferred to face
the stormy elements in our tents. The entrance gate of this fortified
village is of very peculiar construction, and similar to some others we
have seen on this frontier. It consists of a circular opening closed by
a great millstone about a foot thick and six feet in diameter, which
rolls back into a side casement. Owing to the scarcity of timber, large
slabs of slate or millstone grit are commonly used as doors for houses
and gardens in this country. Asadabad was only built some ten years ago,
by Asadullah Mirzá, one of the princes of the blood royal. There are
eight or ten other fortified villages seen from it on the _júlagah_ or
_júlgah_. The wild sheep (_koch_ m. and _mesh_ f.) and wild goat (_takka_
m. and _buz_ f.) abound on these hills. Here, as at Turbat, specimens of
each, shot in the vicinity, were brought to our camp as dainties for our
table.

Our next stage was thirty-four miles to Sharífabad. Weather cold,
cloudy, and windy, with alternating showers, mists, and sunshine.
Route northerly, up a gentle slope to the foot of a hill range running
north-west to south-east, then, passing between low marly hillocks,
ascends a steep ridge of chlorite, to the Gudhari Rúkh. Elevation, 6962
feet above the sea, and 1172 feet above Asadabad, six miles distant. The
descent leads down a long winding defile, flanked by bare rugged hills of
chlorite and trap and granite, and then, at four miles, passing through
a narrow gorge between high perpendicular hills of green and red rocks,
emerged on to the valley of Rabáti Sufed. This gorge is only about forty
yards wide, and perhaps five or six hundred long, for our horses walked
through it in six minutes, along a clear little rivulet that flows in its
midst.

The crest of the hill on the right of this gorge is topped with the
ruins of an ancient fort called Calaedukhtar. It looks down upon a
domed chamber built of very solid masonry on the plain below, and
called Darocsh-khána. Tradition assigns the fort as the retreat of some
ancient king’s beautiful daughter, whilst a devoted suitor pined away in
unrequited love in the domed chamber. At the foot of the hills to the
left are two or three similarly domed chambers. They stand on separate
little mounds, and are called _átash kadah_, or “fire temple.” Farther
out on the level stands an old _sarae_, and on a ridge of hill at the
farther end of the valley, to the left, is the village of Rabáti Sufed.
It is the first we have seen with flat-roofed houses. This little valley
communicates westward with the Nishabor plain, and is constantly infested
by Tymúri and Turkman robbers.

Beyond this we crossed a low ridge, and passing down a long turfy slope,
halted for breakfast on a patch of fresh green sward, close under Káfir
Calá, a small castle on the summit of an isolated mound, which appears
to be of artificial construction. Though strongly situated, the village
has, it is said, been several times swept clear of its occupants by the
Turkmans. During the last year they have made repeated raids in this
direction, and have carried off most of the people belonging to Sebzar,
a small fortified village in a nook of the hills about two miles to the
S.S.E. Some years ago a large body of Turkmans, in collusion with the
Tymúri Hazárah of Turbat Shekh Jám, were returning by this way from a
foray to Nishabor, when they were overtaken by troops sent out from
Mashhad to intercept them. A large number of them fell into the hands of
the Persians, and received punishment, not according to their deserts,
but according to the necessities of the case. Thus the Tymúri, who are
accounted subjects of the Persian Government, were put to death with the
most horrible cruelties. Some were put out of their misery at once by
having their throats cut or their heads chopped off, some were cut to
pieces limb by limb, and others were ripped up and disembowelled, and
many were impaled or doomed to a lingering death of torture, pegged to
the ground by a stake driven through the belly. The real Turkmans, on
the other hand, were sent to Mashhad, and there retained as hostages for
exchange with Persian subjects carried off by their brethren in other
forays. As a rule, the Persians seldom kill their Turkman captives, for
fear of retaliation on their own captive fellow-countrymen.

The Káfir Calá hollow is closed to the westward by a ridge of red clay
hills, in which is a mine of very pure white rock salt. It is quarried
extensively for the Mashhad market. On the gravelly mounds skirting this
ridge we found the burrows of a large species of rat, called _múshi
Sultánya_. A couple were shot by one of our party, and measured about a
foot from the snout to the root of the tail, which is short and bushy.
The head resembles that of the beaver, and has long incisors. The colour
of the fur is a yellowish grey, inclining to brown. Their burrows are
very extensive, and render the ground unsafe for the movement of horses.

From this the road continues to slope towards the north, and passing over
an undulating tract of red marl, drops on to a wide valley or plain,
the _júlagah_ Bewajan, which is bounded on the north by a snow-topped
mountain of the same name—a terminal prolongation to the south-east
of the Nishabor mountain. The Bewajan plain is dotted with a number
of fort-villages, which are remarkable from the absence of gardens or
trees about them. The plain presents a gently undulating pasture-covered
surface, and extends for many miles east and west and forms a long,
narrow strip of tableland between the deserts on either side. To the
eastward it drops suddenly, by a very broken surface, on to the Sarjam
district, which presents a wide waste of red clay hummocks, of no use
whatever but to provide concealment and shelter to the Turkman. To the
south of Sarjam is seen a great snowy mountain, on which there is said
to be a glacier. It is continuous to the north-west with the Turbat
Hydari range of Asgand, and to the eastward separates Turbat Shekh Jám
from Bákharz. To the north-east Sarjam is continuous with the desert of
Sarakhs and Marv, and is the general rendezvous of the Takka, Sarúc,
and Sálor Turkmans. To the westward Bewajan drops on to the plain of
Nishabor on the one hand, and the _kavír_ of Yúnasi, through which it is
continuous with the waste of Pul Abresham, on the other. Bewajan is the
route by which the Marv Turkmans invade Nishabor and Sabzwár, and the
country up to Shahrúd, where they meet their brethren of the Yamút and
Goklán tribes.

We crossed the Bewajan plain in a N.N.E. direction, and passing the
fortified village of Sháh Tughi—which, what with Turkmans and famine,
had been reduced to only three miserable families, who longed to escape
the burthen of its desolation, the dread of Turkmans, and the thoughts
for their daily bread; but there was none to cheer them, nor to relieve
them, nor even to commiserate them—rose gently up to some low ridges of
slate, trap, and granite, towards a ruined tower that stands on the
edge of a muddy pool. At this point the caravan route from Tehran _viâ_
Nishabor joins that from Turbat to Sharífabad and Mashhad. We here turned
to the right, and descending into the secluded hollow in which stands
Sharífabad, camped near its _sarae_. This is a commodious and substantial
building, erected by Ishák Khán, Karai, when this town formed the
frontier of his territory in this direction.




CHAPTER XI.


_25th April._—Sharífabad to Mashhad, twenty-four miles. Weather cloudy
and showery, with occasional glimpses of sunshine. We set out at seven
A.M., and proceeded at first north-east then north, up and down over a
succession of rich pasture-grown ridges, by a good military road, that
exposed rocks of friable slate and a coarse granular granite abounding
with great flakes of glistening mica.

At about six miles we crested the _Tappa Salám_, or “ridge of obeisance;”
and got our first view of Mashhad _i mucaddas_, “the holy,” with its
gilded shrine and blue-domed mosque overtopping the rich foliage of its
gardens—a pleasant oasis in the centre of a wide desert plain. Our road
companions and Persian attendants, straining their eyes in the direction
of their loved city, muttered a prayer, and bowed reverently and low.

In fine weather, the view of the city and the mountains beyond it must
be a very pretty sight. Pilgrims go into ecstasies at it, and run ahead
of their caravans to get an earlier glimpse. The ridge is covered
with graves, and small heaps of stones to which are tied long shreds
of many-coloured cloths—the altars raised by pilgrim devotees. On the
present occasion, owing to the misty weather, our view of the place was
but indistinct, whilst the hills beyond were hidden in the haze.

Beyond the _tappa_, we passed down some granite slopes to the wide bed of
a clear little rivulet, and following it awhile, at half-way to Mashhad
halted for breakfast on its turfy slope, where we pitched a couple of
bell-tents for shelter from the rain. Whilst here, the British agent,
or _Wukíl uddaula_, arrived from Mashhad to pay his respects to Sir F.
Goldsmid and General Pollock, and with him came an Armenian merchant,
a cunning fellow, evidently with an eye to business, in which no doubt
he acquitted himself eminently to his own satisfaction. He had a small
supply of English bottled beer, which, on the faith of its name, we
were as glad to get as he was to part with. Our subsequent experience,
however, proved it to be but a very sorry imitation, and how or when it
came here, if it ever did come here, we did not discover.

Besides these arrived a merchant of Peshín, one Sayyid Karm Sháh, who
came out to meet his kinsmen the Afghan Commissioner, Saggid Núr Muhammad
Sháh, and to give and learn the latest news, and also a couple of Persian
officials to warn us of the grand preparations made for our reception
and the order of our procession. This intelligence necessitated a change
from our travelling costume to the more imposing habiliments of official
uniform. Our passing baggage was stopped, and the transformation effected
as we set out afresh in a provoking set shower of rain.

A short descent brought us to a muddy river draining eastward in a noisy
stream a foot deep. We crossed its boulder-strewn bed, with a hill of
granite on the right and left rear, and going across the plain, reined up
at Turogh _sarae_. Here Sir F. Goldsmid, with his party, proceeded ahead
to meet the _isticbál_ sent out to meet him, and some minutes later, two
field-officers of the Persian army rode up to conduct General Pollock
and the Afghan Commissioner to meet the _isticbál_ sent out for their
honourable reception, all according to programme and the strict rules of
Persian etiquette.

The Persian officers were dressed in European military costume with the
Persian hat, and in their general bearing no way differed from European
gentlemen. Each was, however, attended by a _calyán_ bearer, who, on a
nod from his master, lighted the tobacco, and urging his horse forward,
handed its long tube to him, and following close in rear, awaited another
nod to receive it back. Our friends smoked nearly the whole way, and very
obligingly offered us a whiff. The “weed” is the finest-flavoured in the
world, but the fashion of inhaling its fumes so constantly cannot but
prove injurious to the lungs. As we rode along exchanging commonplace
remarks, I observed that the plain was an uncultivated waste, dotted
towards the east with numerous Turkman towers.

On approaching the city, both our processions coalesced, and formed a
very gay cavalcade of about three hundred horsemen. The costumes of the
Persian cavalry were very varied, and generally handsome, and the types
of physiognomy were not much less so, whilst the horses of all were
the most divergent in blood and bone. Altogether, the _cortége_ formed
a crowd very interesting to look at and study, but very difficult to
describe; and I will, therefore, not attempt to do so, lest I confound
Kurd with Karai, and Dághistani with Daingháni, and Cajar with them all.

We entered the city at the Darwazae Khayábáni Páyín, or the “Gate of the
Lower Avenue,” and proceeded up the avenue to the railings of the court
of the holy shrine of Imám Razá. Here we turned off to the right, through
some narrow lanes and covered passages, into a cemetery completely choked
with tombstones, and emitting a very disagreeable effluvium, dank,
mouldy, and strongly sepulchral. Beyond this, turning to the left,
we regained the avenue on the farther side of the shrine, where it is
called Khayábáni Bálá, or “Upper Avenue,” and presently alighted at an
ornamental garden, where tents had been pitched for our accommodation.

The avenue is a very fine street, broad and straight from east to west.
Down its centre flows a stream brought from the Dorúd river, and on its
sides are rows of tall, shady, plane-trees. In fine weather it must be
an interesting and agreeable promenade, to the foreigner especially, if
only to study the variety of the Asiatic races to be met in its bazárs;
but as we traversed its best portion at a season of continued rain,
its fancied delights pale before the recollection of its black mud and
offensive odours—too real to be easily forgotten. The shops and _saraes_
on either side the avenue presented a busy scene, though nowhere crowded,
nor did the people evince any curiosity or commotion at our appearance
amongst them. I was surprised to find many of the people quite fair and
ruddy, and hardly to be distinguished from Europeans in this respect.
They were, I was told, merchants from Bukhára. Some veritable Turkmans,
too, were pointed out to us at one of the _saraes_ as we passed, and a
couple of them at the entrance smiled with an expression of good-natured
curiosity, as they found themselves made the objects of our attention.
They were light-ruddy complexioned, and large-limbed men, with thick
short beards, and a distinct trace of the Tátár physiognomy in their high
cheek-bones and small widely-parted eyes. The expression of face was
agreeable than otherwise, and betrayed none of the well-known ferocity of
their nature. There are nearly a hundred of these men detained in this
city as hostages for the good behaviour of their tribe. They are allowed
full liberty within certain quarters of the town, but are not allowed to
pass beyond the gates. They are said to abuse their liberty pretty freely
by conveying intelligence to their tribe, of caravans and travellers
arriving and departing from the city.

We halted a week at Mashhad, and on the day following our arrival
and that preceding our departure, paid ceremonial visits to the
Prince-Governor, Sultán Murád Mirzá, uncle of the Sháh, from whom he has
received the title of Hisámussaltanat, or “sword of the state,” for his
services at the siege of Herat in 1856. His palace is situated at some
little distance from the garden allotted to us, and on each occasion
we were conducted to the august presence with a minute observance of
all the tedium of Persian etiquette. At the hour appointed for our
departure, a couple of tall Turkman horses, richly caparisoned, were
sent over from the Prince’s stables for Sir F. Goldsmid and General
Pollock. These, with our own horses, and a long file of servants, were
ranged outside the gate of our garden; and as we mounted, the latter
fell into two lines, Indian-file, one on each side of our path. They
were about fifteen men on each side, all dressed in their own best, or,
as I suspect was the case with most of them, in borrowed clothes. At all
events, they looked very decent people, and were hardly to be recognised
as our grooms, tent-pitchers, and valets, so complete and sudden was
their metamorphosis. With these men leading the way, and ourselves in
full-dress uniform, our procession cut a very respectable figure. We
proceeded leisurely, guided by the measured paces of our conductors, who
each and all, with hands folded in front and heads slightly bowed, looked
as solemn and lugubrious as sextons at a funeral.

Arrived at the palace gate, we dismounted, and were ushered into an outer
court paved with flat red bricks and enclosed by high blank walls. Here
we drew india-rubber goloshes over our boots, and advanced through an
inner court to the reception room, in which our host was seated. At the
threshold our goloshes were removed and taken charge of by our servants,
and stepping in we each in turn, without doffing our hats, saluted the
Prince-Governor in military style. He was seated, hat-on-head, in a chair
at the farther end of the room, and, without rising, merely motioned us
to the chairs ranged on either side his own at right angles. The usual
inquiries as to our health were dispensed with, I presume, because the
court chamberlain had called on us the previous afternoon for _hál
púrsí_, that is, to ask after our state; and instead thereof, the Prince,
so soon as we were seated, asked the name and rank of each of us, and
then started the conversation with a string of inquiries regarding our
journey up, and maintained it for some time on various topics, proving
himself a remarkably well-informed man. The room of our reception was
richly carpeted with splendid Birjand carpets and magnificent floorcloths
of purple satin. During the visit a number of servants—one for each
visitor and the host—marched in successively with loads of sherbet,
coffee, tea, and ices, and between each tour another set of servants
marched in with a _calyán_ for each of us. The cups were of very superior
china, and the spoons of solid gold. The _finjans_ of coffee were richly
jewelled with pearls and emeralds and rubies, set in a delicate filagree
of gold. The _calyans_, too, were mostly costly, the jars being of Sevres
china, decorated with French pictures, whilst the bowls were of solid
gold, studded with brilliants and pearls, and the mouthpieces of gold
studded with turquoise. No two of them were alike, and yet all were alike
costly, enamelled, and jewelled. The Prince is reputed to be one of the
most wealthy men in the country, and one of the most stingy. He has
done nothing for the starving poor during the famine, and the suffering
and loss has been something frightful. He himself reckoned the loss of
population in Khorassan alone at 120,000 souls, and the British agent
here informed us, that of 9000 houses in the city, not one half were
tenanted. The picture he drew of the suffering here during the winter
was awful. Hundreds died in their cellars and huts, and in the lanes and
passages, from sheer cold and want of food, and remained unburied for
weeks.

In this respect, however, the Hisámussaltanat is no worse than the rest
of those in authority in this country; for, from the Sháh downwards, it
is said not one has moved a finger to alleviate the general suffering.
The consequence is, the country has lost a million and a half at least
of its population, and cannot regain its former prosperity for a full
generation to come.

We paid a third visit to the Prince-Governor, and spent the afternoon
with him in the garden adjoining his palace. We were here received under
a marquee, erected over a carpeted platform, and the same course of
ceremonies and refreshments were observed as on the other occasions. In
this garden we saw a Turkman tent of the kind called _khargáh_. It is of
circular shape, about eighteen feet in diameter, and dome roofed, and
is built up of lattice-work frames of wood, fixed together by leather
thongs, and is protected from the weather by a covering of thick felts.
The whole takes to pieces, and forms a single camel-load.

On this occasion the Prince spoke at length regarding our experiences
in Sistan, and the conduct of the Hash-mat-ul-mulk, and alluded in very
plain terms to the rapid encroachment of Russia upon the countries of
Central Asia, and the inevitable consequences of her aggressive policy
in that direction. Khiva he considered as doomed since the base of
Russian operations had been changed from the side of the Aral to that of
the Caspian. The Jáfar Bai section of Yamút Turkmans had already been
conciliated, and they would help to win over the others. Further, he laid
stress on the sympathy and support the Russians would receive from the
captive Persians in Khiva and Bukhára, whose numbers are not far short of
fifty thousand.

On the last occasion of our visiting the Hisámussaltanat, we were all
photographed in a group, with himself in the centre, by a Persian who
had learned the art in Constantinople. He might have learned it better
at Tehran, though, considering the locality, his work was creditable.
We were obligingly presented with a copy each, as a memorial of our
visit, which I may say is remembered as the most agreeable portion of our
long journey. We had been favoured with a distinguished reception, were
accommodated in a delightful garden swarming with nightingales, whose
clear strong notes resounded on all sides night and day; and enjoyed
as much of the society of the Prince as circumstances admitted of. Our
treatment here, notwithstanding the irksome forms of Persian etiquette,
and the pride that prevented a return visit, was, after our experiences
in Gháyn and Sistan, very gratifying; whilst the assimilation of the
terms of social intercourse to those of Europe—so different from the
absurd prejudices and caste obligations we had been accustomed to in
India—was alone a subject for congratulation. But as every good has its
counteracting evil, so it was with us in this last case; and we more
than once had cause to wish that our Persian servants, in place of their
unbounded freedom in the matter of dressing and eating, were bound by
the same rules as our Indian servitors. We might then have been spared
the mortification of seeing our shirts and trousers airing on their
persons, and our meats and drinks disappearing ere they had been well
tasted.

Mashhad, the capital of Persian Khorassan, is a considerable commercial
city, and the point of convergence of the caravan routes between Persia
and India and China, through the countries of Afghanistan and Turkistan
respectively. It covers a great extent of ground, surrounded by fortified
walls several miles in circumference. Much of the intramural area is
occupied by gardens and extensive cemeteries. In the latter the graves
are closely packed, and contain the remains of pilgrim devotees who die
here, and of the faithful in all parts of the country, whose last wish is
to mingle their ashes with the sacred soil in which lie those of their
loved saint. Formerly from thirty to forty thousand pilgrims annually
visited the shrine of Imám Razá, bringing in many cases the bones of
their dead relatives for interment under the shadow of the sacred dome;
but since the famine the number has considerably diminished, and hardly
exceeds ten or twelve thousand.

Mashhad _i mucaddas_, or “the holy,” is one of the principal places
of Muhammadan pilgrimage, the others being Mecca _munawara_, or “the
enlightened;” Karbalá _mualla_, or “the exalted;” Najafa _ul ashraf_,
or “the most noble;” and Bukhára _sharíf_, or “the noble.” Like these
centres of Islamite piety, it too is a sink of vice and immorality of all
sorts the most degrading, and its baths and bazárs swarm with swindlers
and gamblers, who, with a curious perversion of conscience, combine
devotion with debauchery.

Amongst the special industries of this place is the manufacture of
ornamental vases, goblets, tables, pipes, and other utensils of domestic
use, from a soft blue slate or steatite, which is quarried in the hills
to the south of the city. Some of them are very tastefully engraved, and
they sell at a remarkably cheap rate. Cooking-pots, kettles, &c., are
made from this stone, and they stand the fire well.

This is the headquarters of the turquoise trade, the mines of which are
in the adjoining district of Nishabor, and we had hoped to obtain some
good specimens of the gem; but they were either not shown to us, or had
been already bespoken by the agents for merchants in the trade. We saw
better stones at Shikárpúr in Sind than any they showed us here, and
at more reasonable prices. I suspect we owed our disappointment to the
irrepressible greed of our servants for their customary _mudákhil_. They
certainly required some such means of increasing their incomes over and
above the fixed salaries they received from us, in order to enable them
to gratify their expensive tastes in the matter of dress. The Mirzá
(secretary) was particularly conspicuous for the variety of costumes he
delighted to disport in. At every place we made a halt at, he appeared
decked out in a new suit of clothes. One day he would wear a coat of
purple broadcloth and Angola trousers, then a suit of black broadcloth;
and here, where our stay was more prolonged, each day produced a new
dress, and it was a puzzle to find out where he got them from, and how
he paid for them, for they must have been all expensive, particularly
one which struck us as very handsome. It was a coat of blue broadcloth,
trimmed with gold braiding and lined with squirrel fur.

During our stay at Mashhad the weather was more or less cloudy, and
showers and sunshine succeeded each other at short intervals. Our garden
residence proved very damp and chill, and we all suffered more or less
in health from its effects. The winter here is described as a cold
season, owing to the winds that sweep the plain, on which snow lies for
three weeks or a month. The summer heats are sometimes tempered by cool
breezes from the north, but are more frequently intensified by radiation
from the deserts around. The elevation is about 3180 feet above the sea.

_3d May._—Mashhad to Jágharc, or Jáarc, twenty miles. Our heavy
baggage and tents had been sent on yesterday to Nishabor by the route
of Sharífabad and Cadamgah. We set out at eleven A.M., and going up
the Khayábáni Bálá, left the city by the gate of the same name, and
proceeded across the plain in a W.N.W. direction, with a low range of
hills to our left. Standing out from it, close together, are two hills
of granite called Koh Nucra, and Koh Tilá, or the silver hill and gold
hill respectively, from a traditionary belief that they contain, or did
contain, those metals. Across the plain to the right is a high mountain
range that bounds the Mashhad district to the north. Coal is said to be
found on it; and a great mass towering above the rest of the range was
pointed out as Calát-i-Nadíri, a celebrated mountain fortress supposed
to be impregnable. It was for some years the depository of the treasures
Nadír brought with him from India.

The plain in our front represents a wide flat of mostly uncultivated
land, and is traversed obliquely by a singular line of tall towers, which
we learned on inquiry were fortified water-mills on the course of the
stream that is led off from the Dorúd river for the water supply of the
city. At about ten miles we reached the foot of the hills, along which
are scattered a few villages, and by a rough stony ascent crested a low
ridge called _Tappa Salám_, and from it got an excellent view of the
city and the great Mashhad plain, which extends away to the eastward as a
desert flat so far as the eye can reach, and cuts the horizon in a clear
line like the sea. Here, as on the ridge of the same name on the side
of Sharífabad, the ground was piled in every direction with cairns from
which fluttered a multitude of rag shreds.

Beyond this we crossed the Dorúd river, a little way below a strong
masonry dam built across a narrow passage between rocks, and a little
later found the river above it was retained in the shape of a small
lake. Farther on we passed the picturesque village of Gulistan, and then
turning S.S.W., followed a winding lane up to Targobah, a delightfully
situated village in the midst of gardens and orchards sloping down from
both sides to the noisy and rapid little hill torrent flowing between.
The vine, apple, plum, peach, and apricot, the cherry, filbert, walnut,
and mulberry, with willows and poplars, formed a thick forest on either
side our path, and higher up we found the elm, ash, and plane tree,
whilst everywhere the damp soil was luxuriant in a rank vegetation of
weeds. We recognised the wild mignonette, forget-me-not, buttercups,
goosefoot cleavers, the bright red poppy, and a multitude of other common
English herbs. The scene at once reminded me of Devonshire; and had I
been dropped on to the spot blindfolded, should, on looking around, have
thought myself on the banks of the Plym. At four miles beyond Targobah,
proceeding up the course of a rapid torrent, which we crossed from
side to side some thirty times _en route_, and passing a succession of
orchards, in which we saw a number of boys and girls at work collecting
fuel, and as fair as English youths and maidens, we arrived at Jágharc,
where we were accommodated in a private house adjoining a _sarae_, which
was made over for the shelter of our servants and cattle. Weather rainy
and air damp.

Jágharc is built on the slope of a high slate hill right down to the
edge of the torrent, which, with another farther south, goes to form the
Dorúd, or “two river” stream we crossed at the foot of the hills. Its
name signifies “the place of drowning,” from a tradition, as I learned
from our landlord, that this country was at one time under the sea, and
that this was the spot where Jonah, or Yúnas, was cast into it. He was
cast up again from the whale’s belly at the spot now named Yúnasi, the
same we camped at on our march from Bijistan. Jágharc is about 4650 feet
above the sea, 1470 feet above Mashhad, and 1790 feet above Yúnasi.

Our next stage was over the Nishabor mountain to Dihrúd, twenty-four
miles. We set out at 7.30 A.M., and proceeded S.S.W. up the stream,
through orchards as yesterday. At two miles we came to a fork in the
rivulet formed by an intervening hill of slate; and following the branch
to the right, at two miles more cleared the vineyards and orchards, and
continued ascending along a row of pollard willows bordering the stream,
which we crossed continually in our course. At another seven miles we
came to the Páe Gudar Sarae, a small rest-house, as the name indicates,
at “the foot of the pass.” Here two roads branch off, one on each side
of a great overtopping bluff. Both are very steep and difficult, but the
one to the left being pronounced the easier of the two, we took it. After
crossing a deep and dangerous snowdrift that blocked the bottom of a very
narrow gorge, and was undermined by little streams flowing beneath its
soft subsiding mass, we struck a path on the steep slope of the hill.
It was so steep we were obliged to dismount and lead our horses up the
hill, or, as was done by some, to hang on by their tails and let them
drag us up.

At the top of the pass (the ascent from the _sarae_ at its foot occupied
us an hour and five minutes without a halt), the aneroid indicated an
elevation of 9390 feet above the sea. The summit was covered with wide
fields of snow, and afforded an extensive view of the plain of Mashhad
on the one side, and that of Nishabor on the other. The range runs
from north-west to south-east, gradually subsiding towards the latter
direction, but in the former rising into the high snow-clad mountains
of Kháwar and Binaloh. A strong west wind, cold and withering, swept
the pass, and had cleared its crest of snow. Here we found an immense
number of cairns, some of large size, and thousands of shreds of cloth
fluttered from them like pennants in the breeze. This is the first spot
at which the pilgrim coming from the westward sights the shrine of
Imám Razá. The sky was unfortunately overcast with clouds, and we did
not distinguish the gilded dome and minars, though the city itself was
plainly discernible. Near the top we passed a small party of pilgrims
hurrying down the hill. They had with them two pannier-mules carrying
veiled ladies. They must have had a trying and hazardous journey, for the
road is extremely difficult, and, when we saw them, their clumsy vehicles
swayed from side to side in a most alarming manner, over the very brink
of tremendous precipices. Their mules were allowed to pick their own way,
and always took the precipice edge, as if out of bravado, to show how
far they could go without toppling over, though really from an instinct
of self-preservation, and to avoid contact with projecting rocks on the
hillside, a sudden concussion against which would most likely send them
and their loads off the narrow path down the precipice.

The descent is by a very steep and stony path in a deep defile, and in
twenty minutes brought us to Rabát Dihrúd, a dilapidated resting-house,
where we alighted for breakfast. Below this the path is extremely rough,
steep, and difficult, down a narrow winding gorge, blocked here and
there by snowdrifts, undermined by running water beneath. Several of our
cattle fell here by the snow subsiding under them, and were extricated
with difficulty. The rocks around are as rugged, wild, and barren as the
gorge is narrow, steep, and difficult, and altogether the scene is one
of weirdly picturesque character, whilst the skeletons of men and cattle
that strew the path everywhere testify to its fatality.

At five miles down from the Rabát a branch defile joins from the right,
and thence the descent becomes less steep, and follows a line of willow,
ash, and poplar trees (all polled for the manufacture of charcoal), along
the course of a strong rivulet, and a few miles onwards conducts through
a succession of vineyards to Dihrúd, where we found accommodation in
some empty houses, of which there is, _miserabile dictu_, no lack. The
village has been decimated by the famine, and wears a gloomy, miserable,
and deserted look, in the midst of luxuriant vineyards and orchards,
exuberant in their foliage from want of hands to tend and prune them. Its
people, such as are left, pale, haggard, and hungry, wander listlessly
through its deserted quarters and crumbling tenements, resignedly
waiting the ripening of their crops, and eking out the while a miserable
subsistence on such stores of fruit and grain as are yet left to them.

_5th May._—Dihrúd to Nishabor, twenty-two miles, and halt a day—route
west, down a gravelly slope and then W.N.W. across the populous and
fertile plain of Nishabor, to the garden of Imám Wardi Khán, a little
beyond the city. At the sixth mile we passed Cadamgah a little to the
left. There is a shrine here, built over a stone bearing the impression
of a foot, said to be that of the saint buried at Mashhad, and pilgrims
visit it on their way to the mausoleum. A couple of miles farther on is
the village of Ardaghích, and then Abbasabad and Shahabad, all on the
left. To the right, following the hill skirt northward, are the villages
of Kháwar, Burjilirán, Dasht, Bijan, Ayik, Rúh, and others. The plain, in
fact, is dotted all over with villages and green spots of cultivation and
fruit trees. Thirty or forty villages are seen at one view on either side
the route, and give the plain a most populous and flourishing look, but
they are all more or less depopulated owing to losses from the famine.

Beyond Shahabad we passed a wide extent of ruins a little to the left
of the road. Prominent amongst them are a tall blue-domed tomb, and
the battlements of an extensive fort. They mark the site of ancient
Nishabor, which was destroyed at the period of the Arab conquest. It was
subsequently restored, and, in the time of Sabuktagin, was the residence
of his son, Mahmúd of Ghazni, as governor of Khorassan. Under his rule
it regained its former prosperity, but afterwards experienced many
misfortunes, and was repeatedly plundered by Tátárs and Uzbaks, and was
finally razed to the ground, and its people massacred, by Changhiz Khán.

The present town rose from its remains, on the plain close by, and for
centuries had a hard struggle for existence, being repeatedly plundered
by Turkmans and Uzbaks, who annually ravaged the country. Early in the
eighteenth century it was restored by Abbas Culi Khán, a Kurd of the
Bayát tribe, and from him was taken in 1752 by Sháh Ahmad, Durrani. The
Afghan afterwards reinstated the Kurd in the government of this frontier
province of his newly-established kingdom, having secured his loyalty by
the bonds of matrimonial alliance, giving his own sister in marriage to
the chief, and one of his daughters in marriage to his son.

On the death of Sháh Ahmad, and the removal of the seat of government
from Kandahar to Kabul, the Bayát chief became independent, as did the
rest of the local chiefs on this frontier. The weakness produced by this
divided authority and independent action facilitated the Cajar designs
in this direction, and in 1793 the city fell to Agha Muhammad Sháh,
the first sovereign of that dynasty. The city formerly contained nine
thousand inhabitants, but its present population is less than half that
number. As we passed by the city on the way to our garden quarters, we
were beset by an importunate crowd of starving creatures, most pitiful
objects to behold. Their pinched features, attenuated limbs, and
prominent joints, gave them a look of utter helplessness; but, to our
astonishment, they fought, and screamed, and bit, and tore each other
with fierce energy, in their struggles for the small coins we threw
amongst them. Our escort charged in amongst them, and flogged right and
left; but the sight of money had rendered them frantic, and the lashes
fell upon them unheeded, so intensely fixed were their imaginations on
the prospect of securing the wherewithal to satisfy the cravings of their
hunger. I saw several of the weaker ones knocked down and ridden over
by the horses; and some of our escort actually fell back to despoil the
stronger of the petty wealth they had secured in the struggle!

Imám Wardi’s garden, in which we are accommodated, is a bequest by the
founder to the shrine at Mashhad. It has a handsome pavilion at each end,
and between them extends a long row of ornamental tanks furnished with
pipes for fountains. On either side the ground is laid out in vineyards
and fruit gardens interspersed, between which are flower-beds bordered
by beautiful rose-bushes, now in full blossom. Some of these—double
roses—are of a bright-yellow colour, and others—single—are of a yellow
colour outside and scarlet inside. The garden is used as a resting-place
for the Sháh and all distinguished travellers in this region.

The district of Nishabor was formerly reckoned one of the most
populous and fertile places in Persia, and is certainly the most
flourishing-looking place we have seen in the country. In reality,
however, its villages are only half peopled, and many of its _kárez_
streams have run dry. The district comprises the twelve divisions, or
_bulúk_, of Zabarkhan, Ardighích, Zarbi Gházi, Ishkabad, Sághabad, Mázúl,
Tahtí Júlgah, Rewand, Tághun Koh, Bári Madán, Sarwiláyat and Dihrúd. It
also contains twelve perennial streams, and formerly was irrigated by
twelve thousand _kárez_ streams; but of these, three-fourths are now
dry, or have become filled up. Its villages and hamlets are reckoned at
twelve hundred, and it is said to possess twelve different mines, that
yield turquoise, salt, lead, copper, antimony, and iron, also marble
and soapstone. The turquoise-mines are in the Bári Madán _bulúk_, and a
second has recently been discovered in the hills to the south, separating
Nishabor from Turshíz. The plain of Nishabor is girt on three sides
by lofty hills, but towards the south slopes to a great salt desert,
continuous with the _kavír_ of Yúnasi by gaps through a low range of
marly water-worn ridges.

