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

Beyond the large village of Bardakhān-i-nau, where we arrived on February
16th, this plain presented itself as a great deltaic waste, scrub-covered in parts,
but elsewhere of bare sand liable to inundation. The river being in flood and
quite unfordable even higher up, we had to follow its winding terminal bed down
stream for some 16 miles before we reached a point where a small craft at anchor
was found to carry us across. The business of getting our baggage on board by
means of a leaky little boat was not finished until after dark, and the night had
to be passed on board under conditions compared with which the accommodation
afforded by the vessel that carried us on our sea venture seemed almost luxu-
rious. The unloading on the opposite shore next morning was equally slow and
troublesome, and not till the afternoon could fresh transport be collected for a
move to the village of Lāvar.

For the rest of our journey our route led along the narrow strip between the
sea and the utterly bare and wildly eroded sandstone range separating it from
the wide plain of Dashtī eastwards. This ground, badly broken by numerous
ravines and not easy of access from the other side of the range, could never in
historical times have accommodated settlements of any size. I had chosen this,
the most direct, route to Bushire in the hope of being able to avail myself of
motor transport on the road which was said to have been under construction for
some time past. But though traces of it could be found near Lāvar, it must have
been completely washed away by streams in many places farther on—if it was
ever made. With the scanty donkey transport it had been possible to secure,
progress continued to be slow until I was met on February 20th, beyond the
village of Bulkhair, by a couple of Chevrolet cars which, in response to a request
sent ahead from Daiyir, Major E. Gastrell, British Consul at Bushire, had kindly
dispatched to expedite my arrival. The road leading across a succession of
ravines and much eroded rocky ridges was difficult enough until more open
ground was reached near the Tangistān plain. All the same, thanks to this
timely help and the pluck and skill of the Persian drivers, I reached in the
evening the hospitable roof of the Residency at Reshire (Rīshahr), where the
Hon. Colonel T. C. W. Fowle, C.I.E., British Political Resident in the Persian
Gulf, and Mrs. Fowle offered me the kindest welcome.

Section iii—CONCLUDING STAY AT BUSHIRE

My visit to Bushire had been directly caused by the tribal disturbances which
barred access to the ground originally included in my programme, and my pro-
longed stay there was due to the same unfortunate incident. Everything pointed
clearly to the official order from Tehrān postponing further field-work on my