国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

a maze of utterly bare ridges and ravines and then across a troublesome pass
down to the deep gorge in which the Halīl Rūd has cut its way towards the
head of the Jīruft trough. From afar we had sighted this head in April on our
way to Bam. Then leaving the cliff-bound river gorge an easy ascent brought
us to the entrance of the great plateau which forms the tract of Isfandaqeh. The
long hill chains encircling it must have provided since the earliest times attrac-
tive grazing-grounds for nomadic tribes like the present Mehnī. But in the
central part of the plateau adequate subsoil drainage caught by qanāts has made
cultivation and permanent settlement possible. At the hamlet of Daulatābād
(5,750 feet) we arrived at the seat of the hereditary landowner of Isfandaqeh,
and his recommendation brought from Kermān assured us there both hospitable
welcome and local guidance.

A day's halt was needed to rest the hard-tried transport animals, and I used
it for the inspection of the old remains which had been mentioned to me at
Kermān by that intelligent 'lord of the manor'. The Tump-i-Gabarhā proved,
indeed, to be what the name had prepared me for, a site of burial cairns at the
foot of a rocky spur, about 2 miles south-east of Daulatābād. But only scattered
large stones remained to mark the spot. A party of nomadic tribal people
had chosen it for their camping-place, and perhaps induced by something that
had raised hopes of 'treasure', had upheaved the cairns, and subsequently used
the larger stones to fasten down their tent-walls. Only two small cairns re-
mained recognizable. Then, riding south past the small fort and the orchards of
Chimak, I was taken to Fatḥābād, the last hamlet of Isfandaqeh to the south. To
the south-west of it there extends a debris-strewn area, about 400 yards in
diameter, marking an abandoned village site. The potsherds to be seen on the
surface were all of plain coarse ware, only one fragment showing 'ribbing' out-
side. Occupation here was not likely to date far back. To the west of the village
the ruins of a well-built mansion attracted attention. It had been built by Ibrā-
hīm Khān, one of the present local Khān's predecessors, and abandoned some
sixty years ago owing to the sudden failure of a qanāt. In a walled enclosure
near it the furrows once dug for a vineyard could still clearly be seen. Evidence
of a more prosperous past was afforded by the domed tomb to be seen near
Daulatābād and said to have been built as the last resting-place of Amīr Ḥaidar,
an old chief of the Mehnī tribe in Shāh 'Abbās's time. The style of the structure,
now in a very ruinous state, seemed to agree with this dating, as also a tomb-
stone, of A.H. 1012 (A.D. 1603–4), within.

On the morning of November 20th we left the Isfandaqeh plateau with its
bracing cold air to descend south-eastwards into the low valley of Bulūk adjoin-
ing the Jīruft trough. There I wished to resume contact once more with ground