_7th May._—Nishabor to Záminabad, sixteen miles—route W.S.W. across the
plain, passing many little square forts on either side the road. These,
like all the others on the south and west quarters of the plain, are bare
of trees, but are surrounded by wide corn-fields. Trees, we were told,
would not grow here, owing to the strong winds that prevail from the
west and south. We marched in the face of a strong cold south-west wind,
which swept up and drove before it thick clouds of saline dust, until the
clouds above dissolved into a thin shower, which cleared the atmosphere
and laid the dust.

One of the Persians of our escort assured us that this wind often
prevailed with such furious force that it knocked people off their legs.
“Why, only last year,” said he, with most animated gestures, “it tore up
the sand in that hollow away to the left with such force, and swept it
away in such quantities, that it exposed the remains of an ancient town
nobody ever dreamt of the existence of before. The houses were discovered
in rare order. The chambers were clear of débris and clean swept of dust,
and, marvellous to relate, the furniture was found just as it stood when
the city was swallowed up in the earth.” “You astonish me,” I said;
“this is something very wonderful.” “Yes,” he continued, “you speak the
truth—it is wonderful. God is great and His power is infinite. But I will
tell you the most wonderful thing of all. Everything looked perfect and
most substantial, but the moment a hand was stretched out to touch an
object, it at once crumbled to powder. The place is only a few miles off
our road, would you like to gallop over and see it?”

I thought of the Kol Márút inscription, and the Turkman heads, and the
earthquake at Khabúshán or Kochán, and politely declined the invitation.
“Your description,” I said, “is so complete, I see the place before
my mind’s eye. Why incommode ourselves in this rain for what is so
apparent?” I saw he felt the sarcasm, though, with genuine Persian
nonchalance, he covered his retreat with an—“As you will! There the
place is, and if you like to see it, I am ready to accompany you.” Of
course he would have made some trivial excuse at not finding the city of
his imagination, or have kept me wandering over the plain till in sheer
disgust I gave up the search. I should, however, like to have taken him
on his proffered errand, had I full power to punish him on proving his
delinquency; for, on subsequent inquiry, I ascertained the whole story to
be a pure invention.

I referred just now to an earthquake at Kochán, which I have not
mentioned in the narrative. We were told at Turbat Hydari, and by the
governor of the place too, as the most recent news from Mashhad, that a
fearful earthquake had almost completely destroyed Kochán. The convulsion
was described as so violent, that the houses were completely inverted,
and hundreds of the people crushed to death in the ruins. One of our
first inquiries on arrival at Mashhad was regarding the calamity at
Kochán, but nobody had heard anything about it.

Our road companions were so thoroughly untrustworthy in all they said,
that we found it difficult to get any reliable information out of them
regarding the countries we were passing through, and our Persian servants
evinced such a dislike to our inquisitiveness, that it was hopeless to
look for any assistance from them. We all took notes, and each catered
for himself, and many a time were we hard pushed for material to fill
our diaries. A traveller on the road, a peasant at the plough, or a
shepherd tending his flocks, was hailed as a godsend, and at once charged
down upon by three or four Britons, note-book in hand, foraging for
information. “Do you belong to this place?” “What’s the name of that
village?” “And that on the hillside?” “What’s the name of that hill?”
“And of this _bulúk_?” “Where do you live?” “How many houses does this
village contain?” “How many people died in the famine?” and so forth.

Our blunt authoritative volley of questions generally elicited
unhesitating and truthful replies; but sometimes our examinee became
impatient under our “wait a bits,” whilst we wrote, and began to hesitate
and reflect on his replies. We knew he was concocting a lie, and without
waiting to hear it, galloped off to join our comrades, leaving him to
stare after us in bewilderment.

The last few miles of our march was over a very slippery clay soil,
white with salines, and drained by a sluggish muddy river, which we
crossed by a masonry bridge. Our camp is pitched on rising ground beyond
the fort-village of Záminabad, and affords a good view of the Binaloh
range, running north-west, and separating Burdjnurd from Kochán. To the
north-west the Nishabor plain narrows, and communicates through a long
valley with Burdjnurd, just as the plain of Mashhad does on the other
side of Binaloh with Chinaran and Kochán. To the southward the prospect
is bounded by the Koh Surkh range, running east and west, and separating
Nishabor from Turshíz. The weather here proved very raw and black, and a
cold south-west wind swept over the country in stormy gusts.

Our next march was nine miles to Shoráb, on the bank of a ravine that
drains the chain of hills separating the plain of Nishabor from that
of Sabzwár. Shoráb is a neat little fortified village of some sixty
houses. There is a post-house here, and a large _ábambár_, and a new and
commodious _sarae_ is in course of erection.

From this we marched nearly due west eighteen miles to Záfaráni, and
halted a day. For the first five miles our road led over a very broken
mameloned surface, up to a watershed running north-west and south-east,
and marking the boundary between Nishabor and Sabzwár. Its elevation is
about 4290 feet above the sea, and from it we got a good view of the
great plain of Sabzwár, which is singularly void of trees and villages,
and looks like a desert compared with Nishabor. Indeed, its southern
coasts are a veritable salt desert, glistening white as snow in the
sunlight. The plain is bounded to the westward and southward by the lofty
Gomesh mountain, and beyond the desert tract to the south by the Koh
Surkh and Turshíz ranges.

At four miles on, passing amongst rough rocky hills of slate and trap,
we came to the Sarae Caladár, and thence west down a long slope to the
plain of Sabzwár. Its surface is a firm coarse gravel, covered with
pasture plants, such as the camel-thorn, asafœtida, liquorice, wild rue,
astragalus, &c., and the wild almond, the fruit of which was nearly ripe;
but not a single tree was visible on all the plain, and but only two or
three villages, widely apart. The land slopes to the salt desert on the
south, where flows the Káli Shor, or “salt river.” It drains Nishabor and
Sabzwár south-west to the desert of Káshán, and its water is so saline as
to be unfit even for purposes of irrigation.

Záfaráni is a walled village of about two hundred houses, belonging to
the Zafaranlu tribe of Kurds. There are a good post-house and a large
_sarae_ here. The Kurds originally came into Persia with the invasion
of Changhiz Khán, and possessed themselves of the mountainous region
bordering its western provinces. A colony of them, amounting to forty
thousand families, was afterwards transported into the neighbouring
provinces of Persia by Sháh Tamasp, and Sháh Abbas the Great subsequently
settled them in the northern districts of Khorassan, viz., Daragaz,
Radgán, Chinaran, Khabúshán, Burdjnurd, Nishabor, and Sabzwár. On the
downfall of the Saffavi dynasty they became independent, till reduced by
Nadír. After the death of this conqueror they passed under the nominal
rule off the Durrani Sháh Ahmad, but they soon threw off the ill-secured
Afghan yoke, and again became independent under local chiefs, who for
several years successfully resisted the authority of the Cajar kings,
until finally reduced to subjection in the reign of the present Sháh,
about the middle of this century.

_11th May._—Záfaráni to Sabzwár, twenty-five miles, and halt a day—route
west, over a gravelly plain, covered with asafœtida and wild rue in
profusion. To the left the plain slopes down to the Káli Shor, the course
of which is marked by a white belt of saline efflorescence. Beyond the
river rises the Gomesh range of mountains, their summits streaked with
snow. To the right is a high range of bare rocky hills, that separate
Sabzwár from Júwen and Bám of Burdjnurd.

At eight miles we came to the village of Sarposhida. Here the sandy soil
is cut, scooped, and honeycombed by the wind in a manner similar to
some parts of Sistan. At four miles farther we passed the two roadside
villages of Julen, with their rich fields of corn fast ripening into
ear. Here we witnessed an interesting hawk-hunt. A solitary snippet,
startled from its safety in a roadside pool by our approach, took wing
with the quick flight peculiar to the species. Instantly a small hawk
stooped at it from the sky, and then commenced an exciting chase. The
snippet redoubled its speed, and, screaming with fright, dodged the
rapid stoops of its relentless pursuer by quick darts first to one side
then to the other; again it would double back, and strive to keep above
the hawk, or rush off in the opposite direction to his soar. The poor
snippet struggled bravely for life, but the enemy was too strong for it.
Swoop followed swoop in rapid succession at close quarters, and were just
escaped with wonderful activity, till presently the quarry began to show
signs of fatigue, and the hawk was on the point of securing his prey,
when in cut another hawk, and at a single swoop carried off the game. The
poor snippet’s shrill screams ceased at once, and the hawk, thus cheated
of his rights, quietly sailed away in the opposite direction.

Beyond Julen we passed Zydabad and Nazlabad, and half a dozen other
villages, to the right of the road; and then meeting a few horsemen who
were hurriedly sent out by way of _isticbál_, were conducted by them
through the covered bazárs of Sabzwár to the quarters prepared for us
in the centre of the town, and adjoining the residence of the governor.
Here we were received by the governor himself, Muhammad Taki Khán,
with pleasing civility and attention. He is quite European in manner
and appearance, and speaks French like a Frenchman, as do most Persian
gentlemen of the modern school.

Sabzwár, we were told, contained four thousand houses, only half of which
are now tenanted. The district is said to have lost twenty-four thousand
souls by death and emigration during the famine. The loss of Nishabor
district is reckoned at only twenty thousand, which I think must be under
the mark, for its population is naturally much above that of Sabzwár,
which only comprises nine _bulúk_, some of which are very sparsely
populated. They are Shamkán, along Káli Shor to the south, Gomesh,
Humaon, Kasaba, between Sabzwár and Záfaráni, Tabbas, Káh, Mazinán,
Tagao, to the north of the plain, and Zamand. Besides these, the _bulúk_
of Júwen and Bám of the Burdjnurd district have recently been added to
Sabzwár by the Hisámussaltanat.

_13th May._—Sabzwár to Mihr, thirty-three miles—route west through an
uninterrupted sheet of corn for two miles, then across an undulating
plain, gradually sloping to a salt desert on our left. At four miles
passed Abári village, and, near it, the Míl Khusro Gard. This is a lofty
minar standing by itself in a ploughed field. It is built of red bricks
arranged in arabesque pattern, and is much decayed. At a little distance
from it stands a domed mausoleum, coated with plates of tin or similar
white metal. From its interior proceeded the voices of men chanting the
Curán. None of our party could tell us anything about these relics, and
there was no stray peasant whom we could charge down upon and question;
so I must be content with the bare record of their locality.

At five miles on we passed Pírastír and its gardens and corn-fields, and
at another five miles came to an _ábambár_ where the road branches. That
to the left goes W.S.W. by Námen and a succession of deserted villages
on the edge of the salt desert to Mazinán. It is a fearful road, and
how any one could take it, with the option of a better, is a mystery.
Not a particle of vegetation was to be seen; the whole vista was one of
aridity and salt, blinding with a dazzling glare, and great heaps of
drift-sand half buried the little castles lining the route. Yet the road
was a well-trodden track, indicating frequent use. That to the right went
W.N.W. up a rising ground, and at four miles brought us to Rewand, where
we found shelter from the heat of the midday sun under the shade of some
magnificent plane-trees in the midst of the village. It is delightfully
situated amidst gardens and vineyards, and outwardly has all the
surroundings of prosperity and plenty, but inwardly, within its houses
and courts, who can tell the amount of misery and suffering that there
reigns? We could only guess it from the number of poor men and women
who, through fear of our escort, stealthily crept amongst the bushes to
our resting-place, and in low voices begged a morsel of bread, whilst
gathering up and munching the crumbs and bones thrown aside from our late
repast.

Proceeding hence, we followed a long hill skirt strewed with bits of
trap, and chlorite, and cellular lava, washed down from the hills to our
right, the base of which is set with red clay mounds, in the hollows
between which are spied many little hamlets and farmsteads. At six miles
we passed a roadside pond, and thence sloping down gradually, at another
six miles reached Mihr, where we camped at 6.20 P.M.—the thermometer 84°
Fah.

_14th May._—Mihr to Mazinán, twenty miles—route due west down a gentle
slope skirting the Chaghatay hills, that separate us from Júwen on the
right. The soil is bare and gravelly, and slopes down to the desert on
our left. At four miles we passed through the Súdkar village, which is
the only one on the route. On approaching our camp at Mazinán, we left
a large village at the foot of the hills to the right. It is called
Dawarzan, and is protected by a double row of outlying Turkman towers.

Mazinán is a small village on the edge of the desert, and adjoins the
ruins of an extensive town, in the midst of which stands a decayed
_sarae_ of the Arab period. There is a post-house here, and also a good
newly-built _sarae_. The place wears a wretched inhospitable look, and
in summer must be very hot.

_15th May._—Mazinán to Abbasabad, twenty-three miles[3]—route at
first north, and then round to the west, along the skirt of the hills
bounding an arm of the desert. Soil gravelly, and surface covered with
saltworts, camel-thorn, mimosa, tamarisk, and similar vegetation. At
half-way we came to the Sadarabad Sarae and halted for breakfast. It is
a recently-built and commodious structure, erected by the late Sadar
Azím, and is furnished with a good _ábambár_. Opposite is a small fort
for the accommodation of a few families charged with the care of the
_sarae_. There is no village here, and the supplies are brought in and
stored periodically from Sabzwár. There are no trees nor cultivation
here, and the whole population consists of three men, as many women and
one child, and a very miserable set they look. They were anxious to leave
the place, as they were in hourly dread of Turkmans, and owing to the few
travellers now frequenting the route, never made any money. Whilst here,
we were overtaken by a courier with our last post from Peshawar through
Afghanistan, with dates to the 10th April. It had been sent from Mashhad
by a Persian courier, and ought to have reached us at Sabzwár; but the
Persian has not the energy of the Afghan.

Ahead of us is a dangerous bit of desert, which is always infested by
Turkmans; so, on setting out from Sadarabad, careful preparations were
made for our passage across it. Our baggage and servants, &c., were all
collected together, and massed in a close column outside the _sarae_. The
gun was placed at their head, and protected by a score of matchlockmen,
whilst the rest ranged themselves Indian-file on either side the column.
The cavalry took up their posts on the flanks, front, and rear, and threw
out advanced parties, who topped every rising bit of ground to scan the
country ahead.

All the arrangements being completed, our trumpeter brayed out some
hideous sounds, which of themselves were enough to scare the enemy, if
the gun was not, and we proceeded, ourselves amongst the horsemen in
advance of the gun. At a couple of miles, over a flat bare clay surface,
we came to a rivulet crossed by a crumbling brick-bridge of very ancient
appearance. This is Pul Abresham. Here there was a block in the passage.
We had about a hundred camels, more than half the number of mules, and
asses innumerable, for every matchlockman had his accompanying _ulágh_
(beast of burden), and there were besides several others who had taken
advantage of the opportunity to join our caravan. The bridge was narrow,
and only a few could pass at a time; presently a few scattered horsemen
were spied far away on the desert to the left. The news spread like
wildfire. “Haste to the front!”—“Keep together!”—“Cross quickly!”—“Don’t
lag behind!”—resounded on all sides from our escort. The bridge was
abandoned to the camels and mules and asses, and horsemen pushed across
the muddy stream on either side of it, and again formed up on the
open ground ahead. Some horsemen had galloped on in advance to bring
intelligence regarding those we had seen on the desert, and meanwhile
the crowd in the caravan looked around watchfully in every direction,
as if they expected a Turkman to start up from behind every bush that
dotted the plain. The terror these well-cursed marauders inspire in the
Persian breast is laughable, were it not for the reality of the cause.
Men who bounce and brag of their prowess when they have hundreds of miles
between them, pale and shiver in their shoes when they find themselves in
a position where they may meet them face to face.

After a brief halt here, our horsemen on an eminence some way ahead were
seen to dismount. On this our leader pronounced the road clear, and we
set forward again. This tract has from time immemorial been infested by
Turkmans of the Goklán and Yamút tribes, whose seat is in the valley
of the Atrak. A country better adapted to their mode of warfare could
nowhere else be found. The hill ranges to the north afford them an
unobserved approach to their hunting-grounds. Arrived on them, they
conceal themselves amongst the inequalities of the surface, finding water
in some ravine, and pasture for their horses in the aromatic herbs and
rich grasses that cover the hollows. Their scouts from the eminence of
some commanding ridge, or the top of some of the innumerable mameloned
mounds and hummocks that form the most striking feature of the country,
watch the roads, and on the approach of a caravan or small party of
travellers, warn their comrades, who dispose themselves for the attack.
If they find the caravan is marching on the alert and with precaution,
they act on the principle that “Discretion is the better part of valour,”
and remain in their concealment; otherwise they proceed along the hollows
to some spot where the road strikes across a bit of open ground, and
so soon as their prey is fairly out on it, they sweep down upon them,
and generally, I am assured, carry them off without resistance, for
resistance, the Persians have learned, means death.

In conversation with one of our escort, I asked him why the Government
did not make a great effort, and for once and all put an end to this
constant source of trouble and loss? “_Pul!_” (money), he said, with a
Gallic shrug of the shoulders; “our Government won’t spend the money.
This is an old institution. Nobody put a stop to it before, and who is
to do it now? The present arrangements meet all requirements. A guard
starts twice a month to escort coming and going caravans between Mazinán
and Shahrúd, as we now escort your party, and that meets all wants.”
“Have you ever been attacked on this duty?” I asked. “Very seldom, and
only when the Turkmans take the field in great force. They mostly attack
small parties travelling without a guard, or sweep off the peasantry at
work in their fields, or surprise a village at day-dawn.” “But are no
arrangements made to protect these people?” “What would you have?” he
replied. “Travellers have no right to move without a guard in a dangerous
country, and the villagers have the protection of their forts.” “But
surely the country would be better off if there were no Turkmans to harry
it,” I said. “Of course it would; but we don’t hope for such good fortune
from our Government. You people might do it, or the Russians might do
it; but we can’t. People say the Russians are going to rid us of the
Turkmans—God grant they may! and if they clear these _pidr sokhta_ (burnt
fathers) off the face of the earth, they will gain the good-will and
esteem of all Persians.” “How,” I asked, “could the Russians rid you of
the Turkmans?” “Russia is a great country, and very wealthy, and has a
large army. What are the Turkmans to them? If they will only spend their
money, they can do anything. People say they are going to conquer Khiva,
and are making preparations for the campaign. So soon as they take
Khiva, the Turkmans of Marv will also disappear.”

I further learned from my informant, that the Turkmans of the Atrak
valley raid all the country from Shahrúd and Samnán to Sabzwár and
Nishabor, where they meet their brethren of Marv, the Takka, Sarúc, and
Sálor Turkmans, who raid all the country between Mashhad and Herat up to
Sabzwár, thus cutting off from Persia all that portion of the country to
the north and west of the great salt desert of Káshán and Yazd, so far as
security of life, liberty, and property is concerned.

But to return to our route. Pul Abresham, or the stream it bridges, marks
the boundary between the districts of Sabzwár and Shahrúd. There is
another bridge of the same name about thirty miles higher up the stream,
on the direct road from Shahrúd to Mashhad, by Jájarm and Júwen; but
being more dangerous, it is less frequented than this route.

The Pul Abresham river also marks the extreme north-west limit of the
Afghan kingdom founded by Sháh Ahmad, Durrani. It flows south-east, and
joining the Káli Shor, or Nishabor, and Sabzwár, is ultimately lost in
the salt desert between Yazd and Káshán. Beyond the Káli Abresham, we
crossed some low slaty ridges where they terminate on the desert, and
traversing a gravelly plain thinly dotted with tamarisk bushes, rose up
to the ridge on which the Abbasabad Sarae stands, and camped on some
mounds under its walls, our escort filling the _sarae_.

Our next stage was twenty-two miles to Myándasht—route westerly, over a
broken country thrown into little mameloned mounds, with hills on our
right. At six miles we came to the Dahna Alhác, an easy defile winding
between bare rugged hills of coarse brown trap. On our way through it, we
met a caravan of pilgrims on their way to Mashhad, escorted by a military
guard similar to our own. It was a curious spectacle, from the variety of
costume and nationality and conveyance, all jumbled together in jostling
confusion. We passed each other with mutual stares of wonderment, and
I did not appreciate the novelty of the scene till it was gone from my
sight. There were great shaggy camels bearing huge panniers, in which
were cooped three or four veiled bundles of female beauty, rolling from
side to side like a ship in a heavy swell. There were others mounted by
wiry Arabs in their thin rope-turbans, or by thick-set Tátárs in their
shaggy sheepskin caps, swaying to and fro with an energy that led one to
suppose that the speed of the camel depended on the activity of their
movements. There were pannier-mules bearing veiled ladies and their
negress slaves, accompanied by their Persian lords, gay in dress and
proud, on their handsome little steeds. There were quiet calculating
merchants, with flowing beards and flowing robes, borne along by humble
ponies as absorbed in thought as their riders; and there were sleekly
attired priests, serene in their conscious dignity, comfortably flowing
with the tide on their well-groomed and neatly caparisoned mules. There
were others too, a mixed crowd of footmen and women, all dusty and hot,
struggling on to keep pace with their mounted wayfarers. How many will
lag behind and fall to the Turkman’s share? There are amongst these whole
families emigrating in search of food and work: father and mother each
bear an infant on their backs, and two or three of tender years trot by
their side. There are tattered beggars, reduced by sheer want; and there
are other beggars, the impudent, idle, and dissolute scoundrels who
impose on the community by an ostentatious assumption of the religious
character, through no other claim than that of their bold importunity,
backed by noisy appeals to true believers in the name of God and Ali.
Their trade pays, and they flourish in their rags and dissoluteness.

With this caravan came a courier with despatches from Tehran for Sir F.
Goldsmid. He was a mission servant, and had been sent off from our camp
at Birjand with letters for Mr Alison, the British Minister at the court
of Persia, and was now returning with the tidings of his death on the
29th April. After a brief pause, during which “Ismáil,” for such was his
name, greeted his old comrades all round with a kiss each on the mouth,
we proceeded, and clearing the defile, halted for breakfast, and to read
our letters and papers, at the dilapidated _sarae_ of Alhác.

Beyond this our route led over a broken hummocky country, in crossing
which we were overtaken by a thunderstorm and rain, and gently sloped to
the Myándasht Sarae, situated, as its name implies, in the midst of a
desert plain girt by hills. The soil is a firm gravel, and not a tree is
to be seen, though the surface is covered with the asafœtida and rhubarb,
the latter in flower.

_17th May._—Myándasht to Myánmay, twenty-four miles—route westerly,
over a very broken country, similar to that traversed yesterday, and
intersected by numerous ravines draining to the northward. At about
twelve, we crossed a deep gully called Dahna-e-Zaydár, and pointed out
as one of the favourite routes by which Turkmans come from the Jájarm
valley. At six miles farther on, crossing a wide stony ravine, we halted
for breakfast under the shade of some _sinjit_ (_oleagnus_) trees on its
bank, close to the fort of Zaydár. This is apparently a recent erection,
and is held by a small garrison of _sarbáz_ who watch the Myánmay valley.
On the summit of a high rock projecting from the neighbouring hills is a
look-out tower, held by a small picquet. Beyond this we skirted the hill
range on our left, and arrived in our camp at Myánmay just in time to
escape the fury of a thunderstorm with hail and rain, and the cold raw
blasts of a north-west wind.

Myánmay is a considerable village at the head of a long valley, which
towards the east is continuous with that of Júwen. To the northward the
valley is separated from Jájarm by a range of bare hills, through which
are several passes. The hill skirt is dotted with flourishing-looking
villages, whilst the valley itself is a wide uncultivated pasture tract.

There is a very fine _sarae_ here, and some splendid mulberry-trees
around give it a charming appearance. The _sinjit_ trees are now in full
flower here, and quite overload the air with their strong perfume. On the
top of a high hill overlooking the village from the south, there are, it
is said, the ruins of an ancient town, and some reservoirs excavated from
the rock. We could see no traces of them, however, and as the information
was volunteered by a Persian of our escort, it may be only a myth.

_18th May._—Myánmay to Shahrúd, forty-one miles. We set out at 2.45 A.M.,
before it was light, our camels with the heavy baggage having preceded
us by four hours. Our route was west by north, over a plain country for
twelve miles parallel to a hill range on our left, and then diverging to
the right, led across a very uneven country overrun by gravelly ridges
and intersected by ravines, the slopes of which are richly covered
with pasture herbs; and another twelve miles brought us to a roadside
_ábambár_, where we halted for breakfast, and to let the camels with the
heavy baggage, here overtaken by us, get ahead.

Along the foot of the hills, parallel with the first part of our route,
is a succession of picturesque little villages and orchards, that extend
for six _farsakhs_ up to Armyán, half-way on the route from Myánmay to
Shahrúd. They are on the line of road followed by single travellers or
small parties, for the sake of protection afforded by the villages.

From the _ábambár_ our course led due west across an open and gently
sloping plain, towards Shahrúd, visible in the distance, at the foot of a
bare rocky hill, that separates it from Bostám, at the base of the great
snow-crowned Kháwar mountain, and at the entrance to the pass of the same
name leading to Astrabad. Both towns are delightfully situated, and their
luxuriant gardens present a most pleasing view to the eye in this waste
of desert and hill.

At a few miles short of Shahrúd we alighted at a small canal, fringed
with _sinjit_ trees, and rested under their shade till our jaded cattle
had gone on with our camp. Our whole party was much done up by the length
of the march and the heat of the midday sun. But strange to say, our
escort of matchlockmen, of all our following, showed the least symptoms
of fatigue. As I mentioned before, they were accompanied by a number
of asses carrying their clothing and stores of food, &c. The patient
little brutes moved along with their owners, who, turn about, strode
across their backs, and thus, riding and walking alternately, escaped
the exhaustion of a long march and the fatigue of the unvaried ride.
The Persian infantry soldier, or _sarbáz_, as he is called, is noted
for his hardihood and endurance of long marches, but the humble _ulágh_
contributes no small share to his reputation in these respects. He is
cheaply got, easily managed, and costs little or nothing to feed, being
generally left to pick up what he can off the ground. The ass of the
_sarbáz_, who yet knows neither a commissariat nor transport corps, is a
useful institution—in fact, he is indispensable, for, under the existing
conditions, the infantry soldier could not march without him. They would
certainly not prove so efficient and ready as they are without him. We
no sooner arrived at Shahrúd than our escort of _sarbáz_ were ordered
off to accompany the governor of Bostám on an expedition against a party
of Turkmans, who, it was said, had come through Jájarm on the chance of
cutting us off on our way across the desert. They were to proceed with
all speed to take up a position in some pass of the hills, by which alone
the Turkmans could leave the valley, and away they went merrily, with no
impedimenta of tents, baggage, and luxuries.

We halted five days at Shahrúd, where we came into communication with
the civilised world through the line of telegraph connecting Astrabad
with the Persian capital. The town is a flourishing place, surrounded
by vineyards and fruit gardens, now in full foliage, and must be a
delightful residence. Our camp is pitched on an open bit of ground
between some walled gardens in the midst of the town, and close to a
_sarae_ occupied by some Russian and Armenian merchants. We meet them
as we issue for our evening ramble, and pass with a polite doffing of
hats. They have been settled here for the last twelve or fourteen years,
but have not got their families with them. From one of them we got a
supply of very indifferent wine, prepared on the spot, and picked up
some copies of Russian primers with pictorial alphabets and illustrated
anecdotes.

This place is the entrepôt of the trade between Tehran and the countries
to the north and west, and has several commodious _saraes_. It is also an
important strategic position, situated as it is at the entrance to the
pass leading to the Caspian, and is the place where the Persian armies
concentrated preparatory to their campaigns in Khorassan. The plain to
the south of the town is well watered from numerous hill streams, and is
dotted with several flourishing villages, the chief of which are Badasht,
Bázij, Ardyán, Mughán Jáfarabad, Husenabad, Ghoryán, &c. The Shahrúd
district, of which this town is the capital, extends between the hills
from Abbasabad on the east to Dih Mullah on the west, and contains some
fifty or sixty villages. The governor, Jahánsoz Mirzá, resides at Bostám,
but has an agent here.

We did not visit Bostám, only four miles off, as the governor neither
called on us nor made any advances towards the interchange of civilities.
Our Afghan companion, however, Saggid Núr Muhammad Sháh, went over to pay
his devotions at the shrine of the Imám Báezid, which he described as an
unpretending pile of loose stones, raised by the contributions of passing
pilgrims. The saint is held in great veneration, and the simplicity of
his tomb is out of deference to his dying injunction that no mausoleum
should be built over his grave. In an humble grave near the shrine rest
the mortal remains of the late Amir Muhammad Azím Khán, the usurper of
the throne of Kabul. After his final defeat at the hands of the reigning
Amir, Sher Ali Khán, in the beginning of 1869, he fled to Sistan, and was
on his way to the Persian capital, when he was cut short in his career by
cholera at this place, about the 6th July. The Saggid, being an adherent
of the opposite party, suffered severely at the hands of the usurper, who
plundered his property at Kandahar to the extent, it is said, of fifty
thousand rupees. He took this opportunity, however, to forgive him, and
to offer up a prayer for his soul.

The day before our departure from this, a strange Afghan came to my
tent, and, with looks of pleased recognition, said, “Saggid Mahmúd sends
his salám, and begs you will give him some medicine to cure fever and
dysentery. He is too ill to move, or he would himself have come to pay
his respects.” A few words of explanation sufficed to inform me that
my applicant was no other than our old friend of Ghazni, whom we so
unexpectedly met at Barshori at the very outset of our journey. We went
over to see him in his lodgings at the _sarae_, and found him in a truly
wretched plight, so emaciated and weak was he from the combined effects
of the hardships he had endured on his long journey, and the exhausting
nature of his disease. He rose and received us at the door of his cell,
with all the grace of that innate gentility well-bred orientals can
so easily display, and ushering us in with a dignity enhanced by his
handsome features and snow-white beard, motioned us to seats formed
of hastily arranged rugs, with a composure and self-possession quite
charming and wonderful under the circumstances. He ordered his servant to
prepare some tea for our refreshment, and the while gave us an account of
his travels. “Poor Cásim,” he said, the tears dimming his bright eyes,
“_tamán shud_—he is finished. His remains,” he added with a consolatory
sigh, “rest in the sacred soil of Karbalá. He was the son in whom my
hopes centered, but God gives and God takes away—His will be done.” The
details of his journey through Kúm were simply harrowing, and the scenes
he witnessed appalling. Dead bodies strewed the roads and poisoned the
air with their putrescence. The _saraes_ were filled with the dying,
whose wails and sufferings produced a scene impossible to describe. The
villages, empty and still as a house of mourning, were invaded by troops
of dogs, who contested with the survivors the possession of the dead.
Loud were his lamentations for Persia. “The country is gone,” he said.
“There is neither religion, justice, nor mercy to be found in the land.
We (he was a Shia) in Kabul look to Persia as the centre of all that is
good in Islám, but Afghanistan, with all its faults, is a better country
to live in.” Poor old gentleman! he quite brightened up at the idea of
moving on homewards, though he had one foot in the grave already, and
was fully a thousand miles away from his home, and talked composedly of
retiring into private life, and devoting the rest of his days to the
worship of God and meditation on His laws. On our departure, the General,
with characteristic kindliness and forethought, presented our pilgrim
friend with a Kashmir scarf. The old man’s gratitude was touching, and
he blessed us all round. I wonder if the old man ever did reach his
home, though the chances were greatly against his doing so? But it is
astonishing what distances these pilgrims do travel, and what hardships
they endure on the way. Let us hope that the old man did complete his
circle. When we met him on this second occasion, he had in the course of
six months travelled from Ghazni to Kandahar and Shikárpúr and Bombay,
thence by sea to Baghdad, and thence to Karbalá, and back to Baghdad, and
thence by Kirmánshah and Kúm to Tehran, and on to this place. He has yet
before him the inhospitable route from this to Mashhad, and thence to
Herat and Kandahar, before he can reach his home at Ghazni. I gave the
old man a small supply of medicines, and some hints for observance on the
road; and with all good wishes for his onward journey, and a small sum to
assist him on the road, we parted.




CHAPTER XII.


_24th May._—Shahrúd to Dih Mullah, sixteen miles. We set out at 5.30
A.M., bidding adieu to Mr Bower of our party, who at the same time set
out for Astrabad _en route_ to London with despatches. If fortunate in
catching the steamer and trains, he hopes to reach his destination in
twenty days, _viâ_ Astrakhan, Czaretzin, Berlin, &c. Were but Afghanistan
an open country, Indian officers proceeding on furlough might with
advantage take this route homewards. But as it is not an open country,
and there is little use in speculating when it will become so, its
peoples and mountains and deserts may yet for another generation maintain
their isolation from the civilised world, and remain a country of
interest to the politician, and a region of curiosity to the scientific
man.

Our route led S.S.W., along a stony hill skirt by a well-beaten track,
following a line of telegraph posts, a promising emblem of Western
civilisation in this yet semi-barbarous land. The hills on our right
belong to the Alburz range, that separates the Caspian basin from the
tableland of Persia. The northern slopes are described as clothed with
dark forests, the southern, however, are precipitous, and mostly bare, a
few juniper-trees only dotting the rocks here and there, as little black
specks on their rugged sides. The range is said to abound in wild goat
and sheep, and the stag or _gáwaz_, called _bárásinghá_ in India. The
leopard and bear are also found on it, and on its eastern spurs a small
species of lion, but not the tiger.

To the left of our route the land slopes down to a water-worn ridge of
red clay. It separates the Shahrúd valley from the salt desert to the
south. A range of hills rises out of the desert far away to the south.
One of our escort called the range Jandak, and pointed out a prominent
peak as Ahwand. Jandak is twenty _farsakhs_ from this, and contains ten
or twelve villages on the edge of the desert, where palm-trees grow
in plenty, as my informant said. He was a very communicative man, and
after volunteering scraps of information regarding the country we were
traversing, took an early opportunity to enlarge on his own grievances.

