[Chap. V, Sec. i] PAST THE JAZ-MURIAN DEPRESSION 133
men to ride. Ever since we had entered Persian Makran it had proved impossible to secure either ponies or donkeys as mounts. The extreme scarcity of these animals is accounted for by the absence of adequate fodder.
The first march of some 24 miles, done for a short time in a drenching downpour, brought us to Pulki-chah, where the day of Naurôz necessitated a day's halt. It was used for a visit to a mound reported near the well of Gala-chah, about 4 miles to the north-west. This mound, situated among low sand hills, measures about 130 yards in diameter and rises to about 10 feet. No painted or other decorated ware was to be found among the plentiful potsherds, all coarse red or greenish-yellow plain ware. This, by its association with late glazed pottery at mounds farther on, could safely be assigned to Muhammadan times. On March 22nd, passing Gala-chah, we moved to the brackish well of Chah Ghulam. Half a mile south-west of it lies a low swelling of the ground bearing plentiful pottery debris. Apart from some glazed painted fragments and a few with simple incised patterns, most of the pottery found here consisted of coarse ware bearing a greenish or white slip and seemed of medieval date. There was no flood-bed to be seen anywhere near, but traces of an old ganât accounted for the former cultivation.
The next day's march of 27 miles took us past a small patch of intermittent cultivation at Kalanzû, to which water is brought in years of good rain by a well-marked flood-bed descending from the hills to the north. A mound near this, about 150 yards in diameter and some 10 feet high, showed over parts of its surface coarse potsherds with a greenish or yellowish slip, besides fragments of late glazed ware and some with poor relief decoration. Before reaching camp at the mound known as Tump-i-Just, or Tump-i-Gulmurti, we crossed two qandts which carry water to the small cultivated lands of Gulmurti about a mile farther south. The mound measures some 320 yards from north to south and about 130 yards across, and rises to a maximum of 12 feet. Potsherds of coarse red ware, often bearing a greenish or light cream slip, together with rare glazed fragments, indicated occupation in Muhammadan times. A second mound about three-quarters of a mile to the north-west, only 80 yards across and 17 feet high, proved to bear coarse potsherds of a kind similar to those of the first. The small fragment of a relief-decorated vessel with Kufic characters impressed from a mould, Gul. 5, confirmed this dating. But the bottom part of a large vessel, found deep down in digging a ganät of Gulmurti, showed a superior fabric and a carefully burnished inside, and evidently dated from some earlier settlement.
Dalgan, which was reached on March 24th after a short journey, is at present the only place on the route offering a minimum of supplies and deserving to be called a hamlet. The track leading to it makes a detour round the marsh of Chul-
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