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

done much hard marching. But on February 4th we were able to set out for
Qasrqand. There is no need to give any detailed description of the four marches
which brought us there. Whatever small corrections the details of topography
in the Survey of India Sheets Nos. 31. B, c needed, have been fully recorded by
the plane-table survey which Surveyor Muḥammad Ayūb Khān carried on under
my supervision all through our journey from Chāhbār onwards. Its results are
shown by Map Sheets I and II. A brief general account of the ground traversed
will suffice. The route followed led up the wide valley of the Kājū river, which
descends from the mountains above the valley of Qasrqand. Some 7 miles beyond
Turkāni the last ground intermittently cultivated was left behind, and from there
until nearing Qasrqand no permanent or even temporary habitation was met.

From our camp at Kolāhu, where the Kājū river-bed was left, a long march
northward took us first up to the head of the Trādān valley and then across stony
plateaux into the equally barren valley of the Rīgi Kaur, another tributary of the
Kājū Kaur. By ascending this valley on February 6th from our camp at Balāsuk
we reached the halting-place of Tallāra-rēg below the hill range of Bāghāband,
rising to some 3,800 feet. Its drainage accounts for a series of springs, the first
met since leaving the coast, and for some tree growth and less scanty grazing.
On the following morning, after an easy ascent of 4 miles, the watershed was
reached, at a height of about 2,000 feet. On moving down the open valley
towards Qasrqand, we passed small groves of date-palms fed by springs, and
after a march of about 9 miles emerged on the riverine flat of the Kājū Kaur,
where the oasis of Qasrqand spreads among palm groves. On the way to where
our camp was pitched near the central village we passed an extensive stretch of
ground, known as Damba-gāb, where pottery debris and low stone-built em-
bankments mark an area of former cultivation. It is locally believed to have been
abandoned at a time not very distant, in consequence of a destructive flood in the
torrent bed of Parsūk, which joins the Kājū Kaur south of the present oasis.

A two days' halt at Qasrqand, necessitated partly by regard for the celebra-
tion of the end of Ramaḍān, enabled me to acquaint myself with what scanty
remains of former occupation could be traced within the oasis or its immediate
vicinity, and with the conditions of cultivation prevailing at present. Cultivation
here depends wholly on the water supply from the Kājū river, obtained either
direct on the occurrence of rain floods, or more regularly by means of kārēzes or
qanāts, underground canals tapping the subterraneous drainage derived from the
river at points higher up the valley. The considerable proportion of fields left
untilled for the last two years showed how much the oasis, with its population
of about 1,800 souls, depends on the insecure rainfall of this region. Of the
eleven qanāts counted, several were out of repair. The ruined fort, known as