“The present the _sardár_” (chief), pointing to Sir F. Goldsmid, “gave us
sowars and _sarbáz_, has been taken from us by the governor,” he said.
“We have been so many days out,” he added, “our horses are exhausted, and
we are famished. Nobody cares for us, and the villagers have nothing we
can take from them.” “It is hard,” I said, “but it is the custom of your
country.” “Yes, it is the custom of the country,” was the ready reply,
“and that is why our country is ruined.” “With the aid of the famine,”
I add. “The famine! no that is a decree from God, and we must submit.
No one can fight against what God ordains. But our governor is a very
hard master. He is deeply in debt, and screws his subjects to pacify his
creditors. Not a _pul-i-siyáh_ (a copper coin) escapes his grasp; and
there are many like him. _Irán tabáh shud_—Persia is ruined. _Khyle,
khyle sakht ast_—it is very hard.”

And so it is really. We found the Afghan troops in every respect better
off than those of Persia. They are physically finer men, are better
clad, better armed, and better provided with shelter, carriage, and
provisions, though there is room for improvement on all points.

At Dih Mullah we were accommodated in a double-storied summer-house,
in an ornamental garden adjoining the village. Its shelter, such as
it was, with doors and windows opening in every direction, was hardly
so efficient as that afforded by our tents against the chill gusts of
wind sweeping down from the hills to the north. The situation, however,
afforded us a wide prospect of the country, which, from its nature,
hardly compensated for the discomfort. To the south was an unlimited view
of a vast salt desert, as unvaried as the horizon-girt ocean. To the
north rose a barrier of bare rocks, tipped here and there by snow, and
dotted above by black spots, like one with a mild attack of small-pox;
and on either side lay a long gravelly valley, with a string of villages
and gardens running down its central course.

This evening, having reserved a small supply of wine for the occasion, we
observed the Queen’s anniversary, and at dinner raised our glasses “To
the Queen—God bless her!”

_25th May._—Dih Mullah to Damghán, twenty-six miles. We set out at 3.30
A.M., by the light of a full moon—route south-west along the valley,
passing a succession of villages with their gardens and corn-fields.
The gardens are luxuriant in their foliage, but the corn crops are thin
and backward. Nobody is seen moving about; the villages are half empty,
and a painful silence reigns over a scene outwardly so prosperous. At
about half-way we passed the large village of Mihmándost, near which are
the ruins of the ancient city of Damghán, the scene of the grand battle
between Nadír and Mír Ashraf, Ghilzai, in which the latter received the
first of those crushing defeats that soon after led to his flight from
the country, and ignominious death at the hands of some petty Baloch
robbers in Sistan, and the expulsion of the Afghan invaders from the
Persian soil in 1730. The ruins present nothing worthy of attraction,
and but for the decayed domes and small mounds that rise amongst the low
broken walls, might be easily passed without notice.

Damghán is a decayed little town, full of ruins ancient and recent,
though buried in the midst of most prosperous-looking gardens. It has
suffered frightfully in the famine, its population having fallen, it
is said, from a thousand to two hundred families. There is a telegraph
office here, and a very fair _sarae_. Our next stage was to Khoshá Sarae,
twenty-three miles—route south-west, over a plain country skirting a
hill range to our right, and passing twenty-five or thirty villages _en
route_; morning air cold and bracing. Khoshá is simply a _sarae_ on
an uncultivated gravelly plain at the entrance to a pass in the hills
dividing Damghán from Samnán. No supplies are procurable here, and but a
limited supply of water.

Our next stage was twenty-four miles to Ahuán Sarae, or the _sarae_
of gazelle deer—route south-west, gradually rising over an undulating
pasture country between broken hills. The soil is hard and gravelly, and
the surface is everywhere covered with a thick growth of saltwort, wild
rue, &c., and the _ghích_, on which we found a number of camels at graze;
but we found no habitation or water on all the route. The weather was
very changeable. The morning air was sharp and chill, and during the day
sunshine and cloud succeeded each other, producing quite a wintry state
of atmosphere at this altitude, Ahuán being 6500 feet above the sea,
2240 feet above Khoshá, and 2820 feet above Damghán. Owing to the wind,
the air here felt much colder than the thermometer said it was; and for
about the twentieth time on our march we found ourselves retrograding
back into winter instead of advancing into summer. These sudden changes
of climate and temperature are characteristic of travelling in Persia.
One passes up and down from the hot dry atmosphere of the desert-bordered
plains, to the chill damp air of the cloud-attracting hills and their
elevated tablelands, with such rapidity that it is always necessary to be
provided with warm clothing as a protection against the ill effects of
these sudden alternations of temperature, and particularly against the
cold winds that blow. The Persian overcoat, with its close folds gathered
in across the back, is a well-suited garment for the protection of the
loins, and no doubt its adoption as a national costume is the result of
its proved efficacy or adaptability to the requirements of the climate.

Ahuán is merely a roadside _sarae_ with a supply of water. There is no
village or cultivation here, nor are supplies procurable. There is a
tradition connected with the name of this place. It is to the effect that
the Imám Razá once halted here on his march to Mashhad. Some huntsman in
the neighbourhood brought in a deer he had ridden down in the chase for
presentation to the saint On seeing the Imám, the deer appealed to his
justice, and begged to be released, on the plea of having a young one
dependent on herself for support, promising, so soon as the fawn grew up,
to return and surrender herself to her captor. The Imám at once directed
the release of the deer, and himself stood surety for her return at the
appointed time. The deer, however, did not return at the end of a year,
and the fact being reported to the Imám, he at once caused a deer to seek
out the huntsman, and surrender herself to him in his name. From this
time the deer in these hills have been held sacred, and are not hunted,
and are in consequence very numerous here.

_28th May._—Ahuán to Samnán, twenty-four miles, and halt a day—route
S.S.W. through a hilly tract on to the plain of Samnán. At two miles we
crossed a watershed running north and south, at an elevation of 6750
feet above the sea. It marks the boundary between Damghán and Samnán.
This wide tract of hills forms a barrier between the plain valleys of
Damghán and Samnán. It extends from east to west about thirty miles,
and rises 2500 feet above the general level of the plains on either
side. Its hills are an emanation southwards from the Alburz range, and
join a parallel range on the borders of the salt desert, to the south.
Its higher ridges are perfectly bare, but the lower are richly clothed
with excellent pasture bushes and herbs, saltwort, wormwood, wild rue,
_ghích_, &c. We left this hill tract by a very narrow ravine, between
banks of conglomerate and ridges of friable slate, and descended a long
stony slope on to the plain of Samnán, and crossing its bare, parched,
stony desert surface, camped at a _kárez_ stream under the shade of some
mulberry-trees to the north of the town. The plain wears a desolate
uninviting look, and is suggestive of unpleasant heat in summer.

On approaching the town, we were met by an _isticbál_ party of six
or seven horsemen, with a couple of led horses, and a rickety little
carriage drawn by a pair of very unkempt ponies. And on our arrival in
camp, the governor sent us some trays of sweetmeats and many polite
messages. There is a telegraph office here, but owing to a break in the
line ahead, we were unable to communicate with Tehran. Though we are now
only six stages from the capital, we have received no later intelligence
than the 29th April, received on the 16th instant.

Our next stage was twenty-two miles to Lásjird, where we camped on
stubble-fields, near some ruined huts opposite the town—route westerly,
over a plain undulating and gently rising to the westward, where it is
narrowed by hills. At this place we received a post two days out from
Tehran, with letters dated London, 8th May. Weather close and sultry,
ending at sunset with a dust-storm, and slight rain from the north-west A
disagreeably high wind blew in squally gusts all night.

Lásjird is a very remarkable little collection of dwellings on the
summit of an artificial mound with scarped sides. They are ranged in two
stories, in the form of a quadrangle, which at the south-east angle is
open, and presents a glimpse of the interior space. The chambers open on
to a balcony, that runs on both sides of each face of the quadrangle, as
shown in this diagrammatic sketch, which will convey some idea of the
general appearance of the place.

[Illustration]

The sides of the mound are streaked with open drains, that carry off
all the sewage from the interior, and must render the places above a
very unwholesome and disagreeable habitation. The place seemed pretty
crowded, and numbers of its inhabitants looked down upon us from the
balconies running in front of their chambers. The community thus crowded
together must, judging from our single night’s experience, lead a life of
constant wrangling and quarrelling. The voices of querulous old women and
obstreperous children, and the rebukes of angry husbands, kept us awake
all night, with not the best of wishes bestowed upon the Lásjirdis. This
place looks unique of its kind, but I am told that Yazdikhast is built on
a similar plan.

Our next stage was twenty-five miles to Dih Namak. Set out from Lásjird
at 1.30 A.M., and crossing three or four deep ravines by masonry
bridges, passed on to a stony desert hill skirt that falls quickly to
the southward, where it merges into the salt desert, which glistens in
the morning sunlight as white as snow. At half-way we passed a deserted
village and ruined _sarae_, but on all the route saw no cultivation or
habitation.

The country is very uninteresting, and no incident occurred to enliven
the march or occupy our thoughts, and hence I suppose the unwonted
attention devoted to the peculiarities of our own surroundings. We were
marching in the usual order of procession—that is to say, the Mirakhor
Jáfar Beg, in his handsome Kashmir-shawl-pattern coat, led the way,
with a couple of mounted grooms, each leading a _yadak_, or handsomely
caparisoned horse, by which, according to the custom of the country, all
men of rank are preceded when they take the saddle. Next came ourselves,
and behind us followed our personal servants, the Mirzá, and the escort.
The last had now dwindled down to only half-a-dozen horsemen. Our heavy
baggage with the camels generally went ahead overnight, and the mules
with our light tents, &c., followed in rear of our procession.

The Mirakhor, always serious in look, yet strictly deferential in his
bearing, was always ready with a reply to any and every query, and, as
may be conjectured, with no possible reliance on any of them. “Mirakhor!”
“Bale” (“Yes”). “The village of Sarkhrúd lies on our route to-day. How
far may it be from this?” “Yes, I know the place. You see that hill
ahead? Well it is just a _farsakh_ beyond.” We move on, prepared for
another eight miles before we alight for breakfast; but on cresting a
low marly ridge ahead, a village buried in gardens lies below us. “What
village is this, Mirakhor?” “This is Sarkhrúd. Will you breakfast here?”
“Why, you said it was a _farsakh_ beyond that hill.” Without moving a
muscle, or evincing a trace of discomposure, he merely replies, “This
side the hill. This is Sarkhrúd. Will you alight for breakfast here?”

The way this man ate his own words was surprising, but the way, under a
quiet undemonstrative demeanour, he gathered in his _mudákhil_, was more
so; for, not content with charging double rates all round, he charged for
larger quantities than were actually supplied. By the merest accident
I gained an insight into the system of corruption carried on under the
specious rights of _mudákhil_, for the extent of which I was not at
all prepared. Our Afghan companions kept their expenditure accounts
distinct from ours, and it was from what I heard from them regarding our
Mirakhor’s desire to cater for them too, that I first got an inkling of
the liberality of his views in the matter of perquisites, and his anxiety
to prevent the extent of them becoming known, by an attempt to get the
whole management into his own hands. Rogues sometimes fall out amongst
themselves, and so it happened one day that a quarrel amongst our stable
establishment threatened a disclosure of their dishonest dealings. The
Mirakhor, however, was master of the situation, and the contumacious
groom who demanded a larger share of the spoil than his chief chose to
give him was summarily dismissed, and turned adrift on the line of march,
on the accusation of selling for his own profit grain given to him for
the feed of the horses under his charge. “Clever man!” whispered the
observers, as their respect for the Mirakhor’s _savoir faire_ increased
with his success. “He deserves to prosper. You see he has got the upper
hand of his enemy. Any complaint he may hereafter prefer against the
Mirakhor will be declared malicious. Was he not deprived of his post and
turned adrift for a fault exposed by him?”

The discharged groom followed our party for several hundred miles, up to
the capital, and, what was more surprising, came out, in his disgrace
and downfall, in a new suit of broadcloth and silks, in place of the
discarded attire of his late mean occupation, and certainly looked, so
far as outward appearances go, the most respectable of our servants. The
Mirakhor after this _coup_ affected a character for honesty, and was more
punctual than ever in the observance of his religious duties. As the sun
lit up the horizon, he, and he alone, would move off the road, dismount,
and, facing the _Cablá_, perform his morning prayers, and then galloping
up, resume his position at the head of our party, with self-satisfied
pride in his singular devotion.

Dih Namak is a wretched collection of huts round a dilapidated fort on
the edge of the desert. Close by is a substantial and commodious _sarae_.
Our camp was at first pitched on the plain to its west, but the wind
blew with such force from the west, and raised such clouds of dust, that
we were obliged to strike the tents and take refuge in the _sarae_—a move
of very doubtful advantage; for though we escaped the violence of the
wind, we were almost stifled by the whirling eddies of stable dust and
litter, and tormented by myriads of the voracious little insects bred in
its deep layers.

_1st June._—We set out from Dih Namak at 1.30 A.M., and marched
twenty-four miles to Kishlác, facing a high north-west wind, sensibly
warm even at this early hour, nearly the whole way. Our route was
westerly, skirting the Ferozkoh range of hills to our right, and having
a bare desert away to the left. The country is generally flat, dotted by
a succession of villages, and crossed by numerous branches of the Hubla
rivulet, which drains to the desert, and irrigates on its way a wide
surface of corn land.

At eight miles we came to the Padih village, and leaving a cluster of
four or five others on the right and left of the road, at two miles
farther came to Arazan, where there is a telegraph-office. Arazan is the
chief town of the Khár _bulúk_ of the Veramín district, and is one of
the granaries of Tehran, and consequently by no means the “very mean”
country, one of our party facetiously styled it.

At nine miles from Arazan, crossing _en route_ ten or twelve little
streams formed by the outspread of the Hubla river over the surface, we
arrived at Kishlác, and took refuge in its little _sarae_ from the wind,
which blew with such force that we could not pitch our tents.

Our next stage was twenty-one miles to Aywáni Kyf—the “portals of
delight” to the traveller approaching the capital from the west—route
W.N.W., across a wide piece of cultivation, and then over a gravelly
pasture tract to the Sardárra defile. This is a winding path through
low clay hills, said to contain rock-salt. Through the defile flows a
small stream, the sides of which are encrusted with salines. These hills
emanate from Ferozkoh, and stretching on to the plain in a south-west
direction, separate Khár from Veramín. Beyond the defile we went
north-west over a wide pasture tract sloping up to the hills, and camped
on rising ground above the village. Aywáni Kyf is a considerable place,
surrounded by fruit gardens, and protected by a neat fort, all situated
on the right bank of a stony ravine that issues from the hills to the
north, amongst which rises aloft the snowy cone of Damavand, a prominent
object in the landscape as one approaches from the defile.

We halted here a day, and received letters from Tehran in reply to some
sent off from our camp at Shahrúd. Persia has a telegraph line, but she
has no post. The delays and inconveniences resulting from the absence of
this established institution of civilised countries must be experienced
to be appreciated. To us, accustomed as we had been to the daily receipt
of intelligence from our friends, the hardship was difficult to endure.

At this place we found the midday sun shone with considerable force,
though cool breezes from the hills to the north tempered the air. The
summer sun in Persia is too hot to admit of travelling during the day,
and consequently our marches latterly have commenced an hour or two
after midnight, an arrangement that admitted of our reaching camp before
the cattle could suffer from the heat, which, however, is nothing in
comparison with that of India. We had no cause to complain on this score,
and even where it was hot, always enjoyed the luxury of ice, of which the
Persians are very fond, and which they use freely. Every village almost
has its _yakhchál_, or ice-pits, stocked from the winter snows. The
luxury is sold at a very cheap rate, and is at the command of all classes.

From this place we marched twenty-seven miles to Khátúnabad, where we
found shelter in the _sarae_, a filthy place, swarming with vermin, and
reeking with offensive odours, and crowded with famished beggars, who
sifted the horse litter for the undigested grains of barley it contained,
and rummaged the ground for bones and fragments left by more fortunate
travellers. Our route was W.N.W. over the Veramín plain, by a good road
skirting a hill range to our right, and in sight of the magnificent peak
of Damavand.

At about ten miles we came to a bifurcation of the road. That to the
right follows the hill skirt direct to Tehran. We followed the branch to
the left, and crossing the Jájrúd (_jâjárúd_ = river everywhere?), which
here spreads over the surface in a number of little streams that water
several villages on either side our route, went down a gentle slope to
Khátúnabad.

_5th June._—Khátúnabad to Gulahak, eighteen miles. We set out at one
A.M., across the plain towards the Sherabánú hill, skirting the foot
of which we arrived at Takiabad at 4.30 A.M., and alighted at a garden
belonging to Prince Ahmad. It is a delightful spot, with a comfortable
house looking down an avenue of plane-trees, that flank a long vista of
flowering plants. On each side are vineyards and fruit trees, in the
shady foliage of which are hundreds of nightingales, strong in song. The
morning air here was so chill that we were glad to warm ourselves at a
blazing fire raised to cook us some coffee.

Beyond this we passed through the ruins of Re, or Rhages, in the midst of
which stands the town of Abdul Azím, with its rich gardens overtopped by
the dome of its shrine; and then turning north, went over a rising plain
towards Tehran, of which we now first got a view, its domes, minars, and
palaces appearing high above the dead wall of its fortifications. The
appearance of the city is not so fine as I had expected, but the general
view of the landscape, backed as it is by the snowy range of Alburz, with
Damavand’s fleecy peak standing sentry over it, is very fine; whilst the
bright gardens and happy villages nestling in the inequalities of the
slope at the foot of the range add a charm to the scene delightfully in
contrast with the bare plain that cuts the horizon to the southward.

We entered the city at the Abdul Azím gate, and passed through its bazárs
round by the king’s palace, to the new buildings of the British Legation,
which appear to be the finest in the whole place. Beyond this we left
the city by a gateway in the new line of fortifications (like that of
Abdul Azím, it is decorated with gaudily-painted tiles of inferior
quality), and followed a carriage-road to Gulahak, the summer residence
of the members of the British Legation. Here we were conducted by our
servants to some unoccupied bungalows, and alighting, found leisure to
reflect on the marked difference in the forms of social sentiment that
animate Englishmen in India and Persia. Here, after a march of upwards of
two thousand miles, through barbarous countries and dangerous regions,
a small party of British officers arrived in the midst of a little
community of their countrymen, without so much as drawing one of them
from their doors for a welcome or greeting.

Gulahak is one of several picturesque little villages on the slope at
the foot of Alburz mountain, and occupied as a summer residence by the
members of the several European Legations at the court of Persia. It
has an agreeable climate and pleasing scenery, and but for the limited
society, would be a delightful residence.

On our way through the city we saw sad evidences of the effects of
the famine. Beggars, squalid and famished, were found in every street
appealing pitifully to the passers for charity, and no less than three
corpses were carried past us on the way to burial, in the great and
densely packed graveyards that occupy much of the intramural area,
and sensibly taint its atmosphere. The condition of the population is
deplorable. The official returns for the past week represent the daily
mortality within the city walls at two hundred souls, almost wholly
victims to starvation and typhoid fever. This high rate cannot last long,
it is to be hoped, though the prospect ahead is, from all accounts,
gloomy in the extreme. Thousands of families, who have hitherto kept
body and soul together by the sale of their jewellery and property,
down to the clothes on their backs, are now reduced to a state of utter
destitution, and have not the means of purchasing the food the ripening
crops will soon render available. For these the future is indeed dark,
unless the Government at the last moment comes forward to save its
people from destruction. But as it has so far ignored the existence of
a calamity that has well-nigh depopulated the country, there is little
reason to hope that it will at the eleventh hour stultify its conduct,
and stretch out an arm to save the country from ruin.

The Sháh, it is said, is kept in ignorance of the extent of the
sufferings of his people, through the false representations of his
ministers. He was at this time absent from the capital on a hunting
excursion in the Shamrán hills, and as he did not return until after my
departure from the capital, I did not enjoy the honour of being presented
at His Majesty’s court.

At Tehran I made hasty arrangements for my return to India _viâ_ Baghdad
and the Persian Gulf, with our Indian camp establishment and despatches
for Government. Through the kindness of Mr Ronald Thomson, _chargé
d’affairs_, I was provided with letters to the Persian and Turkish
authorities for my expedition on the road, and one of the mission
_ghuláms_ or couriers, Shukrullah Beg by name, was appointed to accompany
me as guide.

On the 8th June, the camp having been sent ahead in the morning, I took
leave of my chief, Major-General F. R. Pollock C.S.I. (now Sir Richard
Pollock, K.C.S.I.), and of the Afghan commissioner, Saggid Núr Muhammad
Sháh, of Sir Frederick Goldsmid, and the members of his staff, and at
4.30 P.M. set out from Gulahak accompanied by Mr Rozario, and one of the
mission servants as guide to our first stage from the capital. Major Ewan
B. Smith, Sir F. Goldsmid’s personal assistant, rode some way out with
us, and then a “Good-bye—God bless you!” and we moved off in opposite
directions.

On our way down the avenue leading to the city, we met two
carriages-and-four, full of veiled ladies of the Sháh’s _andarún_, out
for their evening drive. They were driven by postilions, and preceded by
a number of horsemen, who with peremptory gestures motioned the people
off the road, where they stood with their backs towards royalty till the
carriages had passed. Our guide, seeing the carriages in the distance,
tutored us in our conduct, and as they approached, we turned off the
road, and respectfully turned our horse’s tails to where their heads
ought to have been.

Our route through the city traversed its western quarters, and led out
by the Darwaza Nao—“the new gate”—and then across the plain to Khanabad,
where we were accommodated for the night in a summer-house situated
in a very delightful garden belonging to Prince Ali Culi Mirzá. On our
way through the city we passed a bloated corpse in a horrible state of
putrefaction lying in the street, and by it stood a couple of men about
to drag it into concealment amongst the broken walls and crumbling
huts that here and there separate the occupied houses, and assail the
passengers with the most sickening stinks. The view of Alburz and
Damavand from the south side of the city is very fine, whilst the wide
plain of Veramín, with its numerous villages and gardens, wears an aspect
of prosperity and plenty, cruelly belied by the hard reality of their
misery and poverty.

Khanabad was our _nacl mucám_ or preparatory stage, hardly four miles
from the city. Our servants had had the whole day to run backwards and
forwards for the hundred and one things they had forgotten, or which the
opportunity made them fancy they required for the journey, and when we
arrived at nightfall, half of them were yet lingering there, taking a
last fill of the pleasures it afforded them. Seeing this, I anticipated
trouble and delay, but, to avoid the latter as much as possible, gave
the order to march at midnight, and, as a first step, had the loads
brought out and arranged all ready for loading, as a plain hint that I
expected the absent muleteers to be present at the appointed hour. The
measure proved successful, for after much running to and fro amongst
the servants, our party was brought together by two o’clock in the
morning, and we set out on our march half an hour later, but without the
head muleteer and three of his men, who, having received their hire in
advance, were indifferent on the score of punctuality.

Our route was W.S.W., by a well-beaten track, over a plain country,
covered with many villages, and traversed towards the south and west
by detached ridges of hill. At about eight miles we came to Husenabad,
and passing through it, halted on apiece of green turf near the road for
the baggage to come up. I had had no rest during the night owing to the
bustle of our people and the noise made by the nightingales, and was here
so overpowered with fatigue, that I stretched myself on the sward, and
was fast asleep in a minute, dreaming where all the hundreds of mules and
asses we had just passed on their way to the city with loads of green
lucerne could have come from, since our Mirakhor had assured us that
not one was to be procured in the country, and had, simply as a token
of good-will, provided me with twenty of those that had brought us from
Sistan, only at quadruple the former rates, half down in advance for the
whole journey. Clever fellow! he at all events secured his _mudákhil_
before losing sight of the muleteers.

From this we went on, and crossing the river Kárij by a masonry bridge,
passed over a stony ridge from a hill on the right, and sloped down to
Rabát Karím, where we found quarters in some of the many empty houses of
the village, having come twenty-five miles from Khanabad. The population
of this village was formerly reckoned at a thousand families. It does not
now contain a fourth of that number, and a very wretched, sickly-looking
set they are, with hardly a child to be found amongst them. And so it was
with every place we came to on all the journey down to Kirmánshah.

We concluded our first march away from Tehran more successfully than I
had hoped for in the face of the troubles lowering ahead at the first
start. My guide, Shukrullah Beg, has been most energetic and willing, and
promises to turn out a good conductor. He is a blunt, plain-spoken man,
with sharp intelligent features, a freckled complexion, and bristly red
beard, and has none of the polish and love of finery so characteristic of
the Persian of Tehran, though he is equally impressed with the necessity
for ceremony and show. To my amusement he started our procession this
morning quite _en règle_, with a strict adherence to the form observed by
great men on the march. My spare horse was lead as a _yadak_ in front by
the groom mounted on a mule, whilst he himself, having assumed the title,
led the way as Mirakhor, the two riding camels, servants, and baggage
following us in column close in rear, and gradually dropping behind as
our pace exceeded theirs.

We arrived at our resting-place at the breakfast hour, and now I missed
the cheerful society of those we had parted from, and my thoughts ran
back over the long journey we had done together. The frosts and snows of
Balochistan, the passage of the Khojak, and the cutting winds of Kandahar
recurred to memory; and with them came recollections of the General’s
enduring energy and indomitable pluck, that overcame all difficulties and
inspired a confidence that deprived hardships of half their sting; his
ever-cheerful spirits too, and kindly thought for all, that made distance
wane, and fatigue lose its load. Recollections of the Afghan welcome and
hospitality, and of the Saggid’s friendly intercourse and sociability,
his amusing conversation, interesting tales, and theologic dogmatism.
Recollections too of our Persian secretary, Mirzá Ahmad (a native of
Peshawar), his cheerful bearing under trials, his modest demeanour, his
honesty and readiness at all times for all things. I thought of Sistan,
and ran over the journey thence to the Persian capital with those we
joined there, and I missed the charming grace of Sir F. Goldsmid’s
manner, his benevolent self-denial, and his instructive conversation.
Our march through Khorassan was gone over again, with many an agreeable
recollection of the benefits derived from Major Ewan Smith’s excellent
arrangements for the road, and recollections, too, of many a tedious
march enlivened by the vivacity of his humour and sprightly wit. The
first of April in our camp at Birjand was not forgotten, nor the post we
all rushed out of our tents to meet; and if the others have not forgiven
Major Beresford Lovett, I have, out of respect for his talents. Many
a race across country with Mr Bower to bring to bay and question some
astonished shepherd or ploughman came to mind, and the sharp ring of his
“_Máli ínjá hastí? Dih chi ism dárad?_” (“Do you belong to this place?
What’s the name of the village?”) methought was heard afresh.

With such thoughts was I occupied when Shukrullah Beg made his
appearance, and, with a serious face, announced that the mulemen demanded
their discharge, as they had no money for the journey, and the head
muleteer, who had received the advance, had not joined them. They were
afraid they would never get their share of the hire, and did not wish to
go on without being paid. This was rather embarrassing news. However, I
sent for the men, explained to them that the head muleteer would probably
soon overtake us, and that meanwhile I would pay for their food and that
of the mules, and dismissed them to their work, and ordered the march at
two in the morning. At the same time, for safety’s sake, I had the mules
brought over and picketed in the court below our quarters, and at sunset
had the loads packed and ranged out ready for lading.

_10th June._—Rabát Karím to Khanabad, thirty-three miles. We set out at
three A.M., following a westerly course over wide pasture downs, along
the line of telegraph between Tehran and Baghdad, with a range of hills
away to the right. At an hour and a half we came to a roadside _sarae_,
where we alighted for the baggage to come up. The _sarae_ dates from the
time of Sháh Abbas the Great, and was very substantially built of trap
rock and cellular lava. It is now in a state of ruin. In the interior
we found portions of several human skeletons. To two of them were still
adhering the clothes they wore during life, and they told the tale of
the dead—poor peasants cut short on their way to the capital in search
of food. To one of them the skull was attached uninjured. I took it off,
and carried it away with me for the anthropological museum of a learned
friend.

Beyond this we crossed the Rúdi Shor, a brackish stream that drains past
Kúm on to the salt desert, where it joins the Káli Shor of Nishabor and
Sabzwár, and went over an undulating pasture country, rising gently to
the westward, and having the snowy mountains of Shamrán in view to the
right. At about twenty miles we rose to the crest of the downs, and
looked down on the smiling valley of Pashandia with its many villages and
gardens, an agreeable change from the dreary wilds and pasture downs of
the country we had traversed. The elevation here is 4380 feet above the
sea, thus giving an ascent of 700 feet from Rabát Karím.

Up to this point we found no water except that of Rúdi Shor, and the
whole country wears a very uninteresting and wild look. From the crest
we dropped into the valley, and passing several villages, some in ruins,
crossed a wide sandy ravine in which lay some great blocks of brown
lava, and farther on arrived at Khanabad, where we alighted at the
_chapparkhana_ or post-house, glad of its shelter, for the sun shone out
towards noon with much force. This is a poor little village, and has only
fifteen families left of a population of sixty before the famine. It is
in the Zarand _bulúk_, which contains sixty or seventy villages, with
Sába as their capital town. The _bulúk_ is the dower of one of the Sháh’s
wives, named Anísuddaula. She deputes her brother, Muhammad Hasan Khán,
to its government. His residence is at Sába, where are the ruins of an
ancient fire-temple. Gabr relics are found all over the district. Such
were the fruits of a chat with the keeper of the post-house, who, his
horses having all died, and the appearance of travellers being few and
far between, was only too glad of the opportunity to talk on any subject
with any one, and answered our endless questions with willing readiness.

Hence we marched twenty-six miles to Khushkak—route W.S.W., and then west
over a wide hill-girt plain, mostly uncultivated owing to want of water.
At three miles we passed Asyábad, and then no other village up to our
stage. A few were seen at the foot of the hills to the right, at long
distances apart, and a number of _kárez_ wells were traced across the
plain by their line of little mounds of excavated earth. The soil is firm
and gravelly, and the surface now presents a thick green carpet of herbs
of sorts, all in full flower. I recognised the Syrian rue, two or three
kinds of spurge, the wild poppy, larkspur, clove pink, ragged-robin,
and a variety of cruciferous, composite, labiate, leguminous, and
umbelliferous herbs. Myriads of caterpillars loaded their little
branches, and the whole surface, along our route at least, was fluttering
with innumerable butterflies with leopard-like spotted wings. Lizards
of different sorts and sizes were common enough, and dodged our horses’
hoofs at every step, but not a bird was seen of any kind.

Across the plain the road rises over a long hill slope up to the
post-house and hamlet of Khushkak at the entrance of a pass into the
hills. We found the post-house deserted and falling to ruin, and
therefore alighted at one of the empty huts of the village. Khushkak
is the last village of the Zarand _bulúk_ in this direction. It is a
poor place, and only retains twenty of the fifty families that formed
its population. The little hut we occupy, though it has just been swept
and spread with carpets, has an almost insupportably disagreeable musty
odour, raising unpleasant suspicions as to the condition of its former
occupants. The floor was a little below the level of a brisk little
stream that ran down the hill close outside its walls, and the moisture,
percolating through the soil, filled the atmosphere of the room with a
heavy sickly vapour. In the absence of our tents, which were yet far
behind, it was the best shelter the place afforded, and I was content to
correct its vapours with the addition of tobacco fumes.

_12th June._—Khushkak to Novarán, thirty-six miles. Marched at 1.45
A.M.—route a little south of west by a winding path continually ascending
and descending across a range of low rounded hills covered with the
richest pasture, on which we found large herds of camels at graze, and
in the sheltered hollows between spied the black tents of their _ilyát_
owners.

At two miles we crossed a noisy hill torrent, and, turning to the left,
went up its narrow glen, with long strips of orchards and hamlets on
either slope, and at about another five miles reached the watershed. Its
elevation is about 6938 feet above the sea, and 1528 feet above Khushkak.
Here we turned to the right, and passing over rolling pasture downs,
gradually descended to a long valley in which are many villages. At about
twenty miles we passed the villages of Shamrin and Bivarán, picturesquely
perched on the hill slopes amidst delightful vineyards. Farther on, we
left the hills, and going along the valley, passed a number of villages
to our left; and at eleven o’clock, after a fatiguing ride of nine hours,
camped under the shade of some splendid walnut-trees close to the village
of Novarán. Several of the villagers flocked out to see us, and, to my
surprise, I found they did not understand Persian. They are Kurds, and
speak a dialect of Turki, said to be different from the language spoken
by the Turks.

This place is in the Muzdkhanchay _bulúk_, which contains about forty
villages. It is said to have suffered less from the famine than other
parts of the country. Its people, however, looked the impersonation of
poverty.

_13th June._—Novarán to Zaráh, thirty-two miles. Departed at 2.15 A.M.;
morning air still and chilly. At four miles out crossed the Muzdkhanchay
river by a masonry bridge. It is a tributary of the Kúm river, which is
lost on the desert towards Kirmán, and here marks the boundary between
Tehran and Hamadán. It is subject to violent floods after rains on the
hills, and its bed certainly bears the traces of violent rushes of water.

At four miles on we came to a ruined and deserted hamlet by which flowed
a sparkling little hill torrent. On its bank lay the corpse of a woman
half devoured by wild animals, and beyond it lay the broken skeletons
of other victims of the famine. Here our route changed from W.S.W. to
N.N.W., and led over a long uninteresting succession of undulations, and
finally cresting a low ridge, sloped down a wide hollow in which are
many villages. The soil is everywhere up to the ridge a bare clay thrown
up into hummocks, and furrowed by the action of water. Onwards from the
ridge we marched in view of the snow-crowned Alwand mountain away to the
south-west.

At 9.30 A.M. we arrived at Zaráh, a miserable little village, almost
depopulated, and the very picture of poverty and neglect, and alighted
at the _chapparkhana_, which we found empty and extremely filthy. Below
the village, on a turfy spot beyond its rivulet, we found the camp of
Imám Culi Khán, Imáduddaula, the governor of Kirmánshah. He is a son of
the late Muhammad Ali Mirzá, one of the many sons of the late Fath Ali
Sháh, and is consequently an uncle of the reigning Sháh. He is now going
to the capital to take part in the discussion of various important state
questions that are shortly to occupy the attention of the Sháh and his
ministers. His camp consists of a large single-poled tent, and a dozen
smaller ones round it for his ladies and attendants; and in front of them
are drawn up three very handsome four-wheeled carriages of English or
French manufacture.

