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

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

Section ii—FROM BARDSĪR TO GULĀSHGIRD

The journey resumed on November 11th took us south across the high
range culminating in the Lālehzār peak, 14,350 feet, to the elevated region in
which the Halīl Rūd gathers its head-waters. It offered little chance for observa-
tions 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.¹ Our first march led to Nigār, a fairly large village
(6,950 feet above sea-level), situated in a wide depression in which under-
ground canals fed by the drainage of outliers of both the Lālehzār and Jūpār
ranges assure irrigation. But the ground crossed on the way from Ḥaidarābād
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 Taklamakān desert.

This impression of being back again in a Central Asian region was main-
tained on the next march, which carried us south-east over a bare gravel dasht
to the scattered hamlets of Qariat-ul-'Arab (7,700 feet). A small mound, known
as Dar-kōh and situated above a little stream which is fed by springs of 'black
water' (the familiar kara-su of Turkestān), and by the overflow of qanāts,
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 Lālehzār and
Jūpār, already snow-capped, were in full view.

From Qariāt-ul-'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 Kōh-i-hazār 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
Gudār-i-Shīrīnak 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 accom-
panied 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