CHAPTER IX
SEISTAN AND THE McMAHON MISSION
Westwards of the Kandahar district is the region of Seistan, to which unusual political interest attaches. Roughly speaking, it is divided between Persia and Afghanistan, the Helmund river demarcating the mutual spheres of interest and occupation. Geographically, it belongs to the watershed of Afghanistan. Its extensive areas, situated along the borders of Afghanistan, Persia and Baluchistan, are drained by the Hamun lake, which also receives the waters of the Helmund, Farah, Khash and Harud rivers. The area of this depression, which is broken up into three subsidiary basins—those of the Farah, the Helmund and the Zirreh,—is 125,000 square miles. The first of these consists of the two-fold lagoon formed by the Harud and Farah rivers flowing from the north, and by the Helmund and the Khash or Kushk Rud flowing from the south and east respectively. These are connected by a thick reed-bed called the Naizar, which, according to the amount of water that the lakes contain, is either a marsh or a cane-brake. In flood-time these waters, ordinarily distinct, unite to pour over the Naizar into the second great depression, known by the generic title of Hamun Lake. In times of abnormal flood the Hamun will itself overflow. On such occasions the water, draining southwards through the Sarshela ravine, inundates the third depression, which is known as the Gaud-i-Zirreh. The Hamun Lake, like the Gaud-i-Zirreh, is one of those seasonable phenomena which are invariably met in regions where the water system is irregular. At certain periods quite dry, at others it possesses a measurement of 100 miles in length, 15 miles in breadth, with a mean depth of 4 feet and a maximum of 10 feet. The waters of the Hamun are sweet. Fish are very plentiful, providing food for an aboriginal colony which frequents the lake. It is, also, the haunt of many varieties of wild geese, duck and other water-fowl.
CAMEL BAZAAR, NASRATABAD
It is better, before proceeding to study further the value of Seistan, to describe exactly of what Seistan consists. Sir Frederic Goldsmid, for purposes of more accurate definition of the region, divided its areas into two parts: Seistan Proper and Outer Seistan. In this he may be said to have given Seistan Proper[20] to Persia and Outer Seistan[21] to Afghanistan. The former lies between the Naizar on the north and the main lateral canal, which waters the lands around Sekuha and the neighbouring villages on the south. It extends along the old bed of the Helmund, from a mile above the dam at Kohak, to its mouth on the east, and to the fringe of the Hamun and the Kuh-i-Khwajah on the west. The population numbers 45,000, of whom 10,000 were nomads of mixed descent. Of the larger total, 20,000 are returned as Seistanis and 15,000 as Persian-speaking settlers, the average number of persons to the square mile being roughly 15—figures which are eight times in excess of the proportional result found elsewhere in Persia. Outer Seistan comprises the country stretching along the right bank of the Helmund, from its lake mouth on the north to Rudbar in the south. The inhabitants are Seistanis, Baluchi nomads and Afghans, together with a certain proportion of Sanjuranis and Joktis—the term Seistani applying particularly to that portion of the inhabitants possessing permanent settlements, irrespective of descent and nationality. The combined areas of the Seistan basin aggregate some 7006 square miles and the joint population is returned at 205,000, or 34 to the square mile.
It is the Helmund river, the chief tributary to the Hamun, that has been the greatest obstacle to the successful demarcation of the Seistan region. Hitherto the boundary defining the respective limits of the two States has been the one arranged in 1872 by the Goldsmid Award. Under that instrument a line was drawn from Siah-koh to where the then main bed of the Helmund river entered the Naizar swamp. The frontier then proceeded to Kohak. From this point it followed a south-westerly direction to Koh-i-Malik-i-Siah, thus leaving the two banks of the Helmund below Kohak to Afghanistan. Since then the Helmund has changed its course, and in that portion of the frontier which was affected by the vagaries of the stream, considerable confusion arose, while local Perso-Afghan relations became very much inflamed. The question as between the two races depended upon the future division of the new bed of the Helmund, the point of dispute dealing specifically with the divergence of the main stream from the channel which was selected as the frontier line by the Mission of 1872. The Afghans, who were the principal gainers by the alteration of the course of the river, claimed that the new bed formed the frontier: the Persians, on the other hand, endeavoured to maintain the strict interpretation of the old agreement.