Towards sunset Shukrullah Beg announced that a _peshkhidmat_, or page in
attendance, had arrived with a message from the Prince. He was ushered
up to the room I occupied, and, with a polite bow, and hands folded in
front, delivered his message. “The Imáduddaula is pleased to say that a
saddled horse is ready if your honour feels disposed to pay him a visit”
“My compliments to the Imáduddaula, and I shall have much pleasure in
paying my respects to his excellency.” “By your leave I will go for the
horse.” “There is no necessity for that. My own is at hand, and I will
ride over in half an hour.” And the _peshkhidmat_ with a bow retired.
I gave the order for my horse to be saddled, and meanwhile donned a
suit of presentable attire. Shukrullah Beg the while was busy arranging
a procession _more Persico_; and when I came down to the gate of the
_chapparkhana_, I found my groom with the spare horse ready as a _yadak_,
and the mulemen, and others he had somehow got hold of for the occasion,
ranged in file on either side the path, and looking as solemn as if they
were about to be led to execution.

It was all, no doubt, quite correct, and had the individual actors in
the ceremony been at all decently attired, I might have submitted to the
rules of conventionality, and allowed myself to be led off _en grande
tenue_. Under the actual conditions, however, the processionists did look
such a set of ragamuffins, that I could not consent to play a part in
the farce, and consequently, much to the chagrin of Shukrullah Beg, sent
them all back to their places, and mounting my horse, set off towards
the camp, attended by my personal orderly in uniform, and Shukrullah Beg
leading the way.

Near the camp we met the horse sent out for me, and crossing a small
rivulet, arrived in front of the great tent. Here I dismounted, and sent
in my card by one of the servants ranged in two rows in front of the tent
door. Presently a very intelligent-looking man stepped out, and, with a
deferential manner, invited me to walk in. I did so, and removing my hat,
bowed to the Prince, who was seated, oriental fashion on a broad cushion,
like a mattress. Without rising, he motioned me to a chair placed at the
side of his cushion. As I took my seat, his son, the only other occupant
of the tent, and who had risen from his kneeling posture seated on his
heels as I entered, again resumed his former position on the other side
of the cushion. He was a handsome young man with a glossy black beard,
and throughout the interview observed a respectful silence, with an
attentive gaze towards his father. The Prince was plainly dressed in a
suit of black cloth, and, with spectacles adjusted, appeared to have been
busy with a number of manuscripts that lay in a small pile before him.
His close-trimmed grizzly beard gave him a somewhat stern expression,
but his voice was gentle and his manner affable, with an easy sense of
conscious dignity. He inquired how I fared on my travels, and how long
I had resided in Persia. “It is my first visit to the country,” I said,
“and I have been marching through it for four months.” With an inquiring
look of doubt he asked where I had learned the language, and was pleased
to compliment me on my knowledge of it. He alluded in a kindly way to the
death of Mr Alison, said it was a great loss to Persia, and speculated on
his successor, giving his own vote for Sir H. Rawlinson. He made several
inquiries regarding Sistan, and asked if the boundary had been settled.
The question, I replied, was now under discussion at Tehran. He had
heard of the assassination of Lord Mayo, and asked whether it was true
that a general rebellion in India had followed the tragedy. He referred
to European politics very sensibly; said the defeat of the French took
all Persians by surprise; they must fight again, but Prussia would
maintain the position she had gained in Europe. He spoke in disparaging
terms of Turkey; the country was rotten to the core, had no credit, no
organisation, and no army; she was doomed sooner or later to fall before
Russian progress. He supposed the proposed Euphrates Valley railway would
soon be set on foot; it would prove the regeneration of Persia. The
country now, he said, was in a deplorable state, upwards of a million
of its people had perished in the famine. The country, he said, was
naturally divided into five fifths. One fifth was desert, two fifths were
mountain, another fifth was pasture, and the remaining fifth was arable
and habitable.

In such converse the set courses of coffee, sherbet, tea, and ice, with
the _calyán_ between each, were got through, and I took my leave with
the same ceremony as on entering. On returning to my quarters in the
post-house, I found a sheep, trays of sweetmeats, four great cones of
Russian white sugar, two large packets of tea, and two boxes of _gáz_ (a
sweetmeat prepared at Kirmánshah from manna), had been politely sent over
for me by the Imáduddaula—a civility which in the East corresponds with
an invitation to dinner in the West. I was much pleased with this visit,
particularly as it afforded me an opportunity of correcting some mistaken
notions regarding the pride and insincerity of the Persians, and the
disposition of the leading men of the country towards our nation.

In the Imáduddaula I found a dignified, quiet, and well-informed man,
who spoke sensibly on all matters, and bore himself like a prince. He
thanked me for my visit, said he was much pleased to have seen me, and
wished me a prosperous journey onwards, and hoped I would make use of his
garden-house at Kirmánshah during my stay there.

_14th June._—Zaráh to Míla Gird, twenty miles—route W.S.W., across a wide
alluvial plain, bounded by the Alwand mountain on the south, and the
Caraghan range on the north. The level surface presents a bright sheet
of green corn, pasture land, and meadows, interspersed with numerous
villages and gardens, all radiant in their summer foliage. The scene is
one of great promise, but its reality sadly disappoints.

On arrival at Míla Gird we rode up to the post-house. A corpse with
gaping mouth and staring eyes lay athwart the threshold; hungry, pinched,
and tattered men and women, careless of their surroundings, passed and
repassed without so much as a glance at it. We too passed on through
the village, and witnessed the nakedness of its misery. Men desponding,
bowed, and paralysed by want, women nude in their rags, with matted
hair and shrivelled features, wandered restlessly like witches, naked
children with big bellies and swollen feet turned up their deep sunk
eyes with an unmeaning stare as we disturbed them at their morning meal
of wild seed grasses and unripe ears of corn. The scene was the most
frightful we had anywhere seen, and the roadside deposits of undigested
grass and weeds, told of the dire straits the surviving population
endures.

We passed on from this scene of suffering, and alighted under the shade
of some willow-trees fringing a water-course beyond the village, and
there awaited the arrival of our baggage, which by some mistake had taken
the wrong road, and was passing our stage, as we rightly concluded by the
dust rising on the plain some miles off. Shukrullah Beg galloped after
them, and brought them back about midday, all more or less knocked up by
the heat of the sun.

In the afternoon I had a quantity of bread prepared and distributed
to the poor villagers. The frantic struggles for its possession, the
fighting and biting and screaming that followed, decided me not to
attempt such a mode of relief again. I had had thirty or forty men and
women and children seated in a row preparatory to the distribution.
But the bread was no sooner brought forward than they all rushed on
Shukrullah Beg and the two muleteers bearing the bread, and nearly tore
the clothes off their backs. They dropped their loads, and extricating
themselves as best they could, left the crowd to fight it out amongst
themselves. And they certainly set to work with the ferocity of wild
beasts, and the bread, of which there was a sackful, was torn from hand
to hand, and fought over till much of it was destroyed.

_15th June._—Míla Gird to Hamadán, thirty-six miles, and halt a day. We
set out shortly before midnight by a westerly route along the plain to
the foot of the hills, and then turned south-west to Hamadán, at the foot
of the snow-topped Alwand mountain. At about seven miles we reached a
range of low hills, and beyond them passed over a long stretch of pasture
downs, a dreary solitude, without a sign of life for miles. At another
seven miles we passed the roadside hamlet of Durguz, and three miles
farther on a decayed village, which we were told had been depopulated by
the famine. As it stood close to the road, I turned aside to visit it,
and witnessed a scene that baffles description, and, from what we heard,
is but too common in this part of the country.

The village (its name I omitted to note at the time, and have since
forgotten) contained about a hundred and fifty houses, but only five of
them were now tenanted. The rest were all deserted, and many of them were
falling to ruin. In one of the now still and voiceless streets I passed
a middle-aged man, apparently in the last stage of starvation. He was
propped in a sitting posture against a wall, with his lank withered arms
crossed in front to support his shrivelled legs from weighing upon his
misshaped feet and swollen ankles. His sickly-looking face, with puffed
cheeks, drawn lips, and sunken eyes, rested on his knees, and as we rode
past he had not the energy to move or beg a morsel of bread. I threw
him a _kran_, but, without a motion towards it, he merely gasped out,
“_Nán, bidih nán!_” (“Bread, give me bread!”) A little way on a horrible
stink declared the existence of a putrid corpse in the tenantless houses
around; and outside the village, on the edge of a small patch of ripening
corn, we found the remnant of the population, already at this early hour
(it was only four o’clock) staying the pangs of their hunger by literally
grazing the green grass. They were three or four hag-like women, and as
many half-grown lads; and as they plucked the ears of bearded corn, they
chewed and swallowed them beard and all.

At four miles farther on we crested an upland, and then sloped down to
the delightful valley of Hamadán. Its green sward, yellowing crops, and
gardens dark in the luxuriance of their foliage, presented a picture of
happiness and prosperity strangely reversed by the cruel reality. On
a hill slope overlooking this crest of upland we observed a couple of
small military tents. In front of them were seated three or four _sarbáz_
of the guard, stationed here to protect the road from depredation by
the hungry peasantry around. Lower down the slope we passed a party of
Hamadánis, driving their oxen and asses in the direction whence we had
come. They were almost all armed, indicating the insecure state of the
country here, for they are the first armed people (other than military)
we have met in all our journey from the eastern frontier.

Our road across the valley led past Surkhabad over a river crossed by
a masonry bridge of five arches, and then by Shivím to the city, where
we found accommodation in the post-house. We arrived at 7.47 A.M., and
at this hour the thermometer rose to 71° Fah. At daybreak on the march
it was so low as 48° Fah. Hamadán is an extensive city, delightfully
situated at the foot of the Alwand. In the nooks and hollows extending
along the base of the mountain, and some way up its bare rocky slopes,
are situated a number of picturesque little hamlets, buried from view in
their surrounding vineyards and orchards; and in the valley stretching
away to the west is a continuous succession of corn-fields, fruit
gardens, and villages, amidst which flows a considerable stream fed by
numerous little rills coming down from the hills. Altogether the scenery
is very charming, and the snowy heights of the mountain above add a
feature as pleasing to view as it is refreshing to the senses. The
ground, too, is classic. Here stood the ancient Ecbatana, whose mouldy
soil yields a variety of ancient relics, Median, Grecian, and early Arab
signets, seals, and rings, with coins, beads, and sculptures. Here too
are shown the tombs of Esther and Mordecai, and of Avicenna, the Arabian
philosopher and physician.

The present city occupies the depression and slopes of a hollow at the
foot of the mountain, and is said to contain nine thousand houses. Its
situation affords facilities for drainage, but is objectionable on
the score of ventilation. The climate, however, is described as very
salubrious, although its winter is a rigorous season, as may be well
understood from its elevation at 6162 feet above the sea. The surrounding
country is pretty and productive, and in prosperous times the place must
be a delightful residence, which it certainly is not now.

The population of the city was reckoned at fifty thousand before the
famine, and is now estimated at half that number, but I don’t think
there can be so many as fifteen thousand. The place was the centre of
a considerable trade, especially with Russia by Resht on the Caspian,
and had a numerous colony of Jews. It now appears to be utterly ruined.
Hardly a decently-dressed man is to be seen, and nothing is to be got in
its bazárs; even our cattle were with difficulty supplied with fodder
and grain. The city swarms with famishing beggars, and our lodging in
the post-house was besieged by crowds of them, whom it was impossible to
satisfy. We were prevented moving outside the walls of the post-house
through fear of them, for, as Shukrullah Beg warned us, they were in
a dangerous mood, and if I ventured into the city on foot, I should
certainly have the clothes torn off my back, and might possibly lose my
life—neither very pleasant alternatives; so I curbed the promptings of
curiosity at the dictates of discretion, and fed my would-be assailants
with bread, the distribution going on through a hole in the gateway, by
way of protection against assault.

A good deal of wine is made at this place. The white is something like
hock, and the red like claret. The samples brought to us, however, were
of very inferior quality and crude flavour, but were as good as one could
expect at the rate of tenpence a quart, which was probably double the
market price.

_17th June._—Hamadán to Asadabad, thirty-two miles. We set out at 3.30
A.M., and passed through the northern quarters of the city, where is a
covered bazár in a state of dilapidation. Its shops are mostly empty and
tenantless, the streets are choked with refuse and filth of sorts, and
the air is loaded with abominable stinks. The dress, appearance, and
condition of the people we met was in keeping with their surroundings.
Beyond the city we passed through an old cemetery, crowded with handsome
tombstones of the Arab period. Some were carved out of splendid slabs
of white marble, and others were formed of massive blocks of granite
and sandstone, all from the mountain overlooking. Farther on, clearing
a number of vineyards and orchards, we came to the open country, and
following the path skirting the foot of the mountain, passed several
villages, and crossed many brisk little streams from the hill slopes,
some of them by masonry bridges, till, at about fourteen miles, we came
to a branching of the road. The branch to the left goes direct over a
high ridge of Alwand, and was taken by our baggage as being the shortest
route; the other winds over lesser heights of the same ridge farther to
the westward.

We followed the latter, and passing the castellated village of Zaghár,
entered amongst low hills. Here our route changed from W.N.W. to
south-west, and crossing two lesser ridges, at about twenty-six miles
from Hamadán brought us to the crest of a watershed, from which we looked
down on the hill-locked valley of Asadabad. Here the aneroid figured
22·38, giving the elevation at about 7525 feet above the sea, and 1363
feet above Hamadán. The road is very good and easy. It was made two years
ago for the Sháh’s journey to Karbalá. The soil is light and fertile,
and corn crops cover the hill slopes. The rock is a soft friable slate,
traversed by great veins of quartz.

The descent is by an easy gradient in view of the high snowy range of
Nahwand away to the south. At the foot of the descent we came to a wide
boulder-strewn ravine, over the surface of which were scattered great
gabions and fascines, the relics of a disruptured dam built across the
ravine to retain its floods for purposes of irrigation. Some few weeks
ago a violent flood from the hills above burst through this dam, and
inundated the town of Asadabad, destroying several of its houses, and
causing much loss of life and property.

On arrival at the town, a few miles farther on, we found the streets had
been furrowed by the rush of waters, the height of which was plainly
marked on the walls by a water-line two feet above the level of the
street. The town wears a wretched, desolate look, and a gloomy silence
reigns over it. We put up at the post-house, which we found deserted
and in a filthy state. We could procure no barley for our cattle here,
a decided hardship after their long march; and our followers had to go
on half rations, owing to the unwillingness of the people to sell their
bread. Asadabad is said to contain five hundred houses, but only two
hundred are occupied. I saw no beggars here, and the people appeared in
much better plight than we had anywhere yet seen.

Our next stage was twenty-five miles to Kangawár. The night air in
Asadabad was close, oppressive, and steamy, probably owing to the action
of a hot sun during the day (a thermometer placed in its direct rays rose
to 142° Fah.) on its soaked soil. For so soon as we got out on the plain
beyond the town, the early morning air struck cold and damp.

We set out at 2.40 A.M., and proceeded over a level plain south by west,
along the line of telegraph posts. The plain is girt on all sides by
high hills, and presents a green sheet of corn-fields and meadows, over
which are scattered many villages. We passed six or seven dessicated and
putrefying corpses on the road, and overtook several small parties of
destitutes, forty or fifty people in all, dragging their withered limbs
slowly along. Men, women, and children were eating from whisps of unripe
corn, plucked from the roadside fields, to stave off the bitter end that
was fast creeping upon them. There is nobody to help them, and they
themselves are past begging.

At about half-way we passed Mandarabad, a collection of twenty or thirty
huts round fortified walls enclosing an ancient tumulus, and covered with
storks’ nests. Here we found the corpse of a woman lying across the road,
at the edge of a _kárez_ stream supplying the village with water.

Farther on we passed a little roadside hamlet, and beyond it, crossing
a swampy rivulet by a masonry bridge, entered low hills. Passing over
these, we entered the Kangawár valley, and turning westward along a hill
skirt blooming with flowers and whole fields of wild hollyhock, and at
8.20 A.M. arrived at Kangawár post-house.

The valley is rich in crops, and covered with villages. Most of them are
more or less depopulated, and the people have yet a month to wait before
the growing corn will be ready for the sickle. Meanwhile, how many must
perish! The town, which is said to contain five hundred houses, half of
which are empty, is indescribably filthy, and swarms with beggars, many
of whom are dying curled up on the dung-heaps obstructing the roads. Cold
and starvation together must soon put an end to their sufferings, for the
night air at this elevation of 5125 feet above the sea is chill and damp.

This town appears to occupy the site of some more ancient city. On
an eminence in its midst, and at the foot of some low hills, we saw
the ruins of some ancient temple of vast proportions and very solid
build. Six round monolith pillars on a corniced basement still exist in
position, and another lies prostrate before the pile. Each pillar, so far
as I could see between the intervening houses, is of solid limestone,
about twelve feet high and four feet diameter. Nobody could tell us
anything about the history of this ruin.

_19th June._—Kangawár to Sahnah, twenty-three miles. Departure, 3.45
A.M.—route south-west, by a good though stony road, winding up and
down between hills all the way, their slopes bare rock, but the skirts
covered with a profusion of flowering plants, that perfume the air with
their fragrance. Overtook several parties of travellers on their way to
Kirmánshah. They had been waiting for several days for a caravan, and
took advantage of my arrival to proceed with my party. They kept with us
all the way, but held themselves aloof from our people at each stage.

At half-way we came to the Kotal Sahnah or “Pass of Sahnah.” Its top
is called Gardan Búmsúrkh, or the “red-earthed ridge,” from the colour
of the soil. Its elevation is 5800 feet above the sea. Here our course
changed to due west, and the descent at four miles brought us to the
spring and hamlet of Sarab, the first water met from Kangawár. At six
miles farther, we reached Sahnah, and finding its post-house in ruins and
its _sarae_ yet incomplete, were glad to pass on from the scenes of its
misery to a garden on the outskirts, where we camped under the shade of
some magnificent elm-trees. Around us are vineyards and corn crops, the
latter ripe and being cut.

On our way through the town, we passed several beggars lying in the
streets, and moaning pitifully. During the day we have seen at least
sixty poor wretches, mostly women and half-grown youths, who cannot
live another month, I should say, even if they were now provided with
food, to such a state of bloodless dropsy are they reduced. All the
afternoon, tattered famished wretches hovered around our camp. Amongst
them, in strange contrast, appeared a gaily-dressed, active, and rather
good-looking young wench, with bare legs and short petticoats not
reaching to the knees. A loose open shift of gauze showed a tattooed
bosom and full stomach, whilst her painted cheeks and saucy bearing
advertised her calling.

Some villagers who brought our supplies into camp gave us harrowing
details of the sufferings this village had passed through. “This vineyard
is full of the skeletons,” said one of them, “of those who have died
here eating the leaves and shoots of the vines.” “Come,” he added, “I
will show you some of them.” And at less than thirty paces from where
I was seated at my table, he showed me three human skeletons. I saw
several others farther in amongst the vines, and took advantage of the
opportunity to secure a skull. But none of them being fit to take away,
I asked my guide to fetch me a clean and perfect one. He disappeared
over the wall into the next vineyard, and in less than as many minutes
returned bearing three skulls in his arms. I selected one, and the others
he tossed back amongst the vines we had just left. He told me this
village formerly had two hundred and twenty families, but that not one
hundred of them now remained.

_20th June._—Sahnah to Besitun, eighteen miles. Night cold, clear, and
moonlight—morning air delightful and fresh—midday sun hot. Departure,
three A.M.—route west for two miles to foot of hills, and then south-west
through a fertile valley along the course of the Lolofar river. The
country is crossed by numerous irrigation streams, dotted with many
villages, covered with corn crops, and fragrant with the perfume of
multitudes of pretty flowers.

At the spring-head of Besitun I dismounted, and climbed over the rocks
to look at the wonderful sculptures rescued from their obscurity and set
before the world by Rawlinson, and then proceeded to the village, hardly
five minutes off. The village is a miserable collection of forty or fifty
huts close to a large _sarae_. As we passed the latter on our way to the
post-house, a great wolfish shaggy dog stalked by, head erect, with the
leg and foot of a woman held between his jaws. Some villagers staring at
our party did not even take up a stone to hurl at the brute. We found
the post-house so filthy, and after being swept, sprinkled with water,
and carpeted, so unbearably foul-smelling, that we were obliged to quit
it. A corpse lying at the door of the _sarae_ turned us away from that
too, and we went off to the turfy bank of a little stream hard by, and
there awaited the arrival of our tents and baggage. The midday sun shone
with considerable force, and the plague of flies and musquitoes was most
annoying. A number of diminutive goats panting in the sun’s rays sought
shelter in our tents from their worry and stings.

In different parts of our journey we had fared on what bread the places
respectively produced, and took it, good, bad, and indifferent, as it
came. But here the stuff they brought us was simply uneatable, so black,
gritty, and musty was it. Even our servants refused to eat it, and we
did very well without, aided by the disgust the horrid sights we had
witnessed of themselves produced. An intelligent-looking Persian of this
place came up to me at sunset, when our tents were being struck, and to
my surprise addressed me in very good Hindustani. I learned from him
that he was a Wahabi, and had recently returned from Dacca, where he had
resided two years in the service of a wealthy merchant of that place.
He told me there were no people left in this place except ten or twelve
families of shopkeepers, who kept a small stock of supplies for wayfarers
at the _sarae_.

We slept out, _à la belle étoile_, under the majestic shadow of Besitun.
The lights and shades on the face of the precipitous rock, reflected by
the rays of a full moon, were very magnificent, and I long gazed at the
glorious steep, watching the grotesque phantom forms produced by the
flitting shadows stirred by the breeze; and at last, overcome by fatigue,
fell asleep dreaming of the ancient peoples whose mark, living on the
rock, hallows the place with a mysterious interest.

_21st June._—Besitun to Kirmánshah, twenty-eight miles. Marched at one
A.M.—route westerly, at first through a narrow valley skirting Besitun
hills, and then away across an open undulating country, covered with
ripe corn crops and villages and Kurd camps. As we struck away from the
hills, a splendid meteor shot across the sky horizontally, and burst
only a few hundred yards from us, in a shower of most beautiful stars of
purple, gold, and silver hue, just a “roman candle.”

At six o’clock, crossing the Cárású river by a masonry bridge of six
arches, we alighted at a dilapidated _sarae_ for our baggage to come
up. Here we were joined by Abdurrahím, a very fair and intelligent
youth of eighteen years, a son of Agha Hasan, the British Wakiluddaula
at Kirmánshah. He had been sent out, attended by a single horseman, to
meet and escort us to the quarters prepared for us in the city. Up to
this point I had ridden my dromedary, but here changed to my horse, as
the more fitting mode of entering the city, though he was in such poor
condition from his long and rapid marches, that he must have attracted
as much attention from the punctilious as the camel would have excited
comment. Kirmánshah has a clean, neat, and agreeable appearance as one
approaches from the east, and is decidedly the most flourishing place
we have yet seen in Persia. As we neared its walls, we passed a vast
collection of new graves, filled during the last two years with the
bodies of fifteen thousand people who have died here. Most of them, it
is said, had come in from the surrounding country to find food in the
capital of the province, but found instead a stone in place of bread.

In the city we alighted at some very dilapidated quarters adjoining
the residence of the Wakiluddaula. The rooms were nicely carpeted with
rich felts, and furnished with tables and chairs and cots. Soon after
our arrival a couple of servants brought over tea and sweets for our
refreshment; and the young lad returning from a visit to his father,
said the Wakiluddaula begged his absence might be excused. He was laid
up with a fit of ague, but he hoped on its passing off to call in the
afternoon. I begged he would not take the trouble, and thanked him for
his arrangements for our comfort, which were all very satisfactory.

Towards sunset Agha Hasan was announced. He walked across the court
supported by two servants, and really looked very ill. With him came
Mirzá Sadíc Khán, Hakím Bashi, a physician who had walked the London
hospitals, and spoke English remarkably well. He told us we had now got
over the worst part of our journey, and that all ahead would be easy
travelling. His words were very strangely falsified, as the sequel will
show.

We halted here a day, and I took the opportunity to return the visit of
the Wakiluddaula, and inquire after his health. He came out to the court
to receive me, and seemed much pleased at the attention. He told me
that I should most likely have some difficulty in crossing the Turkish
frontier, as reports had recently been received of disturbances on the
road. He had applied to the governor here for a special passport for
me, and would himself write to the commandant on the frontier, who was
a personal friend—a service for which I afterwards had reason to be
grateful.

The Wakil in conversation told me that the famine might now be considered
as past. Prices had fallen greatly since the cutting of the crops, and
would soon reach the usual rates. He said Persia was utterly ruined, and
had lost nearly half her population, and he did not think the country
could recover its prosperity for fifty years under favourable conditions.
Society was disorganised; no two men in the country could trust each
other, or combine for any good. Turkey, he said, though looked down on by
Persia, was far ahead in civilisation. I took my leave much pleased with
his attentions, and sent him a revolver as a present before starting on
my forward journey, and he sent me a couple of small carpets in return.

Whilst here, we rode over to see the Tác o Bostám sculptures, and
returned by the garden of Imáduddaula. The reservoir at the spring-head
at Tác o Bostám is a charming spot, and the sculptures, so fully
described and delineated by Sir H. Rawlinson, are well worth a visit.
Kirmánshah is a very fertile province, and the city in better times was
very populous and flourishing. We did not go over the bazárs, as it was
considered unsafe to do so for fear of the beggars offering us insult or
annoyance. I was disappointed at this, as I wished to see some Kurdistan
carpets, which are here procurable of the best quality.




CHAPTER XIII.


_23d June._—Kirmánshah to Mydasht, twenty-three miles. Owing to the
promptitude of the Wakiluddaula in meeting my wishes and expediting my
journey (for I had told him my object was to reach Basrah in time for
the first July steamer to Bombay), we were enabled to set out from the
city at ten o’clock last night. I had given the order to load and start
at six P.M., but the mulemen rebelled, led away their mules, and caused
much trouble. Shukrullah Beg, however, advanced them some money, and by
alternate threats and conciliations, persuaded them to return; and just
then an escort of four horsemen arriving from the governor with letters
for the commandant of the troops at Zuháb, I left three of them in charge
of the baggage, with directions to bring it on so soon as loaded, and
with the other as guide, set out from the city without further delay,
calculating that my departure would decide the mulemen on their course,
and hasten their movements.

After clearing the city and the low ridges to its west, we halted awhile
for the rest of our party, who presently came up and joined us. The
change from the close air and foul smells of the city to the pure fresh
breezes on the open plain was most agreeable, and quickly dispelled the
headaches, nausea, and feverish malaise most of us complained of in the
filthy pent-up courts of our temporary residence. If the choice were
mine, I should never enter these filthy Persian towns and villages,
but camp under the shade of the trees in the gardens and vineyards
surrounding all such habitations. In this time of famine and pestilence,
one never knows what sickness may have occurred in the empty houses
we took up our quarters in, whilst their state of neglect and impure
atmosphere only suggested very disturbing fancies, and speculations we
had no means of correcting.

We reached Mydasht Sarae at 4.30 A.M. The morning air was so cold that we
were glad of a fire to warm ourselves, and the midday sun was so hot that
we took off our coats as superfluous. At daylight, the temperature was as
low as 40° Fah., and in the middle of the day it rose to 136° Fah. in the
sun’s rays, and 88° Fah. in the shelter of the _sarae_.

At half-way on our march, descending a long winding gully that opens
on to a plain covered with some crops, we met a very large caravan of
pilgrims and merchants on their way to Kirmánshah from Karbalá and
Baghdad. There were nearly two thousand mules, camels, and asses, and
fully as many men and women. We heard the sounds of their approach some
minutes before we met. The escort with me and Shukrullah Beg were at
first disconcerted by the sounds, and hastily collected our baggagers and
party into a close compact column, and moved cautiously down the slope.
Presently, on turning a rock, we were suddenly challenged by a party of
four or five horsemen.[4] “It’s all right,” said Shukrullah Beg, “let
us go on in the order we are now in. The caravan is a large one, and we
may get confused with those in it.” The warning was quite necessary, for
the caravan was the largest I have ever seen, and we were fully half an
hour passing each other. Amongst the crowd were many mule-litters bearing
veiled ladies. I counted one string of thirty-five out of several others.

I rode my dromedary on this march, and was, in the dim light of dawn,
taken for a pilgrim by the people of the caravan, and received many a
“_Salám alaik Hájí!_” from those nearest to me. I was so fatigued by the
excitement and wakefulness of the past twenty-four hours, that soon after
arrival at the _sarae_, I fell asleep in front of the fire lighted to
warm our numbed hands and feet, and was for a time dead to the assaults
of the vermin that swarmed all over the place. Their voracity, however,
soon roused me from my slumbers, and I found myself violently attacked by
the hosts of bugs, lice, fleas, spiders, and cockchafers, on whose domain
I had intruded. They punished me so severely that I was glad to beat a
retreat, and take refuge in my own tent, which, the baggage having come
up, I had pitched at once. The delights of a tub and a clean suit can be
better imagined than described.

Our next stage was twenty-eight miles to Hárúnabad. We set out at ten
P.M., and marched all night in a south-westerly direction by a very good
road over three successive ranges of hill, where the path is very stony.
The rocks are limestone and magnesian limestone, and are thickly covered
on their slopes with dwarf oak-trees. Except a small hamlet and a tiny
stream at the first hill pass, called Kotal Cház Zabbú, we passed no
village nor water in all the route. We saw, however, some _ilyát_ camps,
and small patches of corn cultivation in the nooks of the hills.

At five A.M. we arrived at Hárúnabad, a dilapidated village occupied by
only twenty or thirty families. The rest, we were told, had gone off for
the six summer months to their _aylác_ or summer quarters in the hills.
The _kishlác_, or winter quarters on the plain, are now mostly abandoned.
The people here are all Kurds. We found the _sarae_ here (there are no
post-houses on this road west of Kirmánshah) so dirty, and occupied by
such dreadfully unwholesome-looking beggars, that we gladly availed
ourselves of the offer of the chief man in the place to alight at the
residence of the governor, who is at present absent on a tour in the
district.

The house stands on the slope of a laminated limestone ridge, and
overlooks a stream of beautiful clear water, full of fish and tortoises.
It is apparently a new building, and is tastefully decorated with
ornamental plaster. We found the rooms in the upper story quite empty,
but very clean and sweet. The servant in charge of the house spread some
felt carpets on the floor; and I stretched me down, and went to sleep
till our baggage arrived, and the noise of the men woke me.

We hear disquieting reports regarding the safety of the road ahead. The
country about Pul Zuháb is said to be in possession of the Khaleva tribe,
who are now in open rebellion against the authority of the Sháh, by whom
they were, to the number of a thousand families, transported a couple of
years ago from the vicinity of Baghdad to their present settlements on
this frontier. Their cause of dissatisfaction is the attempt to exact
revenue from them. They are described as nomads of very unsettled habits,
and predatory at all times. They possess valuable mares like the Baloch,
and mounted on them, they now harass the country from Pul Zuháb to Hájí
Cara. They are committed to this course of rebellion on account of a
rupture with the Persian Government.

It appears that the governor of Karriud, Malik Nyáz Khán, went amongst
their camps to collect the revenue; in a dispute at some tents, he was
set upon and killed. The Sháh’s troops were consequently brought out to
operate against the tribe. They have captured some principal men and
their families, and have dispersed the rest of the camps into the hills.

At 10.30 P.M., having made the guardian of our quarters happy, and
requested him to convey our thanks to our absent host, Sartip Muhammad
Hasan, Khalora, we set out from Hárúnabad, and after a march of
twenty-four miles, at five A.M. arrived at Karriud. Here we found the
_sarae_ full; and after wandering about a while, hired a house on the
skirts of the town for the day. Our route was W.N.W., by a good road over
and between low hills covered with dwarf oak-trees. In the glens and
hollows we passed many _ilyát_ camps, and patches of rich corn.

Karriud is a charming spot, and its air is delightfully pure and
refreshing. The town contains about two thousand houses, and is
romantically situated in a deep hollow between two great hills of
magnesian limestone. The elevation here is 5212 feet above the sea, and
the night air is decidedly cold. Yet as we rode into the town we found
the people sleeping on the house-tops, curled up in their coverlets. The
tramping of our horses aroused some sleeping beauties, who, rubbing their
eyes, stared at us with undisguised surprise, and shook their slumbering
lords to take note of the new-comers.

Some of the young women—they were all fair complexioned, I observed—had
very comely features, and fine turned limbs, which showed to advantage
in contrast with their greasy and tattered attire. The town has a
very flourishing look, and is crowded with a bustling population,
who, notwithstanding their dirty habits and slovenly dress, appear
comfortable and prosperous. We have evidently left the land of misery
and starvation, for we have not seen so thriving and happy a scene since
we entered Persian territory.

The bread we got here was made from the newly-reaped corn, and was simply
delicious, after the coarse, mouldy, and gritty stuff we had been eating
during the past fortnight. We saw lots of cattle here, a new feature on
the scene; and, yet more surprising, some veritable domestic pigs. One
of them, indeed, scared away from its fellows by our appearance, trotted
ahead of us into the town, heralding our approach by a succession of
grunts.

