National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

Sec. i]   FROM KERMAN TO TAL-I-IBLiS   169

remembered the drying-up of this canal and also its subsequent replacement by gantits, which have also dried up more recently. I could find no trace of any ganâts to the south of the Tal-i-Iblis area.

SECTION it—FROM BARDSÏR TO GULASHGIRD

The journey resumed on November 11th took us south across the high range culminating in the Lâlehzâr peak, 14,350 feet, to the elevated region in which the Halil Rai gathers its head-waters. It offered little chance for observations of antiquarian interest; but as it led over ground in parts but inadequately mapped, a succinct account of our marches and of the height records taken along it may be given here.' Our first march led to Nigar, a fairly large village ( 6,950 feet above sea-level) , situated in a wide depression in which underground canals fed by the drainage of outliers of both the Lâlehzâr and Rip

-ranges assure irrigation. But the ground crossed on the way from Haidarâbâd was throughout a scrub-covered sandy waste, much of it occupied by typical `tamarisk cones' such as had become so familiar to me between the glacis of the Kun-lun and the edge of the great Taklamakân desert.

This impression of being back again in a Central Asian region was maintained on the next march, which carried us south-east over a bare gravel dasht to the scattered hamlets of Qariat-u1-`Arab ( 7,700 feet) . A small mound, known as Dar-kôh and situated above a little stream which is fed by springs of `black water' ( the familiar kara-su of Turkestan) , and by the overflow of ganczts, proved by its scanty pottery to mark a village site of Muhammadan times. From the open glacis crossed on the way the high ranges of both Lâlehzâr and Japar, already snow-capped, were in full view.

From Qariat-u1-`Arab our route turned south and, ascending first over a gentle gravel glacis and then between bare rugged hills, crossed the range which farther east culminates in the 1(511-i-bazar peak (circa 14,500 feet) . The pass was reached beyond a ruined sarai and brackish well by a fairly easy ascent, and proved to have an approximate elevation of 10,150 feet. It is known as Gudâr-i-Shirinak from a hamlet of conical mud huts situated in a broad valley separating the two ranges and occupied mainly by graziers. While halting here, at an elevation of about 9,150 feet we experienced a light fall of snow accompanied by a violent gale, and a night temperature falling well below freezing-point. Then on November 14th a long march of some 26 miles carried us first

1 Observations for height were made, as at the base station of the British Consulate, Bushire, throughout my journeys in Southern Persia, with by the Office of the Director, Geodetic Branch, four Aneroids and a Hypsometer. The results were Survey of India, Dehra Dun.

computed and corrected to sea-level, as determined

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