the tributary ravines, show that the fields were not watered by means of some general scheme of irrigation with canals deriving their supply from some reservoirs placed at a greater altitude. Perennial springs, now everywhere dried up, must have existed in all the ravines where these remains are found, which shows how much greater the rainfall must have been formerly."
From the evidence of certain tombs, Vredenburg believes that the fields were in use during Mohammedan times. The original construction of the walls may date back much farther.
At Seyistan, near the place where Afghanistan and Baluchistan join Persia, I found that the shallow lake has passed through a series of fluctuations identical with those of Lop-Nor, which it closely resembles. The first stage in the lake's history, so far as man is concerned, was described to me by a village chief, who related the following legend found in his dearest treasure, an ancient book handed down from many generations of ancestors : -
" Long ago, in the days when my fathers worshiped the sun, all Seyistan was under water. A great lake covered the swamp and the villages, and even Zahidan and the ruins. One day King Solomon visited the lake, and saw that if the water were drained off, the bottom would be very good for grain and melons and all sorts of fruit. Wishing to benefit mankind, he sent for his ` Dhus,' huge giants with a single eye looking up from the tops of their heads, and told them to make the lake dry. They went to work faster than any man can understand. They dug up earth from this side and from that, and carried it on their shoulders and filled the
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