From the Indus to the Tigris

by H. W. Bellew

The narrative contained in the following pages will, it is hoped, convey a correct picture of the general nature of the country included between the Indus and the Tigris, illustrate the chief points in the character of its peoples, and exemplify the state of the society in which they live. With respect to the last, I may here say, in anticipation, that tyranny and insecurity, oppression and violence, reign everywhere all over the country. It was our lot, on entering this region, to meet a caravan that had been attacked and plundered by tribes in revolt against their chief. It was my lot, on leaving the region, to meet another caravan that had been attacked and plundered by tribes in rebellion against their sovereign. And it was yet again my lot, before clear of the region in which we had successfully run the gauntlet through Brahoe and Baloch, Turkman and Hamadán, to be brought to bay by Arab robbers, from whom we escaped I know not how.

As the narrative is confined to a description only of the country actually traversed, it may be useful here to set before the reader a general view of the whole region lying between the valleys of the Indus and the Tigris, by way of introduction to the subject-matter of this book; and this because the region itself is as interesting on account of its peculiar physical characteristics as it is attractive on account of its varied historical associations.

The land of the Medes and Persians, Magians and Zoroastrians, on the one side, and of the Scythians and Aryans, Buddhists and Brahmists, on the other—the kingdom of Cyrus and of Darius—the country of Alexander’s fame—the theatre of Arab conquest and Islamite growth—the scene of Tartar bloodshed and devastation, and the home ever since of anarchy and desolation—the hotbed of Mohammedan bigotry—the arena of Shia and Sunni hostility—and, towards the east, the bone of contention between Persian and Mughal—later still, the battlefield between Afghan and Persian—the prize of Nadír—the spoil of his successors—and now the possession of Kajar and Durrani, of Persian and Afghan, each jealous of other, and each claiming as frontier what the other possesses.

Such are some of the varied historical associations, past and present, of the region I shall now endeavour to describe in its physical character only—a region which, with the exception of its western portion, has long been a closed country to the European, and a jealously-guarded barrier against the civilisation of the age. The term of its isolation, however, is doomed; the time of its freedom draws nigh. For the force of Western civilisation is irresistible. Through it the enlightenment of the age must soon shed its lustre upon these benighted regions.

The Crimean war poured its light upon Turkey, and under its influence the “sick man of Europe” has become convalescent. His neighbour is now the “sick man of Asia.” He looks wistfully at the remedy of civilisation. Let us hope he may be persuaded to try it. But if Persia is the sick man of Asia, what shall we say of Afghanistan, shut up in his own barbarism, imbued to the core with fanatic bigotry, and steeped in the pride of nationality? Verily, he is very sick—sick unto death. And he knows it, yet he refuses, obstinately and suspiciously, the only remedy that can save his decaying constitution from dissolution. Is he to be left to his fate? or will the physician appear in good time and patch up his broken frame? These are questions for serious reflection, because the patient is our neighbour, and his fate cannot be a matter of indifference to us.

The region whose past history and present condition I have thus briefly alluded to is comprised within the fiftieth and seventieth degrees of east longitude, and the twenty-fifth and thirty-fifth degrees of north latitude. Its length is about twelve hundred miles, and its breadth about six hundred.

Its most characteristic features are its general elevation, and the fact that no river from its interior reaches the sea. It forms, in fact, a great elevated block, interposed between the basin of the Caspian and the low-lying valley of Turkistan on the north, and the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea on the south, and is bounded east and west by the valleys of the Indus and the Tigris respectively.

The area thus limited geographically, in contradistinction to its political boundaries, presents some remarkable physical peculiarities, which may be considered characteristic of the whole region. Its mountain system, its river system, its deserts, and its plains, all offer special features for notice.

Its mountains, girding it on all sides, shut it off from surrounding countries. By their internal disposition they divide the region into two distinct parts, and form a natural boundary separating three distinct races—the Persian, the Afghan, and the Uzbak.

Its rivers, owing to this internal disposition of the mountains, are directed in three different directions. Those of Persia mostly converge to the south-east of its territory; those of Afghanistan converge to the south-west of its territory; and those to the north of the mountain chain that separates these two systems, flow northward to the swamps, tracts lying between the lower course of the Oxus and the Caspian.