_26th June._—Pul Karriud to Zuháb, thirty-two miles. We left Karriud at
8.45 P.M. yesterday, and proceeded W.N.W. through a narrow valley, rising
gently for eight miles. Here we descended by a rocky path into a deep
winding defile, the sides of which are thickly covered with oak-trees.
The road, everywhere rough and difficult, passes from side to side across
a boulder-strewn ravine, in which are pools trickling from one to the
other down the slope. At about half-way down the pass, we came to Myán
Tágh, a village of about a couple of hundred houses. Here we found a
regiment of Persian infantry or _sarbáz_, just returned from Pul Zuháb,
where it appears they have had an encounter with the enemy. The men were
scattered about the road for three miles beyond the village in great
disorder, and without a semblance of discipline. Some of them chaffed our
men, and asked what we had with us that we should go on when they were in
retreat from Pul Zuháb. Their merriment and gibes, however, were at once
silenced by Shukrullah Beg, who authoritatively announced that we were
_mámúr i daulat i Inglisia_ (on the service of the English Government).
The words acted with magical effect. Those near us stood at “attention,”
and others as we passed on touched their caps.

Shukrullah Beg now told me we should have trouble ahead. There was no
doubt, he said, about the Khaleva rebellion. A party of four hundred of
them had only yesterday plundered Pul Zuháb, and were still in force
in the vicinity. He was telling me what he had heard from the _sarbáz_
(that they were brought back to the shelter of these hills to wait for
reinforcements to attack the enemy), when his story was verified by a
long stream of people hurrying up the defile with their asses and oxen
bearing their household goods and chattels.

At the steep descent of the pass where the road zigzags down to Páyín
Tágh, we had some difficulty in passing the stream set uphill against us.
The poor fugitives were driving their cattle and puffing and panting as
if the enemy were in hot pursuit. Some of their bullocks, taking fright
at our party, became obstreperous, threw their loads, and charged in
amongst us, producing no small confusion, and considerable risk of a roll
down the precipice.

There were about four hundred of these Kurds coming up the pass. Many of
them expressed surprise at our going down the hill when we saw they were
running away up it. One hardy old dame in particular, whose bullock with
all her worldly goods had dashed up the hillside to escape our approach,
was especially loud and garrulous, and harangued us from the turn at a
zig in words I did not understand. Shukrullah Beg explained by saying the
old lady was facetious, and asked if we thought ourselves lions that we
were going down to face the robbers who had defeated even the _sarbáz_?
These Kurds were very poor and dirty people; some of them were hideously
ugly. Many of them had a sickly, unwholesome look, and in the light of
dawning day, I saw that ophthalmia afflicted most of their children and
young people.

The descent to Páyín Tágh is long and steep, by a stony road that zigzags
down the mountain slope. Above the path to the right stands a solitary
fire-temple, in a fairly preserved state of ruin. Away to the left of the
descent is a very deep and narrow chasm, that drains the Myán Tágh defile
and hills to the plain below. Seen in the waning moonlight on one side
the descent, and in the growing gleams of a rising sun on the other, it
looked a very remarkable natural phenomenon, and appeared like a great
rent or fissure in the rocky barrier that closes the defile in this
direction.[5]

Onwards from Páyín Tágh our road led along a gradually expanding valley,
and at about ten miles brought us to Pul Zuháb. The view on looking back
is peculiar and strikingly curious. The hills rise abruptly from the
plain, and form a well-defined barrier, that extends west and east, a
great buttress supporting the tablelands of Persia against the valley of
the Tigris on the one hand, and the littoral of the Persian Gulf on the
other.

We arrived at Pul Zuháb, or Saribul, as it is also called, from the
bridge here over the Alwand river, at 7.30 A.M., and finding the _sarae_
occupied by a regiment of _sarbáz_, pitched our tents on the bank of
the river below the bridge. The height of this place is 2220 feet above
the sea, and 2992 below that of Karriud. The change in the temperature
was as great at it was sudden. At two P.M. the thermometer rose to 102°
Fah. in my tent, and placed in the rays of the sun, went up to 140° Fah.
At midnight it fell to 60° Fah. in the open air. At Karriud the midday
temperature was only 79° Fah., and in the early morning only 50° Fah.,
though the sun’s rays affected the mercury there as much as they did
here, raising it to 134° Fah.

Soon after our arrival here I sent Shukrullah Beg with the passport
received from the governor of Kirmánshah to the head man here, to arrange
for an escort to proceed with my party in the morning. He returned an
hour later saying the official here would have nothing to say to the
passport, as it was addressed to the frontier officer at Zuháb, a town
said to be two _farsakhs_ distant in a north-west direction.

This was rather embarrassing intelligence, and I was in doubt as to
what course I should adopt, when some further information elicited
from Shukrullah Beg decided me in my line of action. He told me that
the officer now in charge of the frontier at Zuháb, had only just been
appointed by the Sháh’s government, in place of the local hereditary
chief, who had been recently killed by the Khaleva (Arab) rebels, and
that he was a Persian of Tehran. The commandant of the troops here was a
brother of the murdered chief, and claimed to succeed him in the local
government. But as he had been denied his right, he was not on good terms
with the new incumbent, and would make a difficulty in carrying out any
orders received from him, and that it was probable I might be detained
here a week or more, till reference was made to Kirmánshah.

The very thought of this was more than I could bear. I therefore sent
Shukrullah Beg to the commandant of the troops, who it seems was also
governor of this place, with instructions to convey my compliments, and
inform him that I was travelling on the service of Government, that it
was important I should not be unnecessarily delayed, and that it was my
intention to march towards Casri Shirin at sunset. After considerable
delay, Shukrullah Beg returned, and reported that the commandant had
received and understood my message, that he said he had received no
authority to escort my party, and could not let me proceed, as the road
ahead was altogether unsafe, and that he would call on me in the course
of the afternoon to explain how matters stood.

Shortly before sunset a messenger came across the river to announce that
the commandant, Murád Ali Khán, was coming over to see me. I said he was
welcome, and meanwhile ordered some tea to be prepared, and arranged
my camp-stools and boxes as seats. He dismounted at the bridge, and
attended by four or five others, walked over to where I was seated in
front of my tent. I rose and shook hands with him, and thanked him for
taking the trouble to come over, and gave him a seat. He then introduced
his brother, Karím Khán, commandant of the cavalry stationed here, and
motioned him to a seat; the others stood at the edge of the carpet spread
before us. A pause followed, and then we bowed at each other politely,
expressing much, but saying nothing. He then looked round, and observed
that we were a large party, and had a good deal of baggage. “Yes,” I
said, “they are natives of India, and are returning to their country with
me.” Another pause followed, and the tea opportunely came round to fill
a threatening hiatus. I apologised for the absence of the _calyán_, as I
had none with me, but offered a cheroot in its place, and set the example
in its use. He lighted one and his brother another, and then we began
to talk more at ease. I then said that my _mirakhor_ Shukrullah Beg had
led me to understand that there would be some little delay in getting an
escort here, owing to an informality in the address of my passport, but
that I was desirous of avoiding unnecessary delay, and purposed marching
onwards this evening.

“Quite true,” he said, “the passport is not addressed to me, but as
I have received a letter by express messenger from the Wakiluddaula
at Kirmánshah, requesting me to further your progress, and as he is a
personal friend of mine, I am ready to take you across to the Turkish
frontier, and I will there ask you for a letter certifying to my having
done so.”

“Certainly,” I said, “this is very good. Agha Hasan,” I added, “told me
at Kirmánshah that he would write to you, and that I should be saved
inconvenience thereby. Will the escort be ready to accompany me this
evening? My camp is ready to march at an hour’s notice.”

“No,” he said, “you cannot move this evening. You require a strong
escort, and it will not be ready till morning. I myself and Karím Khán
will come over for you at daybreak, and we must march together with every
precaution. There are four hundred rebel Khaleva (Arabs) on the road.
They plundered yonder village,” pointing to a sacked and roofless hamlet
a mile off, “only yesterday.”

“Thanks,” I said, rising; “I shall be ready for you at daybreak.”

I shook hands with each, and they both retired with their attendants.
They are both fair men, with good honest features, of simple manners and
plain outspoken speech. After they left, Shukrullah Beg told me that my
determination to go on had alarmed the commandant, for he did not like to
stop me, and could not let me proceed unprotected, as the road was really
dangerous; but he doubted his promise to start in the morning.

About noon, a caravan from Khánakín had arrived here, escorted by a
party of horsemen. They camped on the river bank alongside of ourselves,
and from them our people heard all sorts of exaggerated reports as to the
dangers of the road. But it was true they had been attacked yesterday
beyond Casri Shirin, and a string of camels cut off from the _káfila_ by
these Khaleva rebels. I determined, however, to abide by the commandant’s
promise, and gave the order to march at daylight.

_27th June._—Pul Zuháb to Casri Shirin, twenty-four miles. At three A.M.
our camp was struck and all ready to start, but no sign of the escort
appeared. I sent Shukrullah Beg over to the commandant to say I was
ready, but he returned presently with a reply from some subordinate that
he was asleep. I waited till four A.M., and then moved off, sending a
Persian _sarbáz_, of whom six or seven had been standing sentry over
our camp during the night, to inform the commandant that I was going on
slowly, and the escort could follow.

We went west by north across the valley, passing _en route_ the village
plundered by the rebels yesterday, up to some low hill ridges. Here we
were overtaken by a party of horsemen under Karím Khán. He galloped
up, saluted in military fashion, and said the commandant was following
with the infantry, and that we had better wait his arrival here. We
dismounted, halted the baggage, and I gave the cavalry leader a cheroot
to while away the time, whilst we watched the infantry coming along the
plain. They were a very ragged-looking set, armed with long rifles,
fired from a forked rest attached by a hinge to the barrel, and just
like those used by Afghan mountaineers. They came along at a good pace,
with no attempt at formation, but with a light springy step and very
merry tempers. As they approached, the commandant urged his horse up the
slope, and saluting as his brother had done, laughingly observed that my
punctuality had roused him an hour sooner than he intended. A preferred
cheroot, however, turned the current of his thoughts from his curtailed
slumbers, and remounting, we proceeded in the best of humours.

Our route led for twenty miles across a rough uninhabited country,
traversed in all directions by low ridgy banks, here and there rising to
the proportions of hillocks. The infantry trotted along on each side of
our baggage; and the cavalry, from front and rear, sent out parties to
the heights on either side to reconnoitre the country. At about seventeen
miles we came to a great wall, built across the outlet of a small
hollow. The stones were of large size, like those of the Pyramids. This
structure, we were told, was originally an aqueduct from the river Alwand
to Casri Shirin; and a little farther on we came to the river itself, a
sprightly little stream, with a fringe of tall reeds on either bank. The
sun was now shining hotly, and added to the thirsty sensations excited
by the parched arid look of the land; so we turned aside to it to water
our cattle and allow the men to slake their thirst. Frequent warnings
from our escort hurried us on again; and we proceeded along the line of
telegraph posts, here thrown down and the wires cut by the rebels. We
passed through the ruins of a great fort and palace of very ancient date,
and entered the village beyond. As we passed through these ruins, there
was a commotion amongst our horsemen ahead, and several of them galloped
off to the village beyond; and when we emerged from them, we found the
_Sarbáz-Khána_ or “barracks” overlooking the little town was covered with
soldiers perched on the domes of its roof, eagerly scanning the country
around.

Our party hastened their paces, and in a few minutes we entered Casri
Shirin, or “the palace of Shirin,” named after the ruins close by, and
were accommodated in an empty house adjoining a _sarae_, in which our
cattle and followers found shelter. We had hardly settled down for
the day, when a party of _sarbáz_ brought in a villager who had been
shot through the lungs above the heart not an hour before. A party of
Khaleva had swept past the village just as we arrived, and drove off the
cattle some villagers were tending at graze. These men, though unarmed,
attempted to resist, and one of them was shot. The advance of our party
had caught sight of the rebels as they went off with their booty, and
hence the commotion above alluded to.

I did what I could for the poor fellow brought to me, but he was fast
bleeding to death, and I told his friends that he had not many hours
to live. They bore him away to his home, only a few houses off, and
later on towards the evening the sounds of women wailing and beating
their breasts announced that he was out of his suffering in this world.
In the afternoon, Murád Ali and his brother Karím came to see me, and
congratulate us on having made the journey so far in safety. The former
said that had he met these people he must have fought them; and as they
were much stronger than his own force in numbers, he could not have
driven them off without loss. His party with us consisted of sixty
horsemen, and a hundred and twenty _sarbáz_; whilst the rebels were
reckoned at four hundred, all mounted on hardy and active Arab mares.

Before leaving, Murád Ali produced a paper for me to sign. It was written
in Persian, and was to the purport that he had escorted my party in
safety and comfort from Pul Zuháb to the Turkish outpost at Khánakín. I
returned the paper, saying I was quite satisfied with the escort to this,
and would sign it on arrival at Khánakín. He here explained that he could
not enter the Turkish outpost with us, and I could not sign it on the
road. To this I replied, that there could be no difficulty on that score,
as I carried pen and ink with me, and would sign it on the road outside
the Turkish post. He looked rather disappointed, so I told Shukrullah Beg
to explain in a friendly way that I could not certify to a service as
completed when it was only half accomplished.

I then presented him with a telescope, and his brother with a revolver,
explaining that I should not have an opportunity on the road of offering
these tokens of my thankfulness for his kindness, and also begged he
would allow me to make a small present in money to each of the _sarbáz_
who had formed our escort. This last arrangement was objected to on the
score of its being contrary to custom, but the objection was readily
withdrawn on my representing it as an exceptional case. They both seemed
well pleased, and after arranging that we should start at midnight, took
their leave, and as a last request begged that I would not move till they
came for me, and I promised compliance.

_28th June._—Casri Shirin to Khánakín, twenty-four miles. We were ready
at the appointed hour, but our escort did not make their appearance
till after one o’clock, and it was nearly two A.M. before our party
was arranged in marching order and finally started. Our route at first
was across a rough raviny tract along the course of the Alwand river,
and then for several miles over a wild and hummocky country, which had
frequently been raided by the rebels. We were hurried across this bit
of the road very quickly, as it was feared the enemy might be concealed
amongst the inequalities of the ground on either hand, and it was as
much as our _sarbáz_ could do to keep pace with us, though they trotted
along manfully.

Soon after the day had broken, and as the rising sun was slanting rays
of light upon the country, dimly visible in the departing obscurity, we
came upon the wreck of the _káfila_ that had been plundered yesterday.
The road was strewed with bits of paper and cardboard boxes, and on
either side lay deal boxes smashed to pieces, and tin cases torn open.
Our _sarbáz_ hastily ransacked these, and ran along bearing cones of
loaf-sugar under their arms and bottles of claret stowed away in their
coat fronts. Some got hold of packets of letter-paper, and others of
boxes of French _bonbons_. As we got on, tiring of their loads, they hid
them away under roadside bushes, to take them up again on their return.

At about sixteen miles we came to the Turko-Persian boundary, marked by
a bare gravelly ridge, slightly more elevated than the others, that form
the most characteristic feature of the country. Here the commandant,
Murád Ali, with the escort of _sarbáz_, took leave of us. He produced
the paper he showed me yesterday, and asked me to sign it, saying his
brother, Karím Khán, with the sixty horsemen, would see us safe into
Khánakín. “Then,” said I, “make the paper over to him, and I will sign it
there.” He readily assented, and accompanied us to the foot of the slope,
and then shaking hands, galloped back to his _sarbáz_ on the crest of the
ridge.

We had proceeded about three miles over a gently falling country, thrown
into mounds and ridges of bare gravel, and I was in interesting converse
with some Bukhára pilgrims on their way to Karbalá, who had joined our
party at Casri Shirin, when some signs made by our advanced horsemen
from an eminence ahead of our path made Karím Khán mass us all together
and push on at a trot. “Has anything been seen?” I asked as we trotted
along amidst the dreadful clatter of our mules, who seemed to scent
danger instinctively, and quickened their pace with an alacrity I would
not have given them credit for. “Yes,” he said, “the enemy are on our
flank. Their scouts have been seen.” A little farther on we caught sight
of them. “There they are,” said Karím Khán, pointing to a knot of twelve
or fourteen horsemen about a mile and a half off, as they passed across
a bit of open ground from the shelter of one mound to the concealment
of another. “There are only a dozen of them,” I said; “they cannot harm
us.” “That’s all you see, but there are four hundred of them behind those
knolls. There is a _káfila_ coming out from Khánakín now, and they are
lying in ambush for it. We shall not get back to Casri without a fight.”

Farther on we saw another party of these robbers skulking behind the
mounds a mile or two off the road to the left. But we had now come in
sight of Khánakín. A party of five or six Turkish cavalry with their red
caps stood out against the sky on a mound to the right, and a similar
party did the same on a mound to the left. A mile or two ahead appeared
the green gardens of Khánakín and Hájí Cara, and on the plain outside
stood the snow-white tents of a regiment of Turkish infantry.

Karím Khán’s horsemen reined up on some rising ground to the right to
await the coming _káfila_, and the Khán himself, dismounting, said he
would here take leave of me. I thanked him for his service, signed his
paper, shook hands, and with a “_Khudá háfíz!_” (“God your protector!”),
mounted and proceeded. As we entered Khánakín a large caravan filing out
took the road we had come. Some of the camels were beautiful creatures,
and perfectly white. Behind them followed a long string of pannier-mules,
with their freight of fair Persians, and on either side marched a gay
cavalcade of Persian gentlemen. Bringing up the rear was a mixed crowd of
more humble travellers, menials, and beggars.

They filed by, and we found ourselves before a great _sarae_. Here some
Turkish officials took possession of us, ushered us within its portals,
and informed us the quarantine would last ten days. We were prepared
for this delay, although we had cherished the hope that a clean bill
of health might pass us through without detention. But the rules were
strict, and rigidly observed; we had come from an infected country, and
were consequently pronounced unclean, and only the quarantine could
cleanse us.

It was very cruel, and a sad disappointment, after our long and wearisome
marches to catch a particular steamer, to be here baffled at the very
threshold of our success. There was no hope of release. I saw the Basrah
packet steaming away in the distance, and myself left on the shore; so
resigned myself to the hard logic of facts, and heartily hoped that at
least one of the members of that great congress of European medical men
who met at Constantinople to devise these traps might some day be caught
in this particular snare of his own setting.

Looking around our prison-house, we found three or four parties of
wretched, half-starved pilgrims detained here on their way to Karbalá. In
their dirt and rags they were the very embodiment of poverty and misery.
Turning from them to the quarters at our disposal, the revelation was
still more disgusting. The place had not been swept for ages, and the
floor was inches deep in filth and stable litter. The torments of the
Mydasht Sarae came back vividly to my mind. It was impossible for us
to live here, so I asked to see the doctor in charge of the quarantine.
“He died of fever ten days ago,” said our janitor, “and his successor
has not yet arrived.” I was about to move out of the _sarae_, and pitch
my tent outside, when a Residency _khavass_, who had been kindly sent
forward from Baghdad by the Resident, Colonel C. Herbert, to meet me here
and attend me on the journey onwards, made his appearance with a letter
from his master. Ilyás, for such was his name—_Anglicè_ Elias—hearing my
orders to pitch the tents, here interposed a representation that the heat
and dust outside would be unbearable, and sure to make us all ill. If
permitted, he would secure us quarters in one of the gardens adjoining.
By all means; and away he went on his errand. Presently he returned with
a couple of Turkish officials, who heard our objections to the _sarae_,
and at once led us off to a nice garden at a little distance, where we
pitched our tents under the shade of some mulberry-trees. A guard of
Turkish soldiers was placed round us to prevent communication with the
townspeople, except through the appointed quarantine servants, and we
were left alone to ourselves.

The Bukhára pilgrims who had joined our party at Casri Shirin, and who
had slipped out of the _sarae_ with our baggage, in hopes of sharing the
garden and proceeding onwards with us, were discovered by the quarantine
people, and marched back to their durance. Poor fellows! they pleaded
hard to remain with us, and appealed to me to befriend them; and the
quarantine inspector, who, I must record to his credit, did his utmost to
make his disagreeable duty as little offensive as possible, promised they
should accompany us on our departure hence.

There were three of these Bukhariots. One of them, Hakím Beg, a very
intelligent young man of pleasing manners, gave me some interesting
information regarding his country. He told me he had set out from Bukhára
five months ago with four other friends and two servants. Two of his
party and one servant had died on the road through sickness. The other
two and the servant were those I saw with him. From Karbalá it was their
intention to go to Bombay, and thence home by Peshawar and Kabul.

He spoke in most favourable terms of the Russian rule in Turkestan,
and said their government was just and popular. The Russian officials
he described as kind and liberal, yet stern when necessary, and
declared the people preferred them to their own rulers. There are about
twenty thousand of the people of the country employed in the Russian
service, civil and military, and there is a strong Russian force at
Samarcand—twelve thousand men, he thought. When he left, an expedition
had started eastward to subdue Khokand and Yárkand; and it was generally
given out that in three years time the Amir of Bukhára would resign his
country to the Russians. There were, he reckoned, thirty thousand Persian
captives, all Shia Muhammadans, in the country, which is extremely
populous and fertile. Hundreds had been purchased from their owners and
set at liberty by the Russians. The whole country, including Khiva, would
very soon come under the Russian rule, and then all the captives held as
slaves would be at once liberated. They number between fifty and sixty
thousand. In ten years’ time, he said, the Russians would march to India.

Our quarantine quarters in the garden are insupportably dull and
insupportably hot. The thermometer at noon—it is suspended from the
branch of a mulberry-tree over a little stream of water—ranged from 100°
Fah. to 108° Fah. during the eight days of our stay here. In the sun’s
rays, the mercury rises to 150° Fah., and at night has fallen so low as
64° Fah.

On the 2d July, a flight of locusts settled on the garden. The
townspeople turned out with drums, and shouts, and stones; but their
host was not materially diminished. Their jaws worked steadily with a
sawing noise all night and all the next day, and then they flew away,
leaving the garden a forest of bare sticks, and the ground thick with the
leaves they had nibbled off. Apricot, peach, plum, pomegranate, apple and
mulberry trees are cleared to the bark; and their boughs were weighed
down with the load of the destroying host. The damage done must be very
great. Not a particle of shade is left for us, and the heat is something
dreadful.

_6th July._—We were to have set out on our way this evening, but at the
last moment were informed that our health papers would not be ready till
the morning, so our departure is fixed for to-morrow evening. The doctor
of the Turkish regiment here came to see us. He tells me that typhus
fever is very prevalent in the town, and that one hundred and eighty
people have died of it during the last three months. The Turkish troops
here are a remarkably fine set of men. There is nothing like them in
Persia. They wear the Zouave-pattern jacket, and baggy trousers, with
the red cap. The uniform is white cotton, thick and strong, and spotless
clean; their arms, the Enfield-pattern rifle and a sword-bayonet.

_8th July._—Khánakín to Shahrabad or Sherabad, forty-five miles. Our
health papers were brought to us yesterday afternoon, and we were once
more free. The march was fixed for sunset, and our mules and baggage and
servants were all ready to start at the appointed time, but there was
some delay in the arrival of our escort. Shukrullah Beg, who had become
as helpless and discontented as any one of our party in the quarantine,
now recovered his liberty, but not his former activity and _savoir
faire_. He was out of his element amongst the Turks, and willingly
resigned his office to the _khavass_ Ilyás. The latter went off to the
Turkish commandant, who had soon after our arrival been furnished with my
passport from the Turkish minister at the Persian court, and after a long
absence, returned with a party of nine Georgian horsemen, fine handsome
fellows, dressed and equipped in their national costume and armour.

It was eight o’clock before we set out on our long night-march. The
evening air was close, still, and oppressive. We wound our way through
the bazárs of Hájí Cara, passing its many cafés with their crowds of
solemn-looking, silent Turks, puffing their long pipes and sipping their
black coffee—the first characteristic of the new country we had entered;
and crossing the river Alwand a little below a broken bridge, struck
across some rough stony ground, crossed by several irrigation cuts,
towards the high road, which we reached at three miles. The river Alwand
is a branch of the Dyalla, and, where we crossed, was about forty yards
wide and two feet deep, flowing in a clear stream over a pebbly bottom.

After reaching the main road, our route led south by west, over an
undulating country, apparently uninhabited. At 3.45 A.M. we reached
Kizil Rabát, the land gradually falling all the way. Here we changed our
escort, and found a large party of the Khaleva rebels, who had recently
been captured by the Turkish troops, and were now being conducted to
Baghdad, there to answer for their misdeeds. The escort which here
joined us had under their charge as prisoner one Hátim Khán, chief of
the Khaleva tribe of Hamávand Arabs. He was captured some days ago,
shortly after our passage, near the Casri Shirin frontier, and was now
being conveyed, as they told us, for execution to Baghdad. He was a
powerfully-built, handsome young man, of about twenty-five years of
age; and was accompanied by a servant, who walked by the side of his
mule, and from time to time eased his master’s position as much as his
fetters would allow. The captive chief was mounted on a mule, his hands
were manacled together in front, and his feet fettered together above
the ankles under the saddle-girths. The position must have been most
tiresome, and the captive was sometimes so overtaken by sleep, that he
nearly fell off his seat, and was several times waked up by a sudden fall
on the mule’s neck.

From Kizil Rabát the road leads S.S.W over an undulating alluvial plain,
up to a range of sandstone hills that separate it from Shahrabad. We
crossed this range by a fairly good road, here and there passing over
rocks by deep and narrow paths worn into their surface, and at seven
o’clock reached the plain on the other side. Another hour and a half
across a plain covered with scrubby vegetation brought us to Shahrabad,
where we alighted at the _sarae_. I was so exhausted by the effects of
the heat and confinement at Khánakín, and so thoroughly fatigued by the
tedium of twelve and a half hours’ march in the saddle, that, without
waiting for refreshment, I stretched myself on the floor, pillowed my
head on my elbow, and immediately sunk into unconsciousness.

About noon our baggage arrived, and, to our satisfaction, the mules
were not nearly as jaded as we expected; so I gave the order to march
at sunset for Bácúba. During the afternoon, the governor called to say
that he could not give us an escort, as all his horsemen were out in
the district, owing to the disturbed state of the country. He promised,
however, that the Kizil Rabát escort with their prisoner should accompany
us in the evening.

This is a dirty little village, in the midst of a wide, thinly-peopled,
and mostly desert plain. It is only 750 feet above the sea-level, and
290 feet lower than Khánakín, and at this season is a very hot place.
We had the floor of our rooms sprinkled with water in the hopes of the
evaporation reducing the temperature, but it did not fall below 98° Fah.
during the whole day. The walls of the _sarae_ and adjoining houses are
lined with great piled-up heaps of storks’ nests. Towards sunset the
parent birds returned from the marshes with the evening meal for their
young. Each bird, as it alighted on its nest, threw back its head, and
made a loud clattering with its beak, and then disgorged a quantity of
roots and worms, which the young ones gobbled up. It was a very singular
sight. They all kept up a sort of dance upon the flat surface of the
nest, their lanky legs being kept in the perpendicular by the flapping of
half-stretched wings.

Whilst our baggage was being laden this evening, the keeper of the
_sarae_, who gave his name as Abdurrazzác, came up to me for the
customary present. I gave it him, and was turning away when he asked, “Is
Akhún Sáhib still alive?”

“Whom do you mean?” I said, quite taken aback.

“The Akhún of Swát, Abdulghafúr, the hermit of Bekí,” he replied.

“What do you know of him, and why ask me?” I inquired.

“I am a disciple of his,” he replied, “and your people tell me you have
come from Peshawar, and know all about him. It is reported here that he
is dead, and has been succeeded by his son Sayyid Mahmúd Badsháh, whose
_karámát_ (miraculous powers) are even more strongly developed than those
of the father.”

“It is six months,” I said, “since I left Peshawar, and this is the first
time I have heard the Akhún’s name mentioned.”

He then told me that there were about a dozen of his disciples (_muríd_)
in this town, and upwards of a thousand in Mosul, whence a sum of two
thousand rupees is annually sent to Swát as tribute to the saint.

Our baggage filing out, I now mounted my horse, whilst my strange
acquaintance, holding on to the stirrup on the off side, in sonorous
tones repeated the Akhún’s creed, “_Ant ul hádí, ant ul hacc; lais ul
hádí illahú!_” (“Thou art the guide, thou art the truth; there is no
guide but God!”) I bade the stranger good evening, and went on, wondering
at the strange adventures travellers meet with.

_9th July._—Shahrabad to Bácúba or Yácúbia, thirty-two miles. We set out
at half-past eight o’clock yesterday evening, and passing through the
town, struck across a plain country much cut up by dry water-courses. As
we left the town, some people at the gate warned us to be on the alert,
as a _káfila_ had been attacked and plundered the night before at four
miles from Bácúba. Our escort consists of only five horsemen, with two
others in charge of the Hamávand prisoner. Our own party, which consists
of twenty-three baggage-mules, and as many followers, and a couple of
riding-camels, accompanied by the Bukhára pilgrims, was here joined by an
Arab Shekh with a patriarchal beard of snowy whiteness—an ideal Abraham,
in fact—and five or six other travellers on foot, who seized this
opportunity of a safe conduct to Baghdad.

We had proceeded very quietly for about three hours, our eyelids becoming
gradually weighed down by the weight of sleep, when we came to a deep
water-cut. We followed the course of this for half an hour up to a bridge
thrown across it. A gentle _whiseet-whiseet_ was now and again heard to
proceed from the bushes on the other side of the canal.

“That’s an odd sound,” I observed to Mr Rozario, who was riding by my
side; “larks, I suppose, disturbed by the tinkling of our mule-bells.”

“Yes, sir, it sounds like the voice of birds. There it is again, farther
off.”

The sounds ceased, we crossed the bridge and clearing a patch of thin
brushwood, got on to a bit of plain country. It was just midnight, my
horse was very tired, and his rider was very sleepy. So I drew aside
to let the baggage get on, and dismounted to await my riding-camel in
the rear of the column. Its saddle required a little adjusting, and all
meanwhile went ahead except myself, the camel-driver, the _khavass_
Ilyás, and one of our escort.

“All is ready,” said Hydar Ali, the driver, and I took my seat behind
him. The camel had just risen from the crouch, when there came the sound
of a confused buzz of voices, and a quick rustling of footsteps on the
hard plain behind us.

“Bang! bang!” from my attendants as they shot ahead full speed, shouting,
“To the baggage!—quick! quick! to the baggage!” “Bang! bang!” again as
they turned in their saddles and fired into our pursuers. And amidst a
din of shouts and guttural sounds, I found myself joggled along at a pace
equal to that of the horses. Two minutes brought us to the baggage,
all halted and clustered together in a packed mass. The escort came to
the front, and with threats followed by shots, kept the robbers at bay,
whilst their _cháwash_ or officer had the baggage unladen and the loads
piled in a semicircular breastwork, the mules ranged outside and the
followers inside. All this was done with the rapidity of lightning, and
in less time than it has taken me to describe it, we found ourselves,
half a dozen horsemen, arms in hand, at either end of the breastwork,
facing a party of thirty or forty Arab robbers at the edge of some
brushwood not as many yards of.

“I know them,” said the _cháwash_. “This is our only chance. If we move,
they will shower their javelins amongst us and then rush in with their
knives.” “Bang! bang!” “Have a care! we mean to fight,” shouted some
of our party; and Ilyás answered their demands for the _zawwár Ajam_
(Persian pilgrims) to be made over to them as their lawful prize, by the
bold intimation that we were not pilgrims at all, but thirty Englishmen,
all armed with rifles. The venerable old Shekh too put in a word, or
rather many words, in a horribly harsh and savagely energetic language.
What he said I don’t know, but it led to a noisy and confused discussion
amongst the robbers, who suddenly disappeared, leaving an ominous silence
to puzzle us.

The night had now become dark, and the figures in front of us could no
longer be traced, either by their movements or voices. Presently, whilst
we were intently peering into the dim belt of bushes in front of us, a
suppressed _whiseet-whiseet_ was heard on the plain to our right. “Look
out!” shouted our _cháwash_ as he rushed from side to side to encourage
his men; “they are on both our flanks. Don’t fire now; wait till they
come close, and then shoot and use your swords.” Another silence, and
then faint sounds in front “They are here,” said two or three voices, and
immediately a couple of shots turned our attention towards them, and we
stood, pistols in hand, ready to meet a rush.

And so it went on for three hours, the _cháwash_ now and again warning us
to be on the alert, as the robbers reckoned on our becoming sleepy and
careless in the silence. “They are not gone,” he would shout, “let them
see you are awake.” And the warning seemed necessary, for our followers
who were unarmed had quietly rolled themselves up in their blankets, and
disposed themselves to sleep under the shelter of the baggage—a strange
instance of oriental indifference and resignation to fate.

About three in the morning day began to dawn, and we found the bushes
in our front empty, and discovered the cause of our safety in a dry
water-cut running along their front. Two or three of our escort were sent
out to reconnoitre the land, and finding all clear, we loaded the baggage
and proceeded, after standing at bay upwards of three hours. “I see no
signs of our firing having taken effect,” I said to the _cháwash_. “No,
thank God,” he replied, “we did not wound any of them. If we had, they
would have got reinforcements from the Arab camps around, and we should
not have escaped their hands.”

After proceeding a little way, we came to a deserted roadside _sarae_.
“There,” said the _cháwash_, “that’s the place where these very robbers
plundered a _káfila_ only last night.” A dead donkey with its pack-saddle
lay under the shade of its walls, and we went past congratulating
ourselves on our providential escape. Onwards our road went across
a level country, well cultivated, and covered with villages and
date-groves, the last a feature in the scene we had not before now met
with.

We arrived at Bácúba at 8.30 A.M., and found quarters in the _sarae_,
which we found full of bales of merchandise, mules, and travellers,
Indians and Arabs, Persians and Turks, with African slaves not a few.

_10th July._—Bácúba to Baghdad, forty miles. We set out from the _sarae_
at 7.30 P.M. yesterday, and passing through the town, crossed the Dyalla
river by a bridge of boats. On the farther side we were delayed a while
for the completion of our escort, which is increased by two horsemen in
addition to those who joined us at Shahrabad. On their arrival, our party
was formed up into a close column, as the first sixteen miles of the road
were considered dangerous. We came successively on three or four deep dry
canals, and near each we were halted a few minutes whilst the horsemen
went ahead to see there was no ambush.

