172 FROM KERMAN TO BANDAR ABBAS [Chap. VI
visited on our journey from Balûchistân before definitely turning south to gain the coast of the Persian Gulf. A special direction was given to this move by the information received at Isfandageh of tumps resembling those seen in Jiruft to be found at Darûyi near the centre of the Bulûk tract. This indication fortunately allowed me to choose a route across ground which the Survey of India map showed as unsurveyed. It led up a wide gently sloping valley where wild pistachio and pomegranate bushes grew, to the Chorchur saddle (6,550 feet) . From it a distant view opened to the rugged range overlooking Jiruft from the west and to the Kah-i-Kalmurz dominating Rûdbâr on the south. As we descended an open valley to the south-east the vegetation marking subterraneous drainage grew less and the detritus slopes more broken. After covering some 24 miles we were glad to be guided, as darkness set in, to the spring of Abid, hidden in a rocky ravine (4,750 feet) .
The next day's march took us down by a wide flood-bed traversing broad gravel slopes to the small hamlet of Sämk ( 2,800 feet), where a spring irrigates some fields and a plantation of date-palms. With much broken and utterly barren foot-hills around, the scenery typically marked our return to the Garmsir or `Hot Region'. Thence we turned south and, descending over a bare glacis of Piedmont gravel, reached the thin date-palm groves of Darûyi ( 2,050 feet) near the bottom of the wide depression known as Bulûk. The palm groves and some fields of the hamlet receive irrigation from a ganât fed by drainage from the hill chain we had descended.
The mound, or tappa, of Darayi measures about 200 yards from east to west and some 88 yards across where widest. It rises to a height of 37 feet above the field-level on its north side. Potsherds of undecorated coarse ware of reddish colour or bearing a whitish-grey slip lay plentifully exposed on the slopes. Only very few painted fragments could be found, with roughly drawn simple patterns in black or brown (Dar. 2, 3 ; Pl. xxv) which recalled those of the `late prehistoric' ware from certain sites of Northern Balûchistân.3 Only protracted excavation could have shown whether the mound had grown up above the remains of a chalcolithic or still earlier settlement. So much, however, seemed clear that such prolonged settled occupation as the height of the mound indicated, in times preceding ganât cultivation, presupposed a regular supply of water from the flood-bed, now dry, passing Darûyi on the south or from some other surface drainage now wanting.
This conclusion was strengthened when on the morning of November 22nd I examined the mound, known as Tappa-i-Nûrabcid (Fig. .56), situated half a mile farther west and also near the flood-bed just mentioned. Much broken by
3 See N. Balicchistän Tour, Pls. II, III.
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