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| 0408 |
The Pulse of Asia : vol.1 |
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from end to end, was of the same opinion in regard to that
country, as he shows when he speaks of "the precarious-
ness of cultivation, even where to many travelers fertility
has appeared undeniable and of considerable extent."
The mistake of overestimating the possibilities of Iran is
very common among travelers. For example, O'Donovan
describes the country between Abbasabad and Mazinan, a
few miles west of Sabzawar, on the road from Meshed to
Teheran, as "a dreary flat, entirely uncultivated, though
plentifully supplied with water from the Kal Mura River,
which has left marks of extensive inundations in numerous
white deposits of salt. This plain would undoubtedly pro-
duce abundant crops of rice, if properly cultivated." After
passing numerous ruins of fortifications, reservoirs, tanks,
and other structures, O'Donovan "crossed the Kal Mura, a
river about forty yards wide here and tolerably deep, though
on the maps it is usually marked as dry in summer. The
country around was once extensively cultivated, as the traces
of irrigating ditches show. . . . Nowadays, cultivation is
only attempted immediately around the towns, and even
there . . . the crops are miserably poor." In June, 1880,
when O'Donovan passed this way, the Kal Mura River
must have been phenomenally high, for when Smith trav-
ersed the region in May, 1872, a year of fair rainfall, with
good crops, he found the Kal Mura at the same place "a
narrow rivulet of salt water." O'Donovan does not appear
to have thought of connecting the "miserably poor crops"
with the "numerous white deposits of salt." Apparently, it
was salinity and lack of water, not lack of energy, which pre-
vented the Persians from raising "abundant crops of rice."
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