Due north of our route the Koh Khojah hill appeared on the horizon, an isolated block of black rock of no great height. The general aspect of the country is a vast gently undulating plain, diversified here and there by low sandhills, and bounded towards the east by high desert cliffs, that now and again come into view.
The authorities at Wásilán made themselves as disagreeable to us as they could short of actual violence. They not only would not provide our camp with supplies themselves, but prohibited the people from selling to us, and went so far as to turn back some loads of fodder already purchased and being brought to camp by some of our camp-followers. The Saggid’s Afghans could not brook this conduct on the part of those who stood in the position of hosts towards us, and a scuffle ensued between them and some of the village people. The occurrence was at once seized upon by the opposite party as a subject of complaint; but the Saggid, to cut the matter short, had his four followers soundly flogged on the spot, and returned the loads of straw purchased in the village. Our cattle for the day were put on short rations, eked out with what they could pick up on the plain. This is our disagreeable recollection of Wásilán. A more agreeable remembrance is kept alive by the appropriate name of the place, which signifies in Arabic “the meeters.” It was here we had the pleasure of meeting Major Ewan Bean Smith, who arrived towards the close of the day from Sir F. Goldsmid’s camp at Banjár, and learning of the safety and welfare of their party; for though letters had been passing between our camps, we had on more than one occasion heard disquieting rumours concerning the security of our friends. So we met at last, notwithstanding the “rude bar” in our progress through the Garmsel; and, to turn from the serious to the frivolous, gained full credit for what had been unanimously conceded as the most telling of the riddles exchanged between the two camps, the one in question having been propounded to explain the cause of delay in our arrival in Sistan.[2]
Next day we marched twelve miles to Nasírabad, and camped on the plain north-west of the fort. Our route was northerly, over a level country, more or less extensively cultivated, and freely irrigated by numerous water-cuts. The soil is light and sandy, and is described as extremely fertile in the production of cereals and melons. In some parts the land seemed to have received a deposit from river floods.
At about midway on the march we crossed a strip of waste land, the surface of which presented a very remarkable appearance from the action of a high wind that prevails here at certain seasons. The soil, which was a compact sand, had been scooped into long wind-swept refts, all from north-west to south-east. The edges of these were as clean and sharp as if they had been dressed with a chisel, and on passing the hand across them, left the conviction that they could inflict an ugly wound on the shins of the unwary traveller stumbling against them. A few tamarisk bushes dotted the surface here and there, with small patches of camel-thorn and saltwort, and by their bend and direction of branches evidenced the violence and persistence of the wind that had so cut the surface into striæ.
Beyond this we passed some ruins of villages and a miserable hamlet called Kandúrak. It is only interesting in a historical point of view as being the scene of a desperate fight and terrible slaughter of the Shahrki rebels in the time of Sháh Tymúr, Durrani. Towards the close of Sháh Ahmad’s reign, the Shahrki tribe, in the perpetual revolutions characterising the normal condition of this province during centuries past, had, by continual encroachments on the lands of their neighbours the Kayáni, contrived to gain the ascendancy in the politics of the country, and Sháh Tymúr, on succeeding to the throne of Afghanistan, just a century ago, appointed their chief, Mír Beg, governor of the province. Mír Beg, Shahrki, was killed about the year 1777 in a petty fight against the Núrzais at Rúdbár, and the government of Sistan was then restored to the hereditary chief, Malik Bahrám, in subordination to Tymúr’s governor of Lásh, an Afghan noble named Zamán Khán, Popalzai. This joint authority failed in its purpose, and the Shahrki, rebelling against the Kayáni, defied the authority of the king. Tymúr consequently sent a force of Afghans under Barkhurdár Khán, Achakzai, to reduce them to subjection. This he did by the victories of Kandúrak and Mykhána, the ferocity and slaughter attending which are commemorated in the popular songs of the country to the present day.
Farther on from Kandúrak, at about a mile from Nasírabad, we were met by an isticbál party of sixty horsemen, headed by Hájí Asad Khán, before whom were led a couple of yadak, or fully caparisoned horses. He holds the rank of yúzbáshí or captain in the service of the Prince-Governor of Khorassan, by whom he has been deputed to this country expressly for the purpose of carrying back a reliable account of the real state of affairs here. Major Smith introduced us successively, and the Yúzbáshí on each occasion nearly bowed himself over the horse’s side. There was a momentary pause, and then the Persian, with the national facility, freed himself of some choicely-expressed commonplaces, which, under the circumstances, would have been better unsaid, for they sounded so much like irony. He hoped we had made a pleasant journey and found all we required, when he well knew we had not. He hoped we should find everything to our comfort and satisfaction, when he was certain we should not; and so on. The ceremony of introduction over, we went on together in a mixed crowd to the south face of the fort, and then along the side of its ditch up the west face to our camp, pitched on the plain a few hundred yards beyond the north-west corner of the citadel.
In the course of the afternoon, Khán Baba Khán, Hazárah of Herat, now in the service of the Amir of Ghazn, the Persian governor of this country, called for hálpursí (a ceremonial visit to inquire of our health and welfare). He is a stout middle-aged man, with decided Tátár cast of features, but, contrary to the type, has a long bushy beard and mustaches. His manner was cold and impassible, and he performed his part of the ceremony in a thoroughly perfunctory manner.
Aware, probably, that we were unprepared to receive his visit with the requisites demanded by Persian etiquette, he was accompanied by some attendants bearing his calyán or smoking apparatus, and the essentials for brewing tea. A slight hint paved the way to their introduction, and our visitor puffed and coughed, and coughed and puffed, until it was time for him to depart. From his stoutness of body, the effort appeared more laborious than any pleasure the habit could afford him, for he seemed sometimes almost to lose his breath, whilst beads of perspiration stood upon his forehead. I had never before nor since seen the calyán produce such marked effects.
His visit was followed by that of the son of the Persian Commissioner, Sartipiaurval Mirzá Máctúm Khán, on a similar errand. He was a pale-faced, beardless youth, of timid and reserved manner, but intelligent conversation. With him again we sipped tea according to rule, and in due course he took his leave, and, following his predecessor, went from our tent to visit the Afghan Commissioner. After their departure, a servant of the Amir of Ghazn arrived with a few oranges and some lumps of sugar on the part of his master, and he was followed by another bringing back our requisition for supplies on payment for the same, with a verbal request that a detailed list of our party and each item required might be submitted. This was done, and meanwhile our cattle and followers remained without food all day. Late in the evening, after we had retired to rest, another messenger arrived with an intimation that the supplies were ready for issue inside the fort; but it was too late to get more than a modicum of fodder for the cattle.