From the Indus to the Tigris

by H. W. Bellew

29th February 1872.—Rúdbár consists of two small forts, about half-a-mile apart, on the left bank of the Helmand, which here flows in a full deep stream nearly two hundred yards wide. The channel, which is about a mile wide, is fringed with a dense jangal of tamarisk and willow trees bordered by belts of tall reeds.

Each of the forts is surrounded by its own collection of hut settlements and corn-fields. One of them belongs to Imám Khán, who resides at Chárburjak, on the right bank of the river, lower down its course; and the other to Kamál Khán, who resides at Bandar, still farther west, on its left bank. Both these Baloch chiefs are brothers of the late Khán, Jahán Khán of Chakansúr. Their father was the late Ján Beg, son of the celebrated Abdullah Khán, Sanjarání, whose history I have already referred to. Their permanent location in this country only dates from the early years of the present century, when, about the year 1810, they were settled here by the Bárakzai king-maker, Fata Khán, as a makeweight against his rival neighbours the Núrzais. This remarkable man, there is little doubt, aimed at supplanting the tottering Saddozai dynasty on the throne of Kabul in his own person. As Wazír of Sháh Mahmúd, he not only brought in these Baloch colonists as a military element in support of his cause on this frontier of the kingdom, and on the border of his own patrimonial estate at Nádálí near Girishk, but appointed his own brothers to the charge of the most important provincial governments of the country.

His cruel death in 1818, after his successful repulse of the Persians from Herat, though it cut short his own career, precipitated the downfall of the Saddozais, and hastened the transfer of the government to his own family; and thus was matured the scheme of his life, which the Fates had decreed he himself should not accomplish.

Rúdbár is reckoned the limit of Garmsel to the west. Farther on in that direction, the desert wastes on either side bounding the valley of the Helmand gradually diverge from each other, and the country opens on to the plain of Sistan. That portion of the Helmand valley called Garmsel, or “the hot tract,” extends from Hazárjuft to Rúdbár, a distance of one hundred and sixty miles from east to west. It is bounded on the north and south by vast desert wastes, noted for their aridity and destructive heat during six months of year. Towards the river they form high coast-lines of sand-cliffs and bluffs of shingle, that confine its valley within well-defined limits.

Owing to the peculiar arrangement of these lateral barriers, it is difficult to assign a general width to the valley, nor is it easy to describe it as a whole. The most notable features of the valley are its division into two nearly equal parts by the Koh Khanishín, and the transference of the alluvium from one bank to the other on either side of it. Koh Khanishín itself stands an isolated mass of sharp, bare, black, jagged peaks about five miles south of the river; but between it and the stream, on which it abuts in tall cliffs, is interposed an elevated strip of the sandy desert some sixteen or eighteen miles across, as already described.

To the eastward of this point the alluvium is all on the left or south bank, and presents a succession of wide bays or reaches, bounded in that direction by corresponding sweeps or curves of the desert coast-line. On the opposite side there is no alluvium whatever, the desert cliffs rising straight from the river bank.

To the westward of Khanishín the alluvium is mostly on the right or north bank for some fifty miles. It then shifts to the opposite bank for about the same distance, and beyond Rúdbár lies on both sides of the river. The width of the alluvium varies considerably between one and six miles in the different successive reaches or bays.

The valley everywhere bears the marks of former prosperity and population. Its soil is extremely fertile, and the command of water is unlimited. It only requires a strong and just government to quickly recover its lost prosperity, and to render it a fruitful garden, crowded with towns and villages in unbroken succession all the way from Sistan to Kandahar.

The present desolation and waste of this naturally fertile tract intensify the aridity and heat of its climate. But with the increase of cultivation and the growth of trees these defects of the climate would be reduced to a minimum, and the Garmsel would then become habitable, which in its present state it can hardly be considered to be.