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| 0513 |
Innermost Asia : vol.2 |
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A border line of this character can obviously not have been meant to ward off attack by Purpose of
organized forces, but only to protect the cultivated portion of the Helmand delta against nomadic border line.
raiders. In view of the geographical facts there can be no doubt that this Limes faced to the south.
The region of barren hills that extends there must already in ancient times have been occupied by
nômadic tribes corresponding in character and habits, if not also in race, to the Balûch and Brahui
to be found there at present. The latter have maintained their reputation as very troublesome
neighbours of the settled population in Sîstân to the present day. Those in the Sarhad (' the
border ') hills of Persian Balûchistân, due south of Sîstân, have often enough defied the Shâh's
troops or those of his great feudatory, the chief of Bîrjand, acting as lord of these Marches, when
attempts have been made to reduce them into effective subjection.⁶
In the absence of more definite evidence as to the date of construction of this defensive border Analogies
line, it would serve no useful purpose to discuss here questions as to the ethnic and political conditions to Limes
which are likely to have prevailed in and around Sîstân in Parthian or Sasanian times and may lines of
have had their bearing on the policy indicated by this protected border. Still less should we be China and
justified in drawing from it conjectural conclusions as to the position and extent of that portion Near East.
of the Helmand delta which may then have been under cultivation. Nor is there occasion to make
more than the briefest reference to the curious analogies presented to the ancient Chinese Limes
which I had traced along the Kan-su border far away in the east, and to the Roman Limes systems
in the west. But I may hint at least at an interesting antiquarian question. Could this protected
desert border of Sîstân be thought of as forming a geographical link between that ancient 'Chinese
wall', pushed out into the Tun-huang desert along the early Central-Asian high road, and the
Limes lines by which Imperial Rome endeavoured in Arabia, Syria, and elsewhere in the Near
East to facilitate the defence of its marches against barbarian inroads? Future research may
possibly help us to an answer.
Section V.—FROM SÎSTÂN TO INDIA AND LONDON
I should have gladly faced the physical discomforts which, with the approach of spring, would Start for
necessarily attend continued work on desert ground in Sîstân, if it had been possible for me to return to
extend my survey to the Afghân portion of the areas now abandoned to the desert. Sir Henry India.
McMahon's Mission and earlier travellers had found in that region important ruined sites, still
awaiting close investigation. Permission to visit it could, however, not be secured for me, and con-
sidering the conditions created by the war I did not feel altogether surprised at this. So after
completing my survey of the ancient border line on the Persian side of the old southern delta, I set
out at the beginning of February on my return journey to India.
After striking the westernmost outpost of British Balûchistân at Kôh-i-Malik Sîâh, I travelled The 'Sîstân
by the 'Sîstân Trade Route', which the zeal of Captain (now Colonel) F. Webb Ware, of the Indian Trade
Political Department, had first pioneered through the desert some thirty years before. Well known Route'.
as the route is, I found a special quasi-historical interest in this journey of close on 400 miles through
desert wastes—for the 'Chagai Agency' comprising them extends over more than five degrees of
longitude but includes a population numbering only about 5,000, practically all nomads. I could
not have wished for a better modern illustration of the conditions of traffic that once prevailed
on that early Chinese route through the Lop Desert which two years previously I had succeeded
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