IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Overland to India : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
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| XLVI | TRAVELS IN THE KEVIR 147 |
salt water flowing with a scarcely perceptible current. . . . At last green vegetation could be seen in the distance—scattered tamarisks." 1
From this description it appears that kevir and lut are different formations only inasmuch as a lut may contain strips and flats of kevir or salt desert, whereas the opposite never occurs. The lowest depressions in a lut desert consist, then, usually of kevir or nemek-sar, that is, salt hollows.
The route of the Khanikoff expedition was well known
to the Arabian geographers of the tenth century, and Tomaschek has cited them in his meritorious work.' We find from these notices that the country has undergone no marked changes during the long interval, that the desert road is in precisely the same state now, and that Makdisi's description of Khabis accords in detail with that of the later traveller.
On Tomaschek's map of " Die chorassanischen Wüsten-
gebiete," five roads are marked through the Lut desert. The most northerly runs from Khabis through Rawer to eastern Khur, and seems to coincide partly with Sykes's route ; the second is Khanikoff's route. The third runs from Deh-i-salm and Bagh-i-azad, to Seif and Khabis, and we have already learned its course. Of the fourth, our knowledge is derived solely from the Arabian geographers, and Tomaschek gives its direction under the title " The road from Narmashir through Deh-i-salm and Neh to Frah."
It is called by the Arabs " the new road." Tomaschek says of it : " From the town of Narmashir it is a day's journey to Daristan : ` this is a village with a clump of palm trees, but without a serai ; after this there are
3 " Die Russische Expedition nach Chorassan in den Jahren 1858 und 1859," Petermann's Mitteilungen (186o), pp. 205 et seq.
2 Zur historischen Topographie von Persien, vol. ii. pp. 34 et seq.
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no more inhabited places.' After another day's journey Sar-ab is reached : ` it is a spring of water which flows through a ravine.' Thence in four days' journey the whole breadth of the desert is crossed ; the road is a real desert track, full of dangers, and the stages are long. At last Deh-i-salm is reached : ` it is a small village belonging
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