A little after midnight we came to the Sarae Beni Sád. Here we found a
party of twenty Hamávand horsemen, with some Turkish officials, going to
Baghdad to answer for the misconduct of their tribe on the Casri Shirin
frontier. Our escort with their prisoner joined them, and we proceeded
with only two horsemen as escort and guides.

We passed several long strings of camels going on towards Bácúba, and
three or four small parties of travellers. It was too dark to distinguish
who they were, but the familiar sounds of Pushto so unexpectedly falling
on my ears, roused me from the heaviness of an overcoming sleep, and I
started into wakefulness just in time to satisfy myself that a party of
Afghans of the Peshawar valley were passing us.

Later on, the day dawned, and the country gradually unfolded itself to
our view. A vast plain, bare and uninhabited, spread before us, and a
long green line of date-groves bounded the monotonous prospect ahead.
The fatigues of our long march now overburdened me with its accumulated
load. Minutes seemed hours, and the last bit of our road seemed to grow
longer the more we advanced upon it, and I thought we should never get
over this ever-increasing plain.

At length the mud walls of Baghdad, its domes and its towers, came into
view, and our flagging energies revived at the prospect of rest. The
gilded dome and minars of the mosque of Kázamín overtopping an emerald
bank of date-groves away to the right, had not for us the attraction that
a couple of horsemen clad in white approaching from the city claimed.
They were officials attached to the British Residency here, and came to
announce that the Resident and a party of gentlemen had come out to meet
us. Our fatigue vanished, and we pushed on with enlivened spirits to meet
a hearty welcome from the Resident, Colonel C. Herbert, and the Residency
Surgeon, Dr Colville, and the other gentlemen who were with them. It was
the most agreeable incident of the whole march, and fittingly came in at
its close.

We stayed six days at Baghdad, enjoying the kindest hospitality at the
Residency. Its memory comes back with feelings of gratitude as the
pleasantest interval in the whole of my long journey. We visited the
“city of the Khalifs,” its bazárs and its public buildings, and in the
salutations and friendly looks of Jew and Turk, Arab and Armenian, had
ample evidence of the popularity of at least the British Resident. We
witnessed a review of the Turkish troops—splendid men, admirably equipped
and armed with the Snider pattern-breech-loader. Through the polite
consideration of His Excellency Muhammad Kaúf Pasha, the governor of the
province, we were enabled to visit the Admiralty workshops, the Ordnance
stores, barracks, hospitals, and other military establishments. The
discipline, organisation, and thorough order pervading all departments
took me completely by surprise; and but for the red cap everywhere, I
might have thought myself in Europe inspecting the barracks of a French
or German garrison town.

The barracks, a handsome pile fronting the river, had been built on
the European model by a Belgian architect. The hospital, a commodious
double-storied building on the opposite shore, was furnished with all
the modern appliances of the Western institutions, under the supervision
of French and Italian doctors. The messing and dieting of the men in
barracks and in hospital were assimilated to the European system, and
attracted my special attention, as so much simpler than, and superior to,
the complex and inefficient arrangements that, subservient to the caste
prejudices of the natives, are in vogue amongst the troops of our Indian
army.

In the Ordnance department we were shown their breech-loading cannon and
the arms of the cavalry—the Spencer rifle—and a six-shooting revolver on
a new American principle, all turned out of the Government manufactory at
Constantinople. We visited the School of Industry, in which nearly three
hundred homeless boys are fed and clothed and sheltered by the profits
on their own industry. And certainly the specimens of their handiwork
shown to us spoke well as to their proficiency in the arts of weaving,
printing, and carving. Some of the cabinetwork was of really superior
finish, and the shoes made by them were not to be distinguished from
those made in European shops.

We visited the jail, too, and saw a number of Hamávand and Arab
prisoners, brethren of the ruffians through whom we had ran the gantlet
scathless, all heavily laden with chains—veritable chains, weighing sixty
or seventy pounds, coiled round their loins and limbs. The light of
Western improvement had not yet shed its rays on this department; and we
found the criminal savage, uncared for and filthy, crowded together in
an open yard, weighed down by the load of their chains, and guarded by
military sentries posted on the overlooking walls.

We left Baghdad, its delightful Residency and agreeable associations,
on the 16th July, and steamed away at daylight down the river Tigris on
board the _Dujla_. As the city disappeared behind us, with all I had
seen fresh on my mind, I thought, “Surely ‘the sick man of Europe’ is
convalescent; his neighbour, ‘the sick man of Asia,’ may ere long need
the physician’s aid.”

At breakfast-time we passed the ruins of Ctesiphon; and at nightfall
anchored mid-stream, owing to the shallowness of the river. At daylight
we were away again down-stream, but two hours later stuck on a sandbank.
Got off at noon, to stick again a little lower down; and so on till
nightfall, making very little progress. Heat intolerable, thermometer
declines to come down below 110° Fah. upstairs or downstairs. Next day
as bad as the day before. Sandbanks and heat equally obstructive and
troublesome. At midday passed a town called Kút—the monotony of the
journey relieved by Arab camps on either bank, and floating pelicans on
the stream. Went ahead all night, and in the morning passed Azia, and
during the day several other stations with Turkish garrisons, also Ezra’s
tomb, surmounted by a conspicuous blue-tiled dome.

River banks very low, and land beyond marshy and apparently below
water-level, but covered with Arab camps, and vast herds of kine and
buffaloes. Naked Arabs, boys and girls, disport on the shore, and plunge
into the river to our amusement. Melon-rinds thrown from the boat create
frantic efforts for possession. Their mothers on the shore instantly slip
out of their long loose shifts, and _in puris naturalibus_ rush into the
contest, to land some hundred yards below their clothing, with or without
a prize.

Lower down the river, date-trees line the shores in never-ending
succession, and seem to grow out of the water. At nightfall arrived at
Márjil, and warped alongside a wharf built up of date-logs. Took in cargo
all day, and in the evening steamed down to Basrah, and cast anchor near
the mail-steamer _Euphrates_. Here we transhipped to the mail-steamer,
and proceeding down the Persian Gulf, in due course arrived at Bombay.
The heat in the Gulf! its bare recollection is enough to provoke a
moisture of the skin. Happily I need not dwell on its memory. It is
beyond the limits of my journey from the Indus to the Tigris.




FOOTNOTES


[1] Their drainage to the westward and southward flows to the Tigris and
the Shat-ul-Arab, or river of the Arabs, formed by the junction of the
two rivers of Mesopotamia.

[2] _Riddle._ What is the cause of delay in our joining you in Sistan?

_Reply._ There is a Rúdbár in the way.

[3] We were here joined by an escort of fourteen horsemen, eighty
footmen, and ten artillerymen with one gun; and were roused at daylight
by a fearful bray from the trumpets of the last arm of the service,
which, by the way, was the only one dignified with uniform. They are to
escort us across the Turkman-infested country lying between this and
Shahrúd. We set out at 4.30 A.M., in rather loose order, the artillerymen
with their gun, preceded by a detachment of horse, leading the way.

[4] They proved to be the advanced guard of the detachment escorting the
caravan, for owing to the depredations of Kurd robbers, such protection
was now necessary on this road.

[5] On descending this pass, we left the elevated plateaux of Persia
behind us, and entered on the valley of the Tigris, quite a different
country and climate. The change is sudden and complete, by a drop of
three thousand feet from the cool breezes of Karriud to the hot blasts of
Zuháb.




APPENDIX.

A.

SYNOPTICAL GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY OF THE BRAHOE LANGUAGE


This language is spoken throughout Balochistan as far west as Kej,
Panjgúr, and Jalk, up to the borders of Sistan, and is written in the
Persian character.

There is no inflection for gender or case. The plural is formed by the
addition of _ák_ if the singular ends in a consonant, as _kasar_, a road,
_kasarák_, roads; of _k_ alone if the singular ends in a vowel, as _urá_,
a house, _urák_, houses—_húlí_, a horse, _húlík_, horses—_are_, a man,
_arek_, men—_dú_, the hand, becomes _dík_, the hands; and of _ghák_ if
the singular ends in the mute _h_, as _bandah_, a man, _bandahghák_, men.

The cases are formed by the addition of certain distinguishing particles
to the nominative, as is shown in the following typical forms of
declension:—

              SINGULAR.                            PLURAL.

  _Nom._ kasar      _a road_.        _Nom._ kasarúk        _roads_.
  _Gen._ kasarná    _of a road_.     _Gen._ kasarúkná      _of roads_.
  _Dat._ kasar e    _to a road_.     _Dat._ kasarúk e      _to roads_.
  _Acc._ kasar      _a road_.        _Acc._ kasarák        _roads_.
  _Abl._ kasaryún   _from a road_.   _Abl._ kasarakyán     _from roads_.
  _Voc._ ore kasar  _O road!_        _Voc._ ore kasarúk    _O roads!_

              SINGULAR.                            PLURAL.

  _Nom._ urá        _a house_.       _Nom._ urák           _houses_.
  _Gen._ uráná      _of a house_.    _Gen._ urákná         _of houses_.
  _Dat._ uráte-e    _to a house_.    _Dat._ urák e         _to houses_.
  _Acc._ urá        _a house_.       _Acc._ urák           _houses_.
  _Abl._ urátyún    _from a house_.  _Abl._ urákyán        _from houses_.
  _Voc._ ore urá    _O house!_       _Voc._ ore urák       _O houses!_

              SINGULAR.                            PLURAL.

  _Nom._ húli       _a horse_.       _Nom._ húlik          _horses_.
  _Gen._ húlíná     _of a horse_.    _Gen._ húlikná        _of horses_.
  _Dat._ húlíte-e   _to a horse_.    _Dat._ húlik e        _to horses_.
  _Acc._ húlí       _a horse_.       _Acc._ húlik          _horses_.
  _Abl._ húlityún   _from a horse_.  _Abl._ húlikyún       _from horses_.
  _Voc._ ore húli   _O horse!_       _Voc._ ore húlik      _O horses!_

The dative affix of the last two declensions _te_ really means _into_;
the simple affix _e_ means _at_, _to_, and the forms _úráe_ and _húlíe_
are also used in this case.

              SINGULAR.                            PLURAL.

  _Nom._ bandah     _a man_.         _Nom._ bandahghák     _men_.
  _Gen._ bandahná   _of a man_.      _Gen._ bandahghákná   _of men_.
  _Dat._ bandah e   _to a man_.      _Dat._ bandahghák e   _to men_.
  _Acc._ bandah     _a man_.         _Acc._ bandahghák     _men_.
  _Abl._ bandahyán  _from a man_.    _Abl._ bandahghákyán  _from men_.
  _Voc._ ore bandah _O man!_         _Voc._ ore bandahghák _O men!_

The singular _bandah_ is often pronounced _bandagh_, and the plural
_bandaghák_.

              SINGULAR.                            PLURAL.

  _Nom._ arwat      _a woman_.        _Nom._ arwaták       _women_.
  _Gen._ arwatná    _of a woman_.     _Gen._ arwatákná     _of women_.
  _Dat._ arwat e    _to a woman_.     _Dat._ arwaták e     _to women_.
  _Acc._ arwat      _a woman_.        _Acc._ arwaták       _women_.
  _Abl._ arwatyán   _from a woman_.   _Abl._ arwatákyán    _from women_.
  _Voc._ ore arwat  _O woman!_        _Voc._ ore arwaták   _O women!_

There are several exceptions to these rules for forming the plural. Thus
_már_, a boy, becomes _mák_ for _márák_, boys—_bángo_, a cock, becomes
_bángák_, cocks—_kóchak_, a dog, becomes _kochaghák_, dogs, &c.

Nouns are qualified by an adjective set before them, and then declined as
a compound word, as _chuno már_, a little boy—_chuno már ná_, of a little
boy—_chuno mák_, little boys—_chuno mák e_, to little boys, &c., _sharo
masar_, a good girl—_sharo masarák_, good girls, &c.

Degrees of comparison are expressed by the use of the ablative case
with the positive, as _e juwán húlí_ are (or _e_), that is a handsome
horse—_dá juwán húlí asite_, this is a (more) handsome horse—_dá
kul húlíyán juwán are_ (or _e_), this is the handsomest of all the
horses—_are arwatyán balo e_ (or _are_), the man is larger than the
woman—_arek arwatákyán balo arer_, men are larger than women—_bandaghák
zorak arer, vale dá bandagh kulyán zorak asite_, the men are strong, but
this man is stronger than all—_dáfk arwaták zorak arer, vale bandaghák
zorak asitur_, these women are strong, but men are stronger—_hísun
áhinyán khuben e_, gold is heavier than iron.


PRONOUNS.

The personal pronouns are _í_, I—_ní_, thou—_o_, he, she, or it; their
plurals are _nan_, we—_num_, ye—_ofk_, they.

The demonstrative pronouns are, proximate, _dá_, this—plural _dáfk_,
these; and remote, _e_, that—plural _efk_, those.

They are declined as follows:—

                              PERSONAL PRONOUNS.

              SINGULAR.                            PLURAL.

  _Nom. &                                _Nom. &
   Acc._   í      _I, me_.                Acc._   nan     _we, us_.
  _Gen._   kaná   _of me, my_.           _Gen._   nanná   _of us, our_.
  _Dat._   kane   _to me_.               _Dat._   nane    _to us_.
  _Abl._   kanyán _from me_.             _Abl._   nanyán  _from us_.

              SINGULAR.                            PLURAL.

  _Nom. &                                _Nom. &
   Acc._   ní     _thou, thee_.           Acc._   num     _ye, you_.
  _Gen._   ná     _of thee, thy_.        _Gen._   numá    _of you, your_.
  _Dat._   ne     _to thee_.             _Dat._   nume    _to you_.
  _Abl._   nyán   _from thee_.           _Abl._   numyán  _from you_.

              SINGULAR.                            PLURAL.

  _Nom. &         _he, she, it, him,     _Nom. &
   Acc._   o       her, it_.              Acc._   ofk     _they_.
  _Gen._   oná    _of him, his, etc._    _Gen._   oftá    _of them, their_.
  _Dat._   ode    _to him, her, etc._    _Dat._   ofte    _to them_.
  _Abl._   odán   _from him, her, etc._  _Abl._   oftyán  _from them_.

EXAMPLES—_Urá kaná mur are_, my house is far off—_oná tuman khurk e_, his
village is near—_húlík numá aráng arer?_ where are your horses?—_iragh
oftyán hallak_, take the bread from them—_nane dír hatbo_, bring us water.

The demonstrative pronouns are similarly declined.

              SINGULAR.                            PLURAL.

  _Nom. &                                _Nom. &
   Acc._   dá     _this_.                 Acc._   dáfk    _these_.
  _Gen._   dáná   _of this_.             _Gen._   dáftá   _of these_.
  _Dat._   dáde   _to this_.             _Dat._   dáfte   _to these_.
  _Abl._   dádán  _from this_.           _Abl._   dáftyán _from these_.

              SINGULAR.                            PLURAL.

  _Nom. &                                _Nom. &
   Acc._   e      _that_.                 Acc._   efk     _those_.
  _Gen._   ená    _of that_.             _Gen._   eftá    _of those_.
  _Dat._   ede    _to that_.             _Dat._   efte    _to those_.
  _Abl._   edán   _from that_.           _Abl._   eftyán  _from those_.

EXAMPLES—_Dá masar ená areghas ír e_, this girl is that man’s sister—(the
word _areghas_ is here an inflected form of _are_, a man. In composition,
where the nominative ends in a vowel, the particle _ghas_, and where in a
consonant, the particle _as_, is added to distinguish the oblique case,
or the accusative only)—_dáfk darakhták eftyán burzo asitur_, these trees
are taller than those.

The possessive pronoun is expressed by the adjective _ten_ or _tenat_,
own, self, added to the several personal pronouns, and is regularly
declined, singular and plural being the same, as _í ten_, I myself, _nan
ten_, we ourselves, _ní ten_, thou thyself, _num ten_, you yourselves, _o
ten_, he himself, _ofk ten_, they themselves.

              SINGULAR.                            PLURAL.

  _Nom. &                             _Nom. &
   Acc._   í ten    _myself_.          Acc._   nan ten    _ourselves_.
  _Gen._   í tenná  _of myself_.      _Gen._   nan tenná  _of ourselves_.
  _Dat._   í tene   _to myself_.      _Dat._   nan tene   _to ourselves_.
  _Abl._   í tenyán _from myself_.    _Abl._   nan tenyán _from ourselves_.

And so on with the other personal pronouns above mentioned.

EXAMPLES—_Ílum kaná tenat kárem kare_, my brother did the work himself—_í
tenná zaghm are_, it is my own sword—_efk bandaghák ten-pa-ten jang
kerá_, those men are quarrelling amongst themselves.

The interrogative pronouns are _der_, who?, the same in the singular and
plural, and applied only to animate objects, and _ant_, which? and _ará_,
what? used in both numbers, but only applied to inanimate objects. The
first is declined regularly. The others are indeclinable.

             SINGULAR AND PLURAL.

  _Nom. & Acc._    der      _who?_ _whom?_
  _Gen._           dinná    _of whom?_ _whose?_
  _Dat._           dere     _to whom?_
  _Abl._           deryán   _from whom?_

EXAMPLES—_Dá bandagh der are?_ who is this man?—_dinná már are?_ whose
son is he?—_ní ant cóm asitus?_ of which tribe are you?—_dá kasar ará
tuman te káek?_ to which camp does this road go? _Ará_ is also used as
a relative pronoun, with _hamo_ as its correlative, as _ará ki sharo e
hamo halbo, ará ki gando e hamo gum kar_, whichever is good, that bring;
whichever is bad, that throw away.

There are besides a number of adjective pronouns. Those in common use are
the following:—_Pen_, another, _har pen_, every other, _ant pen_, which
other. Example—_kaná ílum afas pen bandagh asite_, he is not my brother,
he is some other man. _Ákhadr_, as much as, _hamo khadr_, so much, _dá
khadr_, this much. Example—_ákhadr ki darkár e hamo khadr haltak_, as
much as is necessary, so much take. _Hamdún_, like as—so. Example—_hamdún
ní us hamdún í ut_, like as thou art so am I. _Hamro_, what sort, as _dá
hamro húlí are_, what sort of horse is this?


ADJECTIVES.

The adjectives precede the nouns they qualify, and undergo no change for
gender or number of case, as _húlan are_, a stout man—_húlan arwat_, a
stout woman. Some adjectives are modified by the addition of certain
particles denoting either increase or diminution, as _sharo bandagh_, a
good man; _sharangá bandagh_, a very good man—_chuno masar_, a little
girl; _chunaká masar_, a very little girl.


VERBS.

The verbs appear to be more or less irregular in their paradigms. I had
not sufficient opportunity to examine their structure on an extended
scale, so as to reduce them to some form of classification, and the
natives from whom I gathered my information regarding the language had
no knowledge whatever of the rules guiding their speech. The different
tenses offered in the following forms of conjugations have been derived
from the replies to questions requiring answers in the present, past, and
future respectively, through the medium of the Persian language, and I
trust they may be found generally correct.

The infinitive ends in _ing_, and is often used as a verbal noun.
Example—_jang kaning sharaf_, quarrelling is not good (or proper)—_rást
páning shar e_, speaking the truth is good (or right). The infinitive
sign is generally added to the root, which is the same as the imperative,
as _hin_, go; _hining_, to go—_haraf_, ask; _harafing_, to ask. But there
are many exceptions to this, as _bar_, come; _baning_, to come—_kar_, do;
_kaning_, to do, &c.

Some verbs form the past tenses on a different root to that from which
the present tenses are formed, as will be seen by the list of verbs given
at the end of this paper. The rules might be easily worked out with a
little leisure for their study.

Transitives are formed from intransitives by interposing _f_ between
the root and infinitive sign, as _khuling_, to fear; _khulfing_, to
frighten—_harsing_, to change; _harsfing_, to alter—_túling_, to sit;
_túlfing_, to seat, &c.

Causals are formed from these transitives by changing the _f_ to
_íf_ or _ef_, as _khulfing_, to frighten; _khulífing_, to cause to
frighten—_túlfing_, to seat; _túlífing_, to cause to seat, &c.

The paradigms of the substantive verb, and two intransitive and two
transitive verbs, are here given as models for all other verbs.
Irregularities are only to be ascertained by a practical acquaintance
with the language, but they do not seem to be numerous.

The substantive verb _maning_, “to be or become,” is thus conjugated:—

  _Infinitive Mood_—maning—_to be_.
  _Present Participle_—are-e—_being_.
  _Agent_—manok—_becomer_.
  _Past Participle_—mas—_been_.

  IMPERATIVE MOOD.

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  ní mares      _be thou_.             num mabo           _be you_.
  o mare        _let him be_.          ofk marer          _let them be_.

  INDICATIVE MOOD.

                                  _Present._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í ut          _I am_.                nan un             _we are_.
  ní us         _thou art_.            num ure            _you are_.
  o are-e       _he, she, it is_.      ofk arer-or        _they are_.

                                  _Aorist._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í asitut      _I may be_.            nan asitun         _we may be_.
  ní asitus     _thou mayest be_.      num asiture        _you may be_.
  o asite       _he, etc. may be_.     ofk asitor         _they may be_.

                                  _Imperfect._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í asut        _I was_.               nan asun           _we were_.
  ní asus       _thou wast_.           num asure          _you were_.
  o asak        _he, etc. was_.        ofk asor           _they were_.

                                  _Continuative Imperfect._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í masut       _I was being_.         nan masun          _we were being_.
  ní masus      _thou wast being_.     num masure         _you were being_.
  o masak       _he, etc. was being_.  ofk masor          _they were
                                                            being_.

                                  _Perfect._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í masasut     _I have been_.         nan masasun        _we have been_.
  ní masasus    _thou hast been_.      num masasure       _you have been_.
  o masas       _he, etc. has been_.   ofk masasor        _they have been_.

                                  _Past._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í masunut     _I had been_.          nan masunun        _we had been_.
  ní masunus    _thou hast been_.      num masunure       _you had been_.
  o masune      _he, etc. has been_.   ofk masunor        _they had been_.

                                  _Future Present._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í marew       _I will be_.           nan maren          _we will be_.
  ní mares      _thou wilt be_.        num marere         _you will be_.
  o marek       _he, etc. will be_.    ofk marer          _they will be_.

                                  _Future Past._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í marot       _I will have been_.    nan maron          _we will have
                                                            been_.
  ní maros      _thou wilt have been_. num morore         _you will have
                                                            been_.
  o maroe       _he, etc. will have    ofk maror          _they will have
                  been_.                                    been_.

The intransitive verbs “to come” and “to go” are thus conjugated:—

  _Infinitive Mood_—baning—_to come_.
  _Present Participle_—bare—_coming_.
  _Agent_—barok—_comer_.
  _Past Participle_—bas—_come_.

  IMPERATIVE MOOD.

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  ní bank-bar   _come thou_.           num babo           _come you_.
  o bare        _let him come_.        ofk barer          _let them come_.

  INDICATIVE MOOD.

                                  _Present._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í bareva      _I am coming_.         nan barena         _we are coming_.
  ní baresa     _thou art coming_.     num barere         _you are coming_.
  o bare        _he, etc. is coming_.  ofk barera         _they are
                                                            coming_.

                                  _Aorist._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í barew       _I may come_.          nan baren          _we may come_.
  ní bares      _thou mayest come_.    num barere         _you may come_.
  o barek       _he, etc. may come_.   ofk barer          _they may come_.

                                  _Imperfect._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í basut       _I came_.              nan basun          _we came_.
  ní basus      _thou camest_.         num basure         _you came_.
  o basak       _he, etc. came_.       ofk basor          _they came_.

                                  _Perfect._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í basasut     _I have come_.         nan basasun        _we have come_.
  ní basasus    _thou hast come_.      num basasure       _you have come_.
  o basas       _he, etc. has come_.   ofk basasor        _they have come_.

                                  _Past._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í basunut     _I had come_.          nan basunun        _we had come_.
  ní basunus    _thou hadst come_.     num basunure       _you had come_.
  o basune      _he, etc. had come_.   ofk basunor        _they had come_.

                                  _Future Present._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í barew       _I will come_.         nan baren          _we will come_.
  ní bares      _thou wilt come_.      num barere         _you will come_.
  o barek       _he, etc. will come_.  ofk barer          _they will come_.

                                  _Future Past._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í barot       _I will have come_.    nan baron          _we will have
                                                            come_.
  ní baros      _thou wilt have come_. num barore         _you will have
                                                            come_.
  o baroe       _he, etc. will have    ofk baror          _they will have
                  come_.                                    come_.

The verb “to go”:—

  _Infinitive Mood_—hining—_to go_.
  _Present Participle_—káe—_going_.
  _Agent_—hinok—_goer_.
  _Past Participle_—hiná—_gone_.

  IMPERATIVE MOOD.

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  ní hinak-hin  _go thou_.             num hinbo          _go you_.
  o káe         _let him, etc. go_.    ofk kára           _let them go_.

  INDICATIVE MOOD.

                                  _Present._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í káwa        _I am going_.          nan kána           _we are going_.
  ní kása       _thou art going_.      num káre           _you are going_.
  o káe         _he, etc. is going_.   ofk kára           _they are going_.

                                  _Aorist._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í káw         _I may go_.            nan kán            _we may go_.
  ní kás        _thou mayest go_.      num káre           _you may go_.
  o káek        _he, etc. may go_.     ofk kár            _they may go_.

                                  _Imperfect._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í hinát       _I went_.              nan hinán          _we went_.
  ní hinás      _thou wentest_.        num hináre         _you went_.
  o hinák       _he, etc. went_.       ofk hinár          _they went_.

                                  _Perfect._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í hinásut     _I have gone_.         nan hinásun        _we have gone_.
  ní hinásus    _thou hast gone_.      num hinásure       _you have gone_.
  o hinásas     _he, etc. had gone_.   ofk hinásor        _they have gone_.

                                  _Past._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í hinánut     _I had gone_.          nan hinánun        _we had gone_.
  ní hinánus    _thou hadst gone_.     num hinánure       _you had gone_.
  o hináne      _he, etc. had gone_.   ofk hinánor        _they had gone_.

                                  _Future Present._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í káw         _I will go_.           nan kán            _we will go_.
  ní kás        _thou wilt go_.        num káre           _you will go_.
  o káek        _he, etc. will go_.    ofk kár            _they will go_.

                                  _Future Past._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í kot         _I will have gone_.    nan kon            _we will have
                                                            gone_.
  ní kos        _thou wilt have gone_. num kore           _you will have
                                                            gone_.
  o koe         _he, etc. wilt have    ofk kor            _they will have
                  gone_.                                    gone_.

The above may be taken as examples of all intransitive verbs. But the
different roots for the present and past tenses can only be acquired by
practice.

The transitive verbs “to do” and “to beat” are thus conjugated.

The verb “to do or make.”

  _Infinitive Mood_—kaning—_to do, make_.
  _Present Participle_—ke—_doing_.
  _Agent_—karok—_doer, maker_.
  _Past Participle_—kar—_done_.

  IMPERATIVE MOOD.

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  ní karak-kar  _do thou_.             num kabo           _do you_.
  o ke          _let him, etc. do_.    ofk kera           _let them do_.

  INDICATIVE MOOD.

                                  _Present._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í keva        _I am doing_.          nan kena           _we are doing_.
  ní kesa       _thou art doing_.      num kere           _you are doing_.
  o ke          _he, etc. is doing_.   ofk kera           _they are doing_.

                                  _Aorist._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í kev         _I may do_.            nan ken            _we may do_.
  ní kes        _thou mayest do_.      num kere           _you may do_.
  o kek         _he, etc. may do_.     ofk ker            _they may do_.

                                  _Imperfect._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í karet       _I did_.               nan karen          _we did_.
  ní kares      _thou didst_.          num karere         _you did_.
  o karek       _he, etc. did_.        ofk karer          _they did_.

                                  _Perfect._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í karesut     _I have done_.         nan karesun        _we have done_.
  ní karesus    _thou hast done_.      num karesure       _you have done_.
  o karesas     _he, etc. has done_.   ofk karesor        _they have done_.

                                  _Past._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í karenut     _I had done_.          nan karenun        _we had done_.
  ní karenus    _thou hadst done_.     num karenure       _you had done_.
  o karene      _he, etc. had done_.   ofk karenor        _they had done_.

                                  _Future Present._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í kev         _I will do_.           nan ken            _we will do_.
  ní kes        _thou wilt do_.        num kere           _you will do_.
  o kek         _he, etc. will do_.    ofk ker            _they will do_.

                                  _Future Past._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í karot       _I will have done_.    nan karon          _we will have
                                                            done_.
  ní karos      _thou wilt have done_. num karore         _you will have
                                                            done_.
  o karoe       _he, etc. will have    ofk karor          _they will have
                  done_.                                    done_.

The verb “to beat or strike.”

  _Infinitive Mood_—khaling—_to beat_.
  _Present Participle_—khale—_beating_.
  _Agent_—khalok—_beater_.
  _Past Participle_—khalk—_beaten_.

  IMPERATIVE MOOD.

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  ní khalt      _beat thou_.           num khalbo         _beat you_.
  o khale       _let him beat_.        ofk khalera        _let them beat_.

  INDICATIVE MOOD.

                                  _Present._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í khaleva     _I am beating_.        nan khalena        _we are
                                                            beating_.
  ní khalesa    _thou art beating_.    num khalere        _you are
                                                            beating_.
  o khale       _he, etc. is beating_. ofk khalera        _they are
                                                            beating_.

                                  _Aorist._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í khalev      _I may beat_.          nan khalen         _we may beat_.
  ní khales     _thou mayest beat_.    num khalere        _you may beat_.
  o khalek      _he, etc. may beat_.   ofk khaler         _they may beat_.

                                  _Imperfect._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í khalet      _I beat_.              nan khalken        _we beat_.
  ní khalkes    _thou beatest_.        num khalkere       _you beat_.
  o khalk       _he, etc. beat_.       ofk khalker        _they beat_.

                                  _Perfect._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í khalesut    _I have beaten_.       nan khalesun       _we have
                                                            beaten_.
  ní khalesus   _thou hast beaten_.    num khalesure      _you have
                                                            beaten_.
  o khalesas    _he, etc. has beaten_. ofk khalesor       _they have
                                                            beaten_.

                                  _Past._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í khalenut    _I had beaten_.        nan khalenun       _we had
                                                            beaten_.
  ní khalenus   _thou hadst beaten_.   num khalenure      _you had
                                                            beaten_.
  o khalene     _he, etc. had beaten_. ofk khalenor       _they had
                                                            beaten_.

                                  _Future Present._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í khalev      _I will beat_.         nan khalen         _we will beat_.
  ní khales     _thou wilt beat_.      num khalere        _you will beat_.
  o khalek      _he, etc. will beat_.  ofk khaler         _they will beat_.

                                  _Future Past._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í khalot      _I will have beaten_.  nan khalon         _we will have
                                                            beaten_.
  ní khalos     _thou wilt have        num khalore        _you will have
                  beaten_.                                  beaten_.
  o kaloe       _he, etc. will have    ofk khalor         _they will have
                  beaten_.                                  beaten_.

The passive voice of transitive verbs is formed by conjugating the past
participle with the substantive verb _maning_, “to be.” Thus:—

  _Infinitive Mood_—khalk maning—_to be beaten_.
  _Present Participle_—khalk are—_being beaten_.
  _Past Participle_—khalk mas—_been beaten_.

  IMPERATIVE MOOD.

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  ní khalk mares   _be thou beaten_.   num khalk mabo     _be thou beaten_.
  o khalk mare     _be he, etc.        ofk khalk marer    _be they beaten_.
                     beaten_.

  INDICATIVE MOOD.

                                  _Present._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í khalkut        _I am beaten_.      nan khalkun        _we are beaten_.
  ní khalkus       _thou art beaten_.  num khalkure       _you are beaten_.
  o khalk are-e    _he, etc. is        ofk khalkarer      _they are
                      beaten_.                              beaten_.

                                  _Imperfect._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í khalk asut     _I was beaten_.     nan khalk asun     _we were
                                                            beaten_.
  ní khalk asus    _thou wast beaten_. num khalk asure    _you were
                                                            beaten_.
  o khalk asak     _he, etc. was       ofk khalk asor     _they were
                     beaten_.                               beaten_.

                                  _Perfect._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í khalk masasut  _I have been        nan khalk masasun  _we have been
                     beaten_.                               beaten_.
  ní khalk masasus _thou hast been     num khalk masasure _you have been
                     beaten_.                               beaten_.
  o khalk masas    _he, etc. has been  ofk khalk masasor  _they have been
                     beaten_.                               beaten_.

                                  _Past._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í khalk masunut  _I had been         nan khalk masunun  _we had been
                     beaten_.                               beaten_.
  ní khalk masunus _thou hadst been    num khalk masunure _you had been
                     beaten_.                               beaten_.
  o khalk masune   _he, etc. had been  ofk khalk masunor  _they had been
                     beaten_.                               beaten_.

                                  _Future Present._

         _Singular._                                _Plural._

  í khalk marew  _I will be beaten_.   nan khalk maren    _we will be
                                                            beaten_.
  ní khalk mares _thou wilt be         num khalk marere   _you will be
                   beaten_.                                 beaten_.
  o khalk marek  _he, etc. will be     ofk khalk marer    _they will be
                   beaten_.                                 beaten_.

The other tenses can be supplied from the paradigm of the substantive
verb. Negation is expressed by interposing _f_ or _af_ between the first
two syllables of the verb, as _bafarew_, I will not come—_kafarek_,
he did not do it—_í khor afut_, I am not blind—_dá kárem o hech gáhas
kafarot_, he will never have done this deed—_ní tifes_, thou wilt not
give? Prohibition is expressed by _na_ or _ma_, don’t, placed before the
imperative, as _na kar_, do not—_ma khalt_, do not beat. But the _f_ is
also used in an imperative sense, as _nájor mafarew_, may you not be
ill—_pa_, speak; _paf_, don’t speak—_ka_, do; _kafa_ or _kapa_, don’t.

With nouns negation is expressed by _afak_ added to the word, as
_jor-afak_, not well, sick—_nyám-afak_, not justice, unjust—_zor afak_,
not strong, weak.


ADVERBS.

The adverbs are very numerous, and include interjections and
prepositions. The adverbs of time are the following and others:—

  dásá, _now_.
  gurá, _then_.
  gáhas, _never_.
  padá, _again_.
  zú, _quickly_.
  madá, _slowly_.
  wakhtí, _early_.
  madáná, _late_.
  ná gumán, _suddenly_.
  har-vakht, _always_.
  hech-vakht, _at no time_.
  gáhas, _ever_.
  chi-vakhtas-ki, _when_.
  hamo-vakht, _then_.
  asi-asi-vakht, _sometimes_.
  harde, _every day_.
  asit-jár, _once_.
  irat-jár, _twice_.
  musit-jár, _thrice_.
  báz-jár, _often_.
  ewáde, _formerly_.
  awal, _at first_.
  ákhir, _at last_.
  begáh, _this evening_.
  ano, _to-day_.
  pagáh, _to-morrow_.
  palme, _day after to-morrow_.
  kúde, _three days hence_.
  daro, _yesterday_.
  mulkhudo, _day before yesterday_.
  kúmulkhudo, _three days ago_.
  ano-nan, _to-night_.
  manjan, _midday_.
  ním-shab, _midnight_.
  peshín, _forenoon_.
  digar, _afternoon_.

The adverbs of place are the following and others:—

  burzá, _above_.
  shef, _below_.
  mustí, _before_.
  padáe, _behind_.
  tahtí, _inside_.
  peshán, _outside_.
  khurk, _near_.
  mur, _far_.
  dáde, _here_.
  ede, _there_.
  jáaski, _where_.
  ere, _there_.
  aráde, _where?_
  hamangi, _there_.
  haráng, _as far as_.
  aráká, _so far_.
  moni, _opposite_.
  to, _with_.
  te, _in_, _up to_.
  kátum, _on_, _upon_.
  dápárán, _this side_.
  epárán, _that side_.
  chármán, _all sides_.
  antmur, _how far?_

The adverbs of quantity are the following and others:—

  báz, _much_, _very many_.
  machit, _little_, _few_.
  hech, _none_.
  girá, _some_.
  bas, _enough_.
  at, _how much?_
  ákhadr, _as much as_.
  dákhadr, _so much_.
  har, _every_.
  bíra, _only_, _merely_.
  har-ant, _whatever_.
  hechrá, _nothing_.

Other adverbs are the following, conjunctions and interjections:—

  antai, _why?_
  ho-hán, _yes_.
  ahá, _no_.
  vale, _but_.
  hamhon, _perhaps_.
  ki, _that_.
  are, _holloa!_
  háeháe, _alas!_
  wáwáh, _wonderful!_
  armán, _pity!_
  ham, _also_.
  lekin, _but_.
  gwácháni, _indeed!_
  jágai, _instead of_.
  mat, _leave off!_ _don’t!_
  paráe, _for sake of_.
  agar, _if_.
  baghair, _except_.

The days of the week are the same as in Persian, and so are the cardinal
numbers, with the exception of the first three. These are _asit_, one;
_irat_, two; _musit_, three. The rest are _chár_, four; _panj_, five, &c.

The ordinals and fractions are as follows:—

  awal _first_.
  elo _second_.
  mustímíko _third_.
  chármíko _fourth_, and so on.
  miscálí _a quarter_.
  ním _half_.
  sihshálí _three-quarters_.
  panjpáo _one and a quarter_.


BRAHOE VOCABULARY.

List of nouns in common use:—


PARTS OF THE BODY AND SECRETIONS.

  kátum, _head_.
  khoprí, _skull_.
  milí, _brain_.
  chugh, _nape_.
  gardan, _neck_.
  likh, _throat_.
  peshání, _forehead_.
  khush, _temple_.
  khaf, _ear_.
  khan, _eye_.
  bhirwá, _eyebrow_.
  khannásil, _eyelid_.
  michách, _eyelash_.
  díd, _pupil_.
  bámas, _nose_.
  gránz, _nostril_.
  kalak, _cheek_.
  bá, _mouth_.
  jur, _lip_.
  zanú, _chin_.
  duví, _tongue_.
  gutulú, _gullet_.
  dandán, _tooth_.
  dandánnású, _gum_.
  mon, _face_.
  badan, _body_ (_also_ ján).
  churoh, _urine_.
  kiriftí, _dung_ (_also_ phí).
  kísh, _matter_, _pus_.
  tús, _flatus_.
  nargat, _windpipe_.
  sína, _chest_.
  khad, _breast_.
  gwar, _nipple_.
  kopá, _shoulder_.
  pitakh, _bladebone_.
  tarkh, _armpit_.
  pahlú, _rib_, _flank_.
  baj, _back_.
  mukh, _loin_.
  saghas, _buttock_.
  phid, _belly_.
  phút, _navel_.
  land, _penis_.
  gand, _testicle_.
  phundú, _anus_.
  phús, _vulva_.
  rán, _thigh_.
  kach, _hip_.
  khond, _knee_.
  dhakan, _kneecap_.
  pinní, _leg_.
  phenj, _calf_.
  nat, _foot_.
  kurí, _heel_.
  mijol, _ankle_.
  had, _bone_.
  rísh, _beard_.
  burút, _mustache_.
  píshkav, _ringlet_.
  talaf, _sole_.
  dú, _arm_.
  surosh, _elbow_.
  tút, _cubit_.
  chamba, _wrist_ (_also_ kar).
  dú, _hand_.
  talaf, _palm_.
  úr, _finger_, _toe_.
  zíl, _nail_.
  phif, _lung_.
  ust, _heart_.
  phid, _stomach_.
  rotíng, _intestines_.
  jagar, _liver_.
  zák, _gall bladder_.
  zardoí, _gall_, _bile_.
  diloí, _spleen_.
  gurda, _kidney_.
  pujhá, _hair_.
  sil, _skin_.
  sú, _flesh_.
  tuzmí, _fat_.
  ditar, _blood_.
  páhlt, _milk_.
  túfing, _spittle_.
  khárínk, _tears_.
  khet, _sweat_.
  khel, _fever_.
  zindá, _alive_.
  kask, _dead_.


NOUNS OF RELATIONSHIP, &c.

  bandagh, _man_.
  zá’ífa, _woman_.
  are, _husband_.
  arwat, _wife_.
  már, _son_.
  masar, _daughter_.
  khadyá, _babe_.
  chunaká, _child_.
  báv, _father_.
  lummá, _mother_.
  ílum, _brother_.
  ír, _sister_.
  bává, _father!_
  áí, _mother!_
  adá, _brother!_
  adí, _sister!_
  brázát, _brother’s child_.
  khwárzát, _sister’s child_.
  pejhzát, _cousin_.
  illa, _paternal uncle and aunt_.
  táta, _maternal uncle and aunt_.
  píra, _grandfather_.
  balla, _grandmother_.
  nwása, _grandchild_.


NAMES OF ORNAMENTS, CLOTHING, &c.

  saht, _ornament_.
  tábíz, _charm_.
  chhalav, _signet-ring_.
  tik, _seal_.
  panra, _ear-ring_.
  lik, _ear-drop_.
  phulo, _nose-ring_.
  durr, _pearl ring_.
  jamak, _gold ring_.
  dáwaní, _frontlet_.
  tauc, _necklet_.
  chandanhár, _necklace_.
  daswána, _armlet_.
  báhínk, _bracelet_.
  kangaur, _wristlet_.
  pádínk, _anklet_.
  khál, _mole_.
  surma, _eye-black_.
  shefk, _eye-black pin_.
  món-rukh, _mirror_.
  zulf, _curl_,
  gesú, _ringlet_.
  rez, _plait_.
  gud, _clothes_.
  kús, _shirt_.
  kás, _blanket felt_.
  sharwál, _trousers_.
  chokhá, _cloak_.
  postín, _fur coat_.
  khyrí, _waist mantle_.
  mukhtá, _waist sash_.
  top, _cap_.
  dastár, _turban_.
  mocharí, _shoe_.
  litar, _slipper_.
  moza, _boot_.
  chhawat, _sandal_.
  dasgala, _glove_.
  khout, _blanket_.
  thappur, _rug_.
  khat, _bed_.
  lehf, _coverlet_.
  cudh, _sheet_.
  bálisht, _pillow_.
  bhop, _mattress_.
  shál, _shawl_.
  katúr, _mat_.
  kónt, _carpet_.
  berum, _bedding_.
  urá, _house_.
  kúdi, _shed_.
  biht, _wall_.
  bám, _roof_.
  darich, _door_.
  darícha, _window_.
  hawelí, _court_.
  barám, _marriage_.
  dishtár, _bride_.
  náo-zámás, _bridegroom_.
  mahr, _dowry_.


HOUSEHOLD STORES AND DOMESTIC UTENSILS.

  ghalla, _corn_.
  nut, _flour_.
  pirísh, _lentils_.
  birinj, _rice_.
  bat, _cooked rice_.
  kholum, _wheat_.
  sá, _barley_.
  makaí, _Indian corn_, _maize_.
  zúrat, _millet_.
  júárí, _millet_.
  phug, _wheat straw_.
  karab, _maize straw_.
  liz, _rice straw_.
  tambákh, _tobacco_.
  dár, _wood_.
  khushád, _cow-dung_.
  pogh, _charcoal_.
  kulf, _lock_.
  kilíd, _key_.
  zamzír, _chain_.
  chirágh, _candle_.
  hedr, _turmeric_.
  beh, _salt_.
  pilpil, _pepper_.
  pímáz, _onions_.
  thúm, _garlic_.
  lawang, _cloves_.
  zíra, _caraway_.
  mavíz, _raisins_.
  tel, _oil_.
  hormag, _dates_.
  írugh, _bread_.
  khassí, _butter_.
  sí, _fat_, _tallow_.
  gharesh, _melted butter_.
  páhlt, _milk_.
  dahí, _curds_.
  punváhlt, _whey_ (?)
  pachíruk, _cream_ (?)
  panír, _cheese_.
  cúrút, _hard cheese_.
  khásun, _buttermilk_.
  khúlí, _corn-bin_.
  nuskhal, _hand-mill_.
  túra, _basket_.
  loth, _bag_.
  khári, _hamper_.
  gothrí, _sack_.
  chhara, _bucket_.
  dillo, _water-jar_.
  khallí, _jar_.
  kunza, _flagon_.
  kásagh, _bowl_.
  bhatal, _big bowl_.
  tás, _cup_.
  símí, _copper tray_.
  karsán, _wooden dish_.
  loí, _pot_.
  kuno, _large pot_.
  kho, _saucepan_.
  garoh, _earthen jar_.
  kúlik, _pail or pan_.
  kalind, _earthen pot_.


DOMESTIC ANIMALS AND IMPLEMENTS.

  húli, _horse_.
  mádyán, _mare_.
  naryán, _stallion_.
  kurra, _colt_.
  litík, _tail_.
  buchk, _mane_.
  búz, _muzzle_.
  lidh, _dung_.
  húch, _camel_.
  bísh, _ass_.
  khachar, _mule_.
  dhaggí, _cow_.
  rorh, _calf_.
  kárígar, _bull_.
  kharás, _ox_.
  mehí, _buffalo cow_.
  gosála, _buffalo calf_.
  sánda, _buffalo bull_.
  máe-khad, _udder_.
  mat, _he-goat_.
  het, _she-goat_.
  daggar, _kid_ (_also_ bahí).
  bakhta, _ram_.
  mir, _ewe_.
  súr, _lamb_.
  khur, _sheep_.
  shwánagh, _shepherd_.
  ramagh, _herd_, _flock_.
  ged, _sheepfold_.
  surumb, _horse-hoof_.
  shankala, _cloven hoof_.
  kás, _wool_.
  drasam, _goats’ hair_.
  bángo, _cock_.
  kukur, _hen_.
  chúri, _chicken_.
  byda, _egg_.
  para, _feather_ (_also_ path).
  bánzil, _wing_.
  haddí, _spur_.
  súnt, _beak_.
  panja, _claw_.
  gunjí, _crop_.
  ojarínk, _gizzard_.
  kóchak, _dog_.
  kútri, _pup_.
  pishí, _cat_.
  hal, _rat_.
  kapot, _pigeon_.
  gunjishk, _sparrow_.
  hílt, _fly_.
  pasha, _musquito_.
  munghí, _wasp_ (?)
  makish, _bee_.
  shahd, _honey_.
  angumen, _honeycomb_.
  mom, _wax_.
  kak, _flea_.
  bor, _louse_.
  rishk, _a louse-nit_.
  mangur, _bug_.
  jolágh, _spider_.
  phú, _worm_.
  poghut, _frog_.
  telt, _scorpion_.
  morínk, _ant_.


AGRICULTURE AND IMPLEMENTS.

  curda, _field_.
  dagár, _land_.
  mish, _earth_.
  lichakh, _mud_.
  khal, _stone_.
  phud, _clod_.
  chhib, _turf_.
  langár, _plough_.
  khamir, _share_ (_also_ phalí).
  jugh, _yoke_.
  bel, _spade_.
  lashí, _sickle_.
  khen, _harrow_.
  chárchak, _pitchfork_.
  mála, _roller_.
  dhún, _well_.
  sálí, _rice field_.
  kholum, _wheat_.
  sá, _barley_.
  makaí, _maize_.
  zúrat, _millet_.
  pirísh, _millet_.
  kunjid, _sesame_.
  karpás, _cotton plant_.
  gogra, _cotton pod_.
  kakra, _cotton seed_.
  pumba, _cotton wool_.
  uspust, _lucerne_.
  roding, _madder_.
  rambí, _hoe_.
  kbashád, _manure_ (?)
  jal, _rivulet_.
  hilár, _date tree_.
  ták, _vine_.
  augúr, _grape_.
  sóf, _apple_.
  bihí, _quince_.
  zardálu, _apricot_.
  alúcha, _plum_.
  shalgam, _turnip_.
  gázir, _carrot_.
  turb, _radish_.
  karam, _cabbage_.
  ság, _potherbs_.
  kothík, _melon_.
  pímáz, _onion_.
  thúm, _garlic_.
  kárez, _aqueduct_.


ARMS AND ARMOUR.

  zaghm, _sword_.
  ispar, _shield_.
  nezagh, _spear_.
  pát, _stick_.
  lath, _club_.
  bízak, _leather milk-churn_.
  bil, _bow_.
  sum, _arrow_.
  kamánchol, _sling_.
  katár, _knife_.
  much, _fist_.
  chágal, _leather water-bottle_.
  tufak, _musket_.
  kundágh, _stock_.
  palíta, _match_.
  bárút, _powder_.
  mukh-taf, _belt_.
  sikh, _ramrod_.


ELEMENTS AND MINERALS.

  dharatí, _earth_.
  hawá, _air_.
  khákhar, _fire_.
  dír, _water_.
  hiss, _ashes_.
  jhamjal, _flame_.
  molh, _smoke_.
  duhun, _soot_.
  deí, _sun_.
  túbe, _moon_.
  istár, _star_.
  jhamar, _cloud_.
  phir, _rain_.
  jur, _mist_.
  barf, _snow_.
  barfíchk, _hail_.
  shaonamba, _dew_.
  yakh, _ice_.
  pae, _thunder_.
  breshná, _lightning_.
  subh, _morning_.
  manjan, _noon_.
  shám, _evening_.
  haft-de, _week_.
  túwas, _month_ (_also_ tú)
  sál, _year_.
  attam, _spring_.
  ahár, _summer_.
  irícha, _autumn_.
  suhel, _winter_.
  sekha, _shade_.
  phúdi, _cold_.
  basúní, _heat_.
  mash, _mountain_.
  lak, _mountain pass_.
  darra, _defile_.
  hísun, _gold_.
  píhun, _silver_.
  ahin, _iron_.
  mis, _copper_.
  surf, _lead_.
  jist, _zinc_.
  birinj, _brass_.
  kaláí, _tin_.
  surma, _antimony_.
  gokurt, _sulphur_.
  phitkí, _alum_.
  shora, _nitre_.
  beh, _salt_.
  totí, _blue vitriol_.
  mush-kush, _arsenic_.
  hartál, _orpiment_.
  feroza, _turquoise_.
  likh, _glass bead_.
  táho, _wind_.
  shamál, _north wind_.
  uttar, _storm_.
  lúr, _sand storm_.
  shikh, _hill peak_.
  talár, _hill slope_.
  putáo, _hill skirt_.
  chur, _gulley_.
  símáb, _mercury_.
  istar-khal, _flint_.
  folád, _steel_.
  chun, _lime_.


ARTS AND INSTRUMENTS.

  drakhan, _carpenter_.
  tash, _adze_.
  mekhchú, _hammer_.
  ara, _saw_.
  mochinak, _tweezers_.
  kház, _shears_.
  síla, _needle_.
  dask, _thread_.
  rez, _cord_.
  cáynchí, _scissors_.
  chit, _leather strap_.
  áhingar, _blacksmith_.
  zargar, _goldsmith_.
  degdán, _furnace_.
  dhamok, _bellows_.
  sindán, _anvil_.
  kudína, _hammer_.
  mekh, _nail_.
  para, _wedge_.
  charkh, _grindstone_.
  anbúr, _forceps_.
  tafar, _hatchet_.
  kumbár, _potter_.
  lichak, _clay_.
  charkh, _potter’s wheel_.
  mishí, _pottery_.
  korí, _weaver_.
  razán, _loom_.
  iras, _comb_.
  lorí, _musician_.
  damáma, _drum_.
  sittok, _dancer_.
  shutár, _pipe_.


NATURAL OBJECTS AND SENTIMENTS.

  de, _sun_.
  istár, _star_.
  nokh, _new moon_.
  túbe, _full moon_.
  mash, _Mountain_.
  dan, _plain_.
  chuk, _bird_.
  darakht, _tree_.
  khal, _rock_.
  karod, _ravine_.
  tang, _strait_.
  jal, _river_.
  chol, _desert_.
  dam-diringun, _fatigue_.
  khulisun, _fear_.
  kuskun, _death_.
  bíngun, _hunger_.
  mulás, _thirst_.
  phúdi, _cold_.
  basúní, _heat_.
  cahar, _anger_.
  pashemání, _regret_.
  gham, _sorrow_.
  armán, _grief_.
  pachár, _helplessness_.
  faryád, _complaint_.
  diláwarí, _courage_.
  khúshi, _joy_.
  lagorí, _cowardliness_.
  thap, _wound_.
  múch, _blow_.
  dakka, _shove_.
  ghut, _prod_.
  chapánt, _slap_.
  buz-halk, _kiss_.
  tawár, _call_.
  marám, _shout_.
  hoghínk, _sobbing_.
  makhínk, _laughing_.


NAMES OF TREES AND PLANTS.

  tút, _mulberry_.
  gwan, _pistacia_.
  hápurs, _juniper_.
  khat, _olive_.
  pish, _dwarf-palm_.
  hilár, _date-palm_.
  kirrí, _tamarisk_.
  kabbar, _salvadora_.
  pissí, _jujube_.
  khaler, _capparis_.
  kharag, _calotropis_.
  jawar, _oleander_.
  jag, _poplar_.
  marr, _mimosa_.
  anjír, _fig_.
  shark, _rhazzia_.
  zámur, _mezereon_.
  hóm, _ephedra_.
  náróm, _ephedra_.
  musunduk, _liquorice_ (?)
  shámpastír, _indigo-fern_.
  shinz, _hedysarum_.
  kotor, _wild almond_.
  khardaruao, _artemisia_.
  kisánkúr, _peganum_.
  mungalí, _salsola_ (?)
  lána, _caroxylon_.
  búndí, _anabis_ (?)
  gomáz, _arundo_.
  khásum, _andropogon_.
  ritáchk, _spurge_.
  shenálo, _caryophyllum_.
  piplí.
  panirband, _withiana_.
  byh, _grass_.
  mora, _dry lucerne_.


NAMES OF BIRDS AND BEASTS.

  chuk, _bird_.
  kuttám, _nest_.
  wacáb, _eagle_.
  báz, _hawk_.
  hil, _rook_.
  kulágh, _crow_.
  sher, _tiger_.
  khalegha, _leopard_.
  búm, _owl_.
  kirkashí, _swallow_.
  charz, _bustard_.
  kapot, _pigeon_.
  ginjishk, _sparrow_.
  shakúk, _magpie_.
  sínkúr, _porcupine_.
  jájak, _hedgehog_.
  kakáo, _partridge, Greek_.
  hanj, _wild duck_.
  murdárkhor, _vulture_.
  bárú, _quail_.
  cú, _swan_.
  kapínjar, _partridge_.
  kúkam, _wild pig_.
  harraf, _wild goat_.
  kharmá, _wolf_.
  kaftár, _hyena_.
  tola, _jackal_.
  shok, _fox_.
  rich, _bear_.
  bolú, _monkey_.
  murrú, _hare_.
  gorpat, _badger_.
  nor, _mungoose_.
  hal, _rat_.
  sarkúk, _tortoise_.
  shab-pirik, _bat_.
  malakh, _locust_.
  dúshá, _snake_.
  kirráú, _lizard_.
  tehlt, _scorpion_.
  gorkhar, _wild ass_.
  khazmú, _gazelle_.
  math, _male márkhor_.
  het, _female márkhor_.
  khár, _wild sheep, male_.
  gad, _wild sheep, female_.
  shák, _horn_.
  sil, _skin_.


ADJECTIVES COMMONLY IN USE.

  mon, _black_.
  píhun, _white_.
  kharun, _green_.
  khísun, _red_.
  pushkun, _yellow_.
  sámo, _grey_.
  míl, _blue_.
  chot, _crooked_.
  rást, _straight_.
  básun, _hot_.
  phuden, _cold_.
  bárun, _dry_.
  pálun, _wet_.
  murghun, _long_.
  gwand, _short_.
  kuchá, _broad_.
  tang, _narrow_.
  húlon, _thick_.
  ushkon, _thin_.
  tez, _sharp_.
  kunt, _blunt_.
  hukmatí, _obedient_.
  rást, _right_.
  cháp, _left_.
  mallók, _opener_.
  sakht, _hard_.
  khulkon, _soft_.
  durusht, _rough_.
  awár, _smooth_.
  bíngún, _hungry_.
  malás, _thirsty_.
  wasum, _full_.
  sun, _empty_.
  khuben, _heavy_.
  subuk, _light_.
  zaft, _quick_.
  madám, _slow_.
  báz, _much_.
  machit, _little_.
  balo, _large_.
  chuno, _small_.
  pír, _old_.
  warná, _young_.
  khad, _deep_.
  shef, _shallow_.
  arzán, _cheap_.
  girán, _dear_.
  jor, _well_.
  nájor, _sick_.
  taffók, _shutter_.
  mutkun, _old_.
  puzkun, _new_.
  tárma, _dark_.
  roshtírak, _bright_.
  mur, _far_.
  khurk, _near_.
  sharo, _good_.
  gando, _bad_.
  bahádur, _bold_.
  lagor, _timid_.
  hanen, _sweet_.
  kháren, _sour_.
  talkh, _bitter_.
  turun, _acrid_.
  burzo, _tall_.
  mandar, _short_.
  khor, _blind_.
  kar, _deaf_.
  gánuk, _mad_.
  gung, _dumb_.
  shifárk, _lean_.
  húlan, _fat_.
  mand, _lame_.
  leláwí, _greedy_.
  dhakkók, _hider_.


VERBS.

The verbs in common use are here given in alphabetical order. As a guide
to conjugation on the paradigms already given, the forms of the root and
present and past tenses are added. The imperative is in the second person
plural, and the present and past tenses in the third person singular.

   ENGLISH.    INFINITIVE.     IMPERATIVE.     PRESENT.       PAST.

  _abandon_    íling           ílbo _or_ ílabo íle _or_ ílate ílene _or_ íl
  _abound_     báz-maning      báz-mabo        báz-are        báz-mas
  _abuse_      kiring          kiribo          kirite         kir
  _accept_     haling          halbo           hale           halk
  _adhere_     liching         lichibo         liche          lich
  _adorn_      zeb-tining      zeb-tibo        tire           tis
  _allot_      bakhshing       bakhshbo        bakhshe        bakhsh
  _alter_      harsing         harsibo         harse          hars
  _arrive_     rasing          rasibo          rase           ras
  _ask_        harafing        harafebo        harafe         haraf
  _assault_    hrúsh-kanning   hrúsh-kabo      hrúsh-ke       hrúsh-kar
  _awake_      bash-maning     bash-mabo       bash-are       bash-mas
  _await_
    (_seek_)   huning          honbo           hore           hor
  _become_     maning          mabo            are-e          mas
  _beat_       khaling         khalbo          khale          khalk
  _beg_        pin_d_ing       pin_d_bo        pin_d_e        pin_d_
  _begot,
    to be_     vadí-maning     vadí-mabo       vadí-are       vadí-mas
  _begin_      shurú-kaning    shurú-kabo      shurú-ke       shurú-kar
  _bend_       _d_ol-kaning    _d_ol-kabo      _d_ol-ke       _d_ol-kar
  _bind_       tafing          tafbo           tafe           taf
  _bite_       daling          dalbo           dale           dal
  _bleat_      laláring        lalárbo         laláre         lalár
  _blow_       laging          lagbo           lage           lag
  _boil_, a.   básing          básbo           báse           bás
  _boil_, n.   joshing         joshbo          joshe          josh
  _braid_      gofing          gofbo           gofe           gof
  _bring_      hataring        hatbo           hate           hes
  _break_      piraghing       pirabo          pire           piragh
  _breathe_    uf-kaning       uf-kabo         uf-ke          uf-kar
  _bring_      haling          halbo           hale           halk
  _burn_       hoshing         hoshbo          hoshe          hosh
  _burst_      chiling         chilbo          chile          chil
  _bury_       cabr-kaning     cabr-kabo       cabr-ke        cabr-kar
  _buy_        saudá-haling    saudá-halbo     saudá-hale     saudá-halk
  _call_       tawár-kaning    tawár-kabo      tawár-ke       tawár-kar
  _carry_      daning          danbo           dare           dar
  _cast_       bi_t_ing        bi_t_ibo        bi_t_e         bi_t_
  _carve_      kishking        kishbo          kishe          kishk
  _catch_      haling          halbo           hale           halk
  _clothe_     berfing         berbo           berfe          berf
  _collect_    much-kaning     much-kabo       much-ke        much-kar
  _come_       baning          babo            bare           bas
  _conceal_    dhaking         dhabo           dhake          dhak
  _cook_       bising          biribo          bire           bis
  _copulate_   haning          hanbo           hane           han
  _cough_      jhaking         jhakabo         jhake          jhak
  _count_      hisáb-kaning    hisáb-kabo      hisáb-ke       hisáb-kar
  _cover_      dhaking         dhakbo          dhake          dhak
  _cry_        hoghing         hoghbo          hoye           hogh
  _cut_        haring          harbo           hare           har
  _dance_      nách-kaning     nách-kabo       nách-ke        nách-kar
  _deceive_    refing          refbo           refe           ref
  _die_        kahing          kahbo           kahe           kah
  _dig_        kad-khaling     kad-khalbo      kad-khale      kad-khalk
  _divide_     bakhshing       bakhshbo        bakhshe        bakhsh
  _draw_       kashing         kashbo          kashe          kash
  _dream_      túgh-khaning    túgh-khanbo     túgh-khane     túgh-khan
  _drink_      dír-kuning      dír-kubo        dír-kune       dír-kun
  _drop_       chaking         chakbo          chake          chak
  _dwell_      já-maning       já-mabo         já-are         já-mas
  _do_         kaning          kabo            ke             kar
  _eat_        kuning          kubo            kune           kun
  _endure_     kashing         kashbo          kashe          kash
  _enter_      tahtí-baning    tahtí-babo      tahtí-bare     tahtí-bas
  _escape_     chhuting        chhutbo         chhute         chhut
  _empty_      musun-kaning    musun-kabo      musun-ke       musun-kar
  _fall_       taming          tambo           tame           tam
  _fear_       khuling         khulbo          khule          khul
  _flee_       nering          nerbo           nere           ner
  _fly_        bál-kaning      bál-kabo        bál-ke         bál-kar
  _fight_      jang-kaning     jang-kabo       jang-ke        jang-kar
  _fill_       pur-kaning      pur-kabo        pur-ke         pur-kar
  _forbid_     rad-kaning      rad-kabo        rad-ke         rad-kar
  _forget_     yád-hining      yád-hirbo       yád-hire       yád-hir
  _forgive_    bashking        bashkbo         bashke         bashk
  _forsake_    íling           ílbo            íle            íl
  _frighten_   khulífing       khulífbo        khulífe        khulíf
  _fry_        bhugí-kaning    bhugí-kabo      bhugí-ke       bhugí-kar
  _follow_     randa_t_-hining randa_t_-hinbo  randa_t_-káe   randa_t_-hin
  _gallop_     dudefing        dudefbo         dudefe         dudef
  _gather_     much-kaning     much-kabo       much-ke        much-kar
  _get up_     bash-maning     bash-mabo       bash-are       bash-mas
  _give_       tining          tinbo or tibo   tire           tis
  _go_         hining          hinbo           káe            hin
  _graze_      khwáfing        khwáfbo         khwáfe         khwáf
  _grind_      nusing          nusbo           nuse           nus
  _growl_      báshághing      báshábo         báshághe       báshágh
  _guess_      samá-kaning     samá-kabo       samá-ke        samá-kar
  _hang_       laronj-kaning   laronj-kabo     laronj-ke      laronj-kar
  _happen_     taming          tambo           tame           tam
  _have_       toning          tonbo           tore           ton
  _hear_       bining          binbo           bire           bin
  _hide_       dhaking         dhakbo          dhake          dhak
  _hold_       toning          tonbo           tore           ton
  _hug_        gwar-haling     gwar-halbo      gwar-hale      gwar-halk
  _inquire_    harafing        harafebo        harafe         haraf
  _itch_       kháring         khárbo          kháre          khár
  _join_       much-tining     much-tibo       much-tire      much-tis
  _keep_       nigáh-toning    nigáh-tonbo     nigáh-tore     nigáh-ton
  _kick_       laghat-khaling  laghat-khalbo   laghat-khale   laghat-khalk
  _kill_       kasfing         kasfebo         kasfe          kas
  _kiss_       pak-tining      pak-tibo        pak-tire       pak-tis
  _kiss_       buz-haling      buz-halbo       buz-hale       buz-halk
  _knead_      much-kaning (?) much-kabo       much-ke        much-kar
  _know_       sháhing         sháhibo         sháhe          sháh
  _laugh_      makhing         makhbo          makhe          makh
  _lay_        túlfing         túlfebo         túlfe          túl
  _lead_       duning          dunbo           dure           dur
  _leak_       chutfing        chutfebo        chutfe         chut
  _learn_      hífing          hífbo           hífe           híf
  _leave_      íling           ílbo            íle            íl
  _let go_     íla-kaning      íla-kabo        íla-ke         íla-kar
  _lie_        drogh-páning    drogh-pabo      drogh-pare     drogh-par
  _lick_       chating         chatebo         chate          chat
  _lift_       hefing          hefbo           hefe           hef
  _light_      roshtínk-tining roshtínk-tibo   roshtínk-tire  roshtínk-tis
  _listen_     khafing         khafbo          khafe          khaf
  _live_       zind-maning     zind-mabo       zind-are       zind-mas
  _loathe_     gando-daning    gando-danbo     gando-dare     gando-dar
  _lodge_      jáeti-maning    jáeti-mabo      jáeti-are      jáeti-mas
  _look_       khaning         khanbo          khane          khan
  _lose_       gohing          gohebo          gohe           goh
  _make_       kaning          kabo            ke             kar
  _marry_      barám-kaning    barám-kabo      barám-ke       barám-kar
  _measure_    dághing         dághebo         dághe          dágh
  _meet_       huning          hunbo           hure           hur
  _mend_       jor-kaning      jor-kabo        jor-ke         jor-kar
  _melt_       dír-kaning      dír-kabo        dír-ke         dír-kar
  _milk_       bhíring         bhírbo          bhíre          bhír
  _miss_       rad-kaning      rad-kabo        rad-ka         rad-kar
  _mix_        awár-kaning     awár-kabo       awár-ke        awár-kar
  _move_       surfing         surfebo         surfe          sur
  _open_       maling          malbo           male           mal
  _open_       ithing          ithibo          ithe           ith
  _pass_       gidring         gidirebo        gidire         gidar
  _pinch_      chundik-tining  chundik-tibo    chundik-tire   chundik-tis
  _place_      túlfing         túlfebo         túlfe          túl
  _plant_      tikhing         tikhbo          tikhe          tikh
  _play_       makhing         makhbo          makhe          makh
  _pluck_      bening          benbo           bere           ber
  _poke_       ghut-khaling    ghut-khalbo     ghut-khale     ghut-khalk
  _possess_    daning          danbo           dare           dar
  _pour_       shághing        sholbo          shághe         shol
  _pull_       kashing         kashbo          kashe          kash
  _push_       dhakka-tining   dhakka-tibo     dhakka-tire    dhakka-tis
  _quarrel_    jang-kaning     jang-kabo       jang-ke        jang-kar
  _question_   harfing         harfbo          harfe          haraf
  _rain_       dasing          dasbo           dase           das
  _raise_      hefing          hefbo           hefe           hef
  _reach_      rasing          rasbo           rase           ras
  _read_       khwáning        khwánbo         khwáne         khwán
  _reap_       rú_t_ing        rú_t_bo         rú_t_e         rú_t_
  _recline_    túgh-maning     túgh-mabo       túgh-are       túgh-mas
  _recognise_  cháning         chánbo          cháne          chás
  _recollect_  yád-tiling      yád-tilbo       yád-tile       yád-tilk
  _remind_     yád-tining      yád-tibo        yád-tire       yád-tis
  _release_    chhutfing       chhutfebo       chhutfe        chhut
  _reject_     rad-kaning      rad-kabo        rad-ke         rad-kar
  _rest_       dam-daning      dam-danbo       dam-dare       dam-dar
  _remain_     manzil-maning   manzil-mabo     manzil-are     manzil-mas
  _rinse_      píling          pílbo           píle           píl
  _repel_      hy-kaning       hy-kabo         hy-ke          hy-kar
  _respire_    dam-kashing     dam-kashbo      dam-kashe      dam-kashk
  _return_     harsing         harsebo         harse          hars
  _ride_       suwár-maning    suwár-mabo      suwár-are      suwár-mas
  _rise_       bash-maning     bash-mabo       bash-are       bash-mas
  _rob_        duzdí-kaning    duzdí-kabo      duzdí-ke       duzdí-kar
  _roll_       redeting        redetebo        redete         redet
  _rub_        mushking        mushkbo         mushke         mushk
  _run_        halma-kaning    halma-kabo      halma-ke       halma-kar
  _say_        páning          pábo            páre           pár
  _scatter_    khasing         khasbo          khase          khas
  _scrape_     tráshing        tráshbo         tráshe         trásh
  _scratch_    khárfing        khárfebo        khárfe         kháraf
  _search_     pa_t_ing        pa_t_bo         pa_t_e         pa_t_
  _see_        khaning         khanbo          khane          khan
  _seek_       huning          hunbo           hure           hur
  _seize_      phuling         phulbo          phule          phul
  _sell_       saudá-kaning    saudá-kabo      saudá-ke       saudá-kar
  _send_       ráhí-kaning     ráhí-kabo       ráhí-ke        ráhí-kar
  _sew_        múghing         múghbo          múghe          múgh
  _share_      sholfing        sholfebo        sholfe         sholaf
  _shine_      rosh-tining     rosh-tibo       rosh-tire      rosh-tis
  _shiver_     larzing         larzbo          larze          larz
  _shout_      marám-kaning    marám-kabo      marám-ke       marám-kar
  _shut_       tafing          tafbo           tafe           taf
  _sing_       sha’ir-páning   sha’ir-pábo     sha’ir-páre    sha’ir-pár
  _sit_        túling          túsbo           túse           tús
  _sleep_      túgh-kaning     túgh-kabo       túgh-ke        túgh-kar
  _slip_       lughusht-haling lughusht-halbo  lughusht-hale  lughusht-halk
  _seat_       túlfing         túlfebo         túlfe          túlaf
  _sneeze_     nich-tining     nich-tibo       nich-tire      nich-tis
  _sow_        dasfing         dasfebo         dasfe          dasaf
  _speak_      hít-kaning      hít-kabo        hít-ke         hít-kar
  _spill_      sholing         sholbo          shole          shol
  _stumble_    le_t_ing        le_t_bo         le_t_e         le_t_
  _spin_, n.   harsing         harsbo          harse          hars
  _spin_, a.   harsefing       harsefebo       harsefe        harsef
  _spit_       túf-kaning      túf-kabo        túf-ke         túf-kar
  _split_      trakhing        trakhbo         trakhe         trakh
  _spread_     tálán-kaning    tálán-kabo      tálán-ke       tálán-kar
  _sprinkle_   chateting       chatetebo       chatete        chatet
  _stand_      saling          salbo           sale           sal
  _stay_       maning          mabo            are            mas
  _stoop_      shefming        shefmabo        shefe          shef
  _strain_     chhán-kaning    chhán-kabo      chhán-ke       chhán-kar
  _strike_     khaling         khalbo          khale          khalk
  _strip_      laghar-kaning   laghar-kabo     laghar-ke      laghar-kar
  _suck_       chusfing        chusfebo        chusfe         chusaf
  _sweat_      khet-kaning     khet-kabo       khet-ke        khet-kar
  _swell_      pirsing         pirsbo          pirse          pirs
  _sweep_      rofing          rofbo           rofe           rof
  _swim_       tár-khaling     tár-khalbo      tár-khale      tár-khalk
  _swing_      jhulu_t_-kaning jhulu_t_-kabo   jhulu_t_-ke    jhulu_t_-kar
  _take_       haling          halbo           hale           halk
  _take away_  harf-hining     harf-hinbo      harf-káe       harf-hin
  _talk_       hít-kaning      hít-kabo        hít-ke         hít-kar
  _tap_        tak-khaling     tak-khalbo      tak-khale      tak-khalk
  _taste_      chaking         chakebo         chake          chak
  _teach_      sarpan-kaning   sarpan-kabo     sarpan-ke      sarpan-kar
  _tear_       haring          haribo          hare           har
  _throw_      harabing        harabebo        harabe         harab
                (bi_t_ing)
  _tickle_     gudulú-kaning   gudulú-kabo     gudulú-ke      gudulú-kar
  _till_
    (_plough_) langár-kaning   langár-kabo     langár-ke      langár-kar
  _tire_       dam-daning      dam-danbo       dam-dare       dam-dar
  _trip_       thábo-kaning    thábo-kabo      thábo-ke       thábo-kar
  _turn_, n.   harsing         harsebo         harse          haras
  _twine_      peching         pechebo         peche          pech
  _twist_      res-tining      res-tibo        res-tire       res-tis
  _tumefy_     padám-kaning    padám-kabo      padám-ke       padám-kar
  _turn_, a.   harsefing       harsefebo       harsefe        harsef
  _understand_ sarpan-maning   sarpan-mabo     sarpan-are     sarpan-mas
  _upset_      musun-kaning    musun-kabo      musun-ke       musun-kar
  _wait_       jáeti-maning    jáeti-mabo      jáeti-are      jáeti-mas
  _walk_       kasar-hining    kasar-hinbo     kasar-káe      kasar-hin
  _wander_     charing         charbo          chare          char
  _want_       aling-ba_t_ing  albo-ba_t_bo    ale-ba_t_e     al-ba_t_
  _wash_       siling          silbo           sile           sil
  _wear_       bening          benbo           bene           ben
  _weare_      báfing          báfbo           báfe           báf
  _weep_       hoghing         hoyibo          hoye           hogh
  _weigh_      tol-kaning      tol-kabo        tol-ke         tol-kar
  _wink_       khan-khaling    khan-khalbo     khan-khale     khan-khalk
  _wish_       árzú-takhing    árzú-takhbo     árzú-takhe     árzú-takh
  _whistle_    shutár-kashing  shutár-kashbo   shutár-kashe   shutár-kash
  _work_       kárem-kaning    kárem-kabo      kárem-ke       kárem-kar
  _wound_      tha_d_ing       tha_d_bo        tha_d_e        tha_d_
  _wrap_       much-kaning     much-kabo       much-ke        much-kar
  _wring_      píling          pílbo           píle           píl
  _write_      nabisht-kaning  nabisht-kabo    nabisht-ke     nabisht-kar

The materials from which the above Grammar and Vocabulary are compiled
were collected during a rapid journey through the territories of the Khán
of Calát—the Brahoe country—and tested, so far as opportunity offered, by
reference to natives in different parts of the country, and by comparison
with Eastwick’s “Epitome of the Grammars of the Brahuiky, Balochky, and
Panjabi Languages.” It was my intention to have added some dialogues and
phrases as a conclusion to the work. But to do so would extend the limits
of this book to undue proportions, and delay its appearance indefinitely.
I have therefore left this part of the work unfinished, and only offer
the above synopsis in the hope that it may prove useful to the officers
serving on the Sind Frontier; and if it should happily stimulate one
amongst them to correct its errors, supply its deficiencies, and enlarge
its scope, then the object of my labour will have been gained.

                                                                  H. W. B.




APPENDIX.

B.

RECORD OF METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS AND ALTITUDES ON THE MARCH FROM THE
INDUS TO THE TIGRIS, THROUGH BALOCHISTAN, AFGHANISTAN, SISTAN, KHORASSAN,
AND IRAN.


  ----------------+-----------+---------------+--------+-----------------+
                  |   Date,   | Thermometer.  |        |    Barometer.   |
     LOCALITY.    |  1872.    |               |Distance|                 |
                  +------+----+----+-----+----+ —Miles.+-----+-----+-----+
                  |Month.|Day.|Max.|Mean.|Min.|        |Max. |Mean.|Min. |
  ----------------+------+----+----+-----+----+--------+-----+-----+-----+
  Sakkar,         | Jan. |  5 |    | 52  |    |        |     |29·99|     |
  Shikárpúr,      |  ”   |  5 | 64 | 53  | 42 |   24   |     |30·00|     |
  Jacobabad,      |  ”   |  7 | 64 | 61  | 59 |   26   |30·02|29·81|29·42|
  Barshori,       |  ”   |  8 | 76 | 54  | 38 |   35   |29·46|29·40|29·36|
  Sanjarání,      |  ”   |  9 | 78 | 56  | 41 |   13   |29·41|29·35|29·30|
  Kotra,          |  ”   | 10 | 76 | 60  | 39 |   30   |29·36|29·32|29·27|
  Pirchhalta,     |  ”   | 11 | 88 | 64  | 39 |    9   |29·03|28·94|28·89|
  Kuhaw,          |  ”   | 12 | 76 | 62  | 56 |   12   |28·71|28·63|28·59|
  Hatáchi,        |  ”   | 13 | 63 | 53  | 42 |   16   |27·73|27·72|27·71|
  Narr,           |  ”   | 14 | 72 | 53  | 36 |   16   |26·74|26·71|26·68|
  Gorú,           |  ”   | 15 | 78 | 44  | 25 |   13   |25·78|25·73|25·67|
  Khozdár,        |  ”   | 16 | 70 | 50  | 40 |   16   |25·70|25·59|25·50|
  Bághwána,       |  ”   | 18 | 68 | 58  | 48 |   16   |25·51|25·20|25·05|
  Lákoryán,       |  ”   | 19 | 56 | 45  | 38 |   26   |24·45|24·18|24·00|
  Súráb,          |  ”   | 20 | 49 | 32  | 23 |   20   |23·90|23·87|23·85|
  Gandaghen,      |  ”   | 21 | 44 | 20  | 10 |   13   |23·87|23·71|23·60|
  Rodinjo,        |  ”   | 22 | 64 | 40  | 14 |   15   |23·21|23·13|23·09|
  Calát,          |  ”   | 23 | 53 | 25  |  8 |   23   |23·09|23·00|22·94|
  Mungachar,      |  ”   | 25 | 56 | 32  | 21 |   26   |23·90|23·84|23·77|
  Amánullah,      |  ”   | 26 | 58 | 32  | 19 |   26   |24·00|23·99|23·96|
  Mastung Fort,   |  ”   | 27 | 49 | 39  | 32 |    9   |24·04|23·10|23·95|
  Nishpá Pass,    |  ”   | 28 |    | 32  |    |   18   |     |23·67|     |
  Sariáb,         |  ”   | 28 | 53 | 43  | 38 |   11   |23·94|23·88|23·80|
  Shál Kot,       |  ”   | 29 | 56 | 41  | 29 |   13   |24·00|23·96|23·92|
  Murghí Pass,    |  ”   | 30 |    | 32  |    |   11   |     |24·16|     |
  Cushlác,        |  ”   | 30 | 29 | 17  |  5 |    5   |24·50|24·44|24·35|
  Hykalzai,       | Feb. |  1 | 42 | 32  | 22 |   18   |24·75|24·73|24·70|
  Arambi,         |  ”   |  2 | 44 | 32  | 19 |   15   |24·59|24·54|24·51|
  Churgha Khojak, |  ”   |  3 | 49 | 38  | 31 |   13   |22·84|22·82|22·81|
  Khojak Pass,    |  ”   |  4 |    | 40  |    |    1½  |     |22·47|     |
  Cháokat Khojak, |  ”   |  4 |    | 40  |    |    1½  |     |23·15|     |
  Chaman,         |  ”   |  4 | 46 | 37  | 26 |    4   |24·10|24·05|24·00|
  Gátaí,          |  ”   |  5 | 50 | 37  | 28 |   22   |25·50|25·48|25·45|
  Mel Mándah,     |  ”   |  6 | 47 | 26  | 11 |   14   |25·45|25·21|25·29|
  Mákú,           |  ”   |  7 | 50 | 37  | 31 |   18   |25·94|25·92|25·90|
  Mund Hissár,    |  ”   |  8 | 50 | 38  | 32 |   16   |26·19|26·15|26·12|
  Kandahar,       |  ”   |  9 | 54 | 36  | 30 |   12   |26·30|26·21|26·12|
  Kohkarán,       |  ”   | 14 | 62 | 44  | 31 |    7   |26·25|26·22|26·20|
  Hanz Maddad,    |  ”   | 15 | 76 | 45  | 30 |   18   |26·48|26·37|26·29|
  Chashma,        |  ”   | 16 | 68 | 47  | 29 |   22   |26·69|26·64|26·59|
  Balakhán,       |  ”   | 17 | 64 | 47  | 36 |   23   |26·75|26·62|26·54|
  Calá Búst,      |  ”   | 18 | 84 | 46  | 29 |   28   |27·00|26·90|26·85|
  Hazárjuft,      |  ”   | 20 | 74 | 45  | 31 |   40   |27·10|27·06|27·02|
  Mian Pushta,    |  ”   | 21 | 80 | 47  | 30 |   14   |27·27|27·20|27·15|
  Sufár,          |  ”   | 22 | 74 | 55  | 42 |   18   |27·21|27·19|27·16|
  Banádir Jumá,   |  ”   | 23 | 82 | 59  | 46 |   15   |27·26|27·23|27·19|
  Landi,          |  ”   | 24 | 70 | 54  | 46 |   14   |27·30|27·27|27·24|
  Calá Sabz,      |  ”   | 25 | 86 | 63  | 52 |   22   |27·24|27·22|27·18|
  Mel Gudar,      |  ”   | 26 | 74 | 60  | 50 |   23   |27·28|27·28|27·24|
  Landi Bárech,   |  ”   | 27 | 64 | 53  | 46 |   36   |27·54|27·44|27·38|
  Rúdbár,         |  ”   | 28 | 68 | 52  | 40 |   17   |27·60|27·58|27·56|
  Calá Ján Beg,   |  ”   | 29 | 70 | 55  | 40 |   28   |27·66|27·62|27·60|
  Chárburjak,     | Mar. |  1 | 73 | 54  | 40 |   14   |27·75|27·69|27·65|
  Bandar Trákú,   |  ”   |  2 | 77 | 57  | 42 |   13   |27·68|27·67|27·66|
  Daki Dela,      |  ”   |  3 | 80 | 65  | 55 |   14   |27·56|27·55|27·54|
  Cabri Hájí,     |  ”   |  4 | 84 | 69  | 55 |   12   |27·61|27·52|27·46|
  Burj ’Alam,     |  ”   |  5 | 80 | 62  | 50 |   19   |27·60|27·58|27·56|
  Wásilán,        |  ”   |  6 | 76 | 60  | 40 |    7   |27·59|27·55|27·51|
  Nasírabad,      |  ”   |  7 | 78 | 63  | 51 |   12   |27·75|27·64|27·59|
  Banjár,         |  ”   |  8 | 74 | 46  | 43 |    6   |28·04|27·88|27·65|
  Bolay,          |  ”   | 11 | 74 | 55  | 46 |    7   |27·90|27·84|27·80|
  Silyán,         |  ”   | 13 | 70 | 54  | 39 |   28   |27·79|27·76|27·70|
  Lásh,           |  ”   | 15 | 96 | 54  | 34 |   18   |27·79|27·69|27·60|
  Panjdih,        |  ”   | 18 | 83 | 62  | 50 |    6   |27·69|27·59|27·50|
  Khúshkrodak,    |  ”   | 19 | 83 | 63  | 50 |   16   |27·50|27·49|27·49|
  Calá Koh,       |  ”   | 20 | 94 | 65  | 52 |   15   |27·40|27·39|27·38|
  Harút Rúd,      |  ”   | 21 | 92 | 76  | 65 |   15   |27·39|27·30|27·22|
  Cháhi Sagak,    |  ”   | 22 | 78 | 66  | 56 |   24   |26·25|26·23|26·22|
  Cháhi Pass,     |  ”   | 23 |    | 54  |    |    5   |     |25·59|     |
  Duroh,          |  ”   | 23 | 66 | 57  | 50 |   23   |25·50|25·48|25·45|
  Husenabad,      |  ”   | 24 | 66 | 50  | 38 |   27   |25·09|25·01|24·96|
  Sarbesha,       |  ”   | 26 | 54 | 40  | 28 |   29   |23·70|23·68|23·60|
  Múd,            |  ”   | 28 | 71 | 46  | 31 |   22   |23·61|23·58|23·57|
  Birjand,        |  ”   | 29 | 80 | 56  | 37 |   25   |24·79|24·66|24·56|
  Ghíbk,          |April |  2 | 61 | 41  | 32 |   18   |23·12|23·11|23·10|
  Sihdib,         |  ”   |  4 | 64 | 46  | 33 |   18   |24·07|24·03|24·0 |
  Rúm,            |  ”   |  5 | 60 | 48  | 36 |   10   |23·90|23·90|23·90|
  Kharbáj Pass,   |  ”   |  6 |    | 43  |    |    7   |     |23·20|     |
  Gháyn,          |  ”   |  6 | 70 | 52  | 35 |   15   |24·76|24·68|24·61|
  Girimunj,       |  ”   |  9 | 52 | 44  | 37 |   22   |24·50|24·50|24·50|
  Dashtí Pyáz,    |  ”   | 10 | 80 | 53  | 35 |   15   |24·26|24·18|24·11|
  Kakhak,         |  ”   | 13 | 64 | 49  | 45 |   16   |24·24|24·22|24·20|
  Zihbad,         |  ”   | 14 | 88 | 67  | 57 |   16   |24·55|24·51|24·48|
  Bijistan,       |  ”   | 15 | 84 | 65  | 47 |   28   |25·24|25·18|25·13|
  Yrínasi,        |  ”   | 17 | 80 | 59  | 45 |   26   |26·61|26·56|26·48|
  Abdullahabad,   |  ”   | 18 | 89 | 61  | 51 |   25   |26·20|26·11|26·05|
  Turbat Hydari,  |  ”   | 20 | 82 | 56  | 40 |   32   |25·04|24·95|24·90|
  Baidár Pass,    |  ”   | 23 |    | 46  |    |   10   |     |23·74|     |
  Gudari Baidár,  |  ”   | 23 |    | 40  |    |    7   |     |22·70|     |
  Asudábád,       |  ”   | 23 | 49 | 43  | 40 |   11   |23·89|23·85|23·82|
  Gudari Rúkh,    |  ”   | 24 |    | 42  |    |    6   |     |22·85|     |
  Rabáti Sufed,   |  ”   | 24 |    | 50  |    |    6   |     |23·82|     |
  Káfir Calá,     |  ”   | 24 |    | 50  |    |    6   |     |24·53|     |
  Sharífabad,     |  ”   | 24 | 62 | 49  | 44 |   16   |24·70|24·68|24·63|
  Mashhad,        |  ”   | 25 | 94 | 54  | 43 |   24   |26·40|26·25|26·07|
  Jágharc,        | May  |  3 | 64 | 54  | 46 |   20   |24·90|24·87|24·83|
  Nishabor Pass,  |  ”   |  4 |    | 50  |    |   14   |     |20·90|     |
  Dihrúd,         |  ”   |  4 | 62 | 61  | 59 |   10   |24·34|24·29|24·22|
  Nishabor,       |  ”   |  5 | 75 | 56  | 49 |   22   |25·60|25·47|25·37|
  Záminabad,      |  ”   |  7 | 80 | 52  | 40 |   16   |25·96|25·90|25·80|
  Shoráb,         |  ”   |  8 | 69 | 50  | 45 |    9   |25·47|25·45|25·42|
  Záfaráni,       |  ”   |  9 | 82 | 73  | 60 |   18   |26·12|25·88|25·90|
  Sabzwár,        |  ”   | 11 | 82 | 67  | 59 |   25   |26·20|26·12|26·04|
  Mihr,           |  ”   | 13 | 84 | 74  | 69 |   33   |26·09|26·02|25·98|
  Mazinán,        |  ”   | 14 | 74 | 67  | 58 |   20   |26·64|26·61|26·60|
  Abbasabad,      |  ”   | 15 | 86 | 74  | 56 |   23   |26·54|26·51|26·49|
  Miandasht,      |  ”   | 16 | 75 | 63  | 54 |   22   |25·40|25·37|25·32|
  Miánmay,        |  ”   | 17 | 76 | 58  | 54 |   24   |25·90|25·83|25·75|
  Shahrúd,        |  ”   | 18 | 82 | 63  | 51 |   41   |25·20|25·64|24·85|
  Dihmulla,       |  ”   | 24 | 70 | 63  | 58 |   16   |25·90|25·87|25·83|
  Damghán,        |  ”   | 25 | 86 | 62  | 50 |   26   |25·80|25·77|25·75|
  Khúsha,         |  ”   | 26 | 85 | 65  | 53 |   23   |25·25|25·23|25·20|
  Ahuán,          |  ”   | 27 | 73 | 58  | 47 |   24   |23·30|23·24|23·25|
  Samnán,         |  ”   | 28 | 92 | 70  | 60 |   24   |25·51|25·46|25·38|
  Lásjird,        |  ”   | 30 | 84 | 73  | 68 |   22   |25·32|25·24|25·22|
  Dih Namak,      |  ”   | 31 | 91 | 84  | 76 |   25   |26·55|26·47|26·43|
  Kishlác,        | June |  1 | 88 | 76  | 80 |   24   |26·52|26·46|26·42|
  Aywáni Kyf,     |  ”   |  2 | 88 | 75  | 56 |   21   |25·81|25·70|25·60|
  Khátúnabad,     |  ”   |  4 | 82 | 72  | 56 |   27   |26·10|26·04|25·98|
  Gulahak,        |  ”   |  5 | 76 | 72  | 55 |   18   |24·69|24·62|24·53|
  Tahrán,         |  ”   |  8 | 76 | 72  | 69 |    8   |25·64|25·61|25·60|
  Rábút Karím,    |  ”   |  9 | 88 | 78  | 70 |   29   |25·87|25·85|25·81|
  Khanabad,       |  ”   | 10 | 96 | 75  | 59 |   33   |25·23|25·19|25·15|
  Khushkak,       |  ”   | 11 | 72 | 64  | 56 |   26   |24·23|24·19|24·15|
  Novarán,        |  ”   | 12 | 73 | 61  | 54 |   36   |24·08|24·06|24·04|
  Zaráh,          |  ”   | 13 | 94 | 58  | 50 |   32   |24·20|24·15|24·10|
  Mílagard,       |  ”   | 14 | 90 | 64  | 48 |   20   |24·06|24·05|24·05|
  Hamadán,        |  ”   | 15 | 81 | 71  | 60 |   36   |23·60|23·53|23·50|
  Asadabad,       |  ”   | 17 | 83 | 71  | 60 |   32   |24·05|24·04|24·01|
  Kangawár,       |  ”   | 18 | 78 | 65  | 51 |   25   |24·49|24·44|24·41|
  Sahnah,         |  ”   | 19 | 87 | 70  | 52 |   23   |24·87|24·84|24·80|
  Besitun,        |  ”   | 20 | 88 | 66  | 52 |   18   |25·10|25·04|25·00|
  Kirmánshah,     |  ”   | 21 | 94 | 68  | 40 |   28   |24·75|24·70|24·66|
  Mydasht,        |  ”   | 23 | 71 | 64  | 48 |   23   |24·68|24·66|24·64|
  Hárúnabad,      |  ”   | 24 | 79 | 68  | 50 |   28   |24·90|24·88|24·85|
  Karriud,        |  ”   | 25 | 79 | 72  | 56 |   24   |24·46|24·36|24·30|
                  |      |Tent|    |     |    |        |     |     |     |
  Pul Zuháb,      |  ”   | 26 |102 | 76  | 60 |   32   |27·22|27·19|27·16|
  Casri Shirin,   |  ”   | 27 |103 | 86  | 68 |   24   |27·84|27·79|27·76|
  Hájí Cara,      |  ”   | 28 |108 | 84  | 64 |   24   |28·49|28·39|28·30|
  Sherabad,       | July |  8 |102 | 98  | 92 |   45   |28·70|28·70|28·70|
  Bácúba,         |  ”   |  9 |106 | 98  | 92 |   32   |29·20|29·20|29·20|
  Baghdad,        |  ”   | 10 |109 | 92  | 76 |   40   |29·42|29·36|29·30|
  ----------------+------+----+----+-----+----+--------+-----+-----+-----+

  ----------------+--------+------+-------------
                  |        |      |
     LOCALITY.    |Altitude| Wind.|  Weather.
                  | —Feet. |      |
                  |        |      |
  ----------------+--------+------+-------------
  Sakkar,         |        |      |    Fair.
  Shikárpúr,      |        |      |     do.
  Jacobabad,      |        |      |     do.
  Barshori,       |    90  |      |     do.
  Sanjarání,      |   160  |      |     do.
  Kotra,          |   166  |      |     do.
  Pirchhalta,     |   520  |      |     do.
  Kuhaw,          |   810  |      |     do.
  Hatáchi,        |  1710  |      |     do.
  Narr,           |  2710  |      |     do.
  Gorú,           |  3725  |  NW. |   Cloudy.
  Khozdár,        |  3870  |  do. |     do.
  Bághwána,       |  4290  |  do. |     do.
  Lákoryán,       |  5420  |  do. |Rain & sleet.
  Súráb,          |  5770  |  do. |   Cloudy.
  Gandaghen,      |  5950  |  do. |     do.
  Rodinjo,        |  6625  |  do. |     do.
  Calát,          |  6780  |  do. |     do.
  Mungachar,      |  5700  |  do. |     do.
  Amánullah,      |  5630  |  do. | Slight rain.
  Mastung Fort,   |  6662  |  do. |   Cloudy.
  Nishpá Pass,    |  6000  |  do. | Sleet & hail.
  Sariáb,         |  5760  |  do. | Sleet & rain.
  Shál Kot,       |  5660  |  do. |   Cloudy.
  Murghí Pass,    |  5440  |  do. | Sleet & hail.
  Cushlác,        |  5125  |  do. |    Snow.
  Hykalzai,       |  4800  |  do. |     do.
  Arambi,         |  4960  |  do. |     do.
  Churgha Khojak, |  7000  |  do. |     do.
  Khojak Pass,    |  7410  |  N.  | Mist & sleet.
  Cháokat Khojak, |  6600  |  do. |     do.
  Chaman,         |  5560  |  do. | Hail & sleet.
  Gátaí,          |  3990  |  do. | Cloudy, hail.
  Mel Mándah,     |  4100  |  do. |    Fair.
  Mákú,           |  3520  |  do. |   Cloudy.
  Mund Hissár,    |  3280  |  NW. | Cldy., snow.
  Kandahar,       |  3220  |  do. |Cloudy, fair.
  Kohkarán,       |  3210  |  do. |    Fair.
  Hanz Maddad,    |  3050  |  do. |     do.
  Chashma,        |  2780  |  do. |     do.
  Balakhán,       |  2700  |  NE. |Cloudy, rain.
  Calá Búst,      |  2510  |  N.  |    Fair.
  Hazárjuft,      |  2350  |  NW. |     do.
  Mian Pushta,    |  2210  |  do. |   Cloudy.
  Sufár,          |  2220  |  do. |    Fair.
  Banádir Jumá,   |  2180  |  do. |     do.
  Landi,          |  2140  |  W.  |Cloudy, rain.
  Calá Sabz,      |  2190  |  do. |    Fair.
  Mel Gudar,      |  2130  |  do. |   Cloudy.
  Landi Bárech,   |  1975  |  NW. |   Rainy.
  Rúdbár,         |  1830  |  do. |Cloudy, fair.
  Calá Ján Beg,   |  1790  |  do. |    Fair.
  Chárburjak,     |  1720  |  do. |     do.
  Bandar Trákú,   |  1740  |  do. |     do.
  Daki Dela,      |  1860  |  S.  |   Cloudy.
  Cabri Hájí,     |  1890  |  do. |     do.
  Burj ’Alam,     |  1830  |  SW. |Fair, cloudy.
  Wásilán,        |  1860  |  NW. |   Cloudy.
  Nasírabad,      |  1770  |  N.  |Cldy. & gusty.
  Banjár,         |  1540  |  do. |     do.
  Bolay,          |  1680  |  do. |   Cloudy.
  Silyán,         |  1650  |  do. |Cloudy, fair.
  Lásh,           |  1720  |  do. |     do.
  Panjdih,        |  1820  |  NW. |   Cloudy.
  Khúshkrodak,    |  1920  |  do. |    Fair.
  Calá Koh,       |  2020  |  do. |     do.
  Harút Rúd,      |  2110  |  SW. |   Cloudy.
  Cháhi Sagak,    |  3200  |  NW. |     do.
  Cháhi Pass,     |  3870  |  do. |Cloudy, rain.
  Duroh,          |  3990  |  do. |     do.
  Husenabad,      |  4500  |  W.  |     do.
  Sarbesha,       |  5990  |  NW. |     do.
  Múd,            |  6100  |  do. |   Cloudy.
  Birjand,        |  4880  |  N.  |Cloudy, fair.
  Ghíbk,          |  6650  |  do. |Cloudy, rain.
  Sihdib,         |  5586  |  NW. |     do.
  Rúm,            |  5735  |  do. |     do.
  Kharbáj Pass,   |  6550  |  do. |   Cloudy.
  Gháyn,          |  4860  |  do. |Cldy. & stmy.
  Girimunj,       |  5060  |  W.  |    Fair.
  Dashtí Pyáz,    |  5420  |  N.  |Cloudy, rain.
  Kakhak,         |  5375  |  do. |    Fair.
  Zihbad,         |  5050  |  do. |   Cloudy.
  Bijistan,       |  4310  |  NW. |   Rainy.
  Yrínasi,        |  2860  |  N.  |    Fair.
  Abdullahabad,   |  3325  |  NW. |   Cloudy.
  Turbat Hydari,  |  4562  |  do. |   Rainy.
  Baidár Pass,    |  5920  |  do. |    Rain.
  Gudari Baidár,  |  7134  |  do. |     do.
  Asudábád,       |  5790  |  do. |     do.
  Gudari Rúkh,    |  6962  |  do. |Cloudy, rain.
  Rabáti Sufed,   |  5825  |  do. |   Cloudy.
  Káfir Calá,     |  5025  |  do. |     do.
  Sharífabad,     |  4860  |  do. |    Rain.
  Mashhad,        |  3180  |  do. |   Rainy.
  Jágharc,        |  4650  |  do. |     do.
  Nishabor Pass,  |  9390  |  W.  |Fair, cloudy.
  Dihrúd,         |  5290  |  do. |   Cloudy.
  Nishabor,       |  4000  |  do. |   Rainy.
  Záminabad,      |  3540  |  SW. |   Cloudy.
  Shoráb,         |  4020  |  S.  |    Fair.
  Záfaráni,       |  3562  |  SE. |     do.
  Sabzwár,        |  3312  |  do. |Fair, cloudy.
  Mihr,           |  3380  |  do. |    Fair.
  Mazinán,        |  2810  |  SW. |     do.
  Abbasabad,      |  2910  |  do. |     do.
  Miandasht,      |  4110  |  W.  |Storm & rain.
  Miánmay,        |  3620  |  NW. |    Rain.
  Shahrúd,        |  3820  |  do. |Cldy., rainy.
  Dihmulla,       |  3575  |  W.  |    Fair.
  Damghán,        |  3680  |  do. |     do.
  Khúsha,         |  4260  |  do. |   Cloudy.
  Ahuán,          |  6500  |  do. |Cloudy, fair.
  Samnán,         |  4010  |  NW. |Fair, cloudy.
  Lásjird,        |  4150  |  W.  |    Fair.
  Dih Namak,      |  2950  |  do. |Gusty & dusty
  Kishlác,        |  2960  |  NW. |     do.
  Aywáni Kyf,     |  3760  |  do. |    Fair.
  Khátúnabad,     |  3400  |  W.  |     do.
  Gulahak,        |  4925  |  do. |     do.
  Tahrán,         |  3850  |  do. |     do.
  Rábút Karím,    |  3600  |  do. |     do.
  Khanabad,       |  4300  |  NE. | Warm, fair.
  Khushkak,       |  5410  |  W.  |Cl’dless sky.
  Novarán,        |  5550  | None | Warm, fair.
  Zaráh,          |  5450  |  do. |     do.
  Mílagard,       |  5562  |  do. |     do.
  Hamadán,        |  6162  |  do. |     do.
  Asadabad,       |  5575  |  do. |     do.
  Kangawár,       |  5125  |  do. |     do.
  Sahnah,         |  4680  |  do. |     do.
  Besitun,        |  4462  |  do. |     do.
  Kirmánshah,     |  4837  |  do. |     do.
  Mydasht,        |  4880  |  do. |     do.
  Hárúnabad,      |  4640  |  W.  | Gusty day.
  Karriud,        |  5212  | None |    Fair.
                  |        |      |
  Pul Zuháb,      |  2220  |  W.  | Fair, hot.
  Casri Shirin,   |  1625  |  do. |  Hot day.
  Hájí Cara,      |  1040  |  WN. |     do.
  Sherabad,       |   750  | None | Fair, hot.
  Bácúba,         |   270  |  do. |     do.
  Baghdad,        |   130  |  W.  |     do.
  ----------------+--------+------+-------------

_N.B._—The indications of the thermometer were recorded from an
instrument placed against the wall of a tent.

The distances have been reckoned at the pace of our riding-horses, at the
rate of four miles an hour.

The altitudes have been calculated approximately from the mean of the
daily indications of an aneroid barometer, usually suspended in the shade
of a tent.

                                                                  H. W. B.

                    PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY
                           LONDON AND EDINBURGH




*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 74127 ***