From the Indus to the Tigris

by H. W. Bellew

It is probable that the basin has never been thus submerged during the period that the region draining into it has been an inhabited country. The ruins now existing on the surface of the lacustrine bed are evidence in support, whilst the enormous quantities withdrawn for purposes of irrigation, and the vastly increased surface thus exposed to evaporation, aided by the drying effects of the north-west wind, which prevails here for nearly half the year, are of themselves sufficient causes to explain the limited area of the present lagoons and marshes. These owe their continued existence to the hot-weather floods, otherwise the rivers are mostly exhausted by evaporation and diversions for irrigation before they reach the hámún, which, after all, can only be viewed as the receptacle for the hot-weather floods, for during several months of the year the rivers, with the exception of the Helmand, are completely exhausted by the causes indicated long before they reach the hámún. Even the Helmand, since the Persian occupation of the country, has been diverted from its course at Kohak, and carried off in the Mádariáb channel to irrigate the country south of the Koh Khojah, as has been before mentioned.

To return, however, to the history of the country. On the downfall of the dynasty of Mahmúd of Ghazni, Sistan, in common with the rest of Khorassan, fell under the sway of the Afghan princes of Ghor, and under their empire maintained its former prosperity, until the Mughal invasion under Janghiz Khán in 1222, when it was laid waste by his destructive hordes of Tátárs. The country had scarcely recovered from the shock of this invasion, when (A.D. 1383) Tymúr the Tátár swept over it with his ruthless hosts, and reduced it to a state of utter ruin and desolation. His son, Sháh Rúkh, attempted to restore its prosperity, but effected no more than the settlement of a few thousand Persian colonists on its devastated lands. About eighty-five years after Tymúr’s invasion, Sistan fell under the power of his descendant, Sultán Husen, Bykara, whose capital was at Herat; but it appears to have been still a neglected country, abandoned to the robber tribes thrown together here by the convulsions of the age.

On the establishment of the Saffavi dynasty in the beginning of the sixteenth century, Sistan became settled, and to some extent recovered its prosperity and population gradually under native chiefs descended from the ancient ruling family, and holding their patents from the Persian kings of the Saffavi dynasty. But on the destruction of this dynasty at the hands of the Afghans of Kandahar, it once more became the sport of the conqueror; and in 1737 was reduced to its present state of ruin and desolation by Nadír Sháh, the Afshár robber, the usurper of the Persian throne, the invader of India, and the author of the massacre and plunder of Delhi in 1739.

After the death of this great conqueror in 1747, the vast empire he had brought together under his sovereignty, from the Jumna to the Tigris, rapidly fell asunder, and, after many vicissitudes of fortune under the conflicting aspirations and interests of a host of claimants, was ultimately partitioned between the Cajars in Persia, the Uzbaks in Bukhára, and the Durranis in Khorassan. The division was a natural one, geographically, politically, and ethnologically; the elevated plateaux and desert wastes of Persia for the Irani, the fertile plains and wide steppes of Turkistan for the Uzbak Tátár, and the mountain fastnesses and tablelands of Khorassan for the Afghan. Each in his own limits was the rightful lord of the soil, and each was separated from the other by natural geographical boundaries, which came to be recognised also as the political limits of the three new nationalities of Central Asia.

Thus Persia, with its Shia population and organised form of government, was separated from Afghanistan and its Sunni population, with their patriarchal form of government, by the long strip of desert extending from Kirmán in the south to Mashhad in the north, and forming a belt of division between the highlands of Irani Khorassan and the more extensive region of that name known by the national appellations of Afghanistan and Balochistan, whilst each was separated respectively from the slave-hunting Turkmans of Khiva and the priest-ridden Sunni bigots of Bukhára by the saline deserts of Sarrakhs and Marv on the one side, and the Afghan states of Bulkh and the river Oxus on the other.

In this division of Nadír’s empire, Sistan, as much from natural geographical position as from political necessity, became incorporated with the new kingdom of Afghanistan, and it has since continued to form an integral part of the Durrani monarchy until its recent annexation and occupation by the Persians.

The climate of Sistan is decidedly insalubrious, and unfavourable alike to the healthy growth and comfort of both man and beast. The seasons are characterised by extremes of heat and cold in the summer and winter. Sand-storms, extremely injurious to the eyesight, are of frequent occurrence in the spring months; whilst in the autumn a hot steamy vapour, rising from the evaporation of the summer floods, pervades the atmosphere, and to the plague of gnats and musquitoes adds the pestilence of malarious fevers.

Sheep and cows thrive upon the rank pastures bordering the marshes; but horses and buffaloes cannot live in the country for several months of the year, owing to the worry of myriads of gnats and stinging flies.

The natives of the country are of inferior physical development, and the common people remarkable for their repulsive features and personal untidiness. Most of the people we saw about the villages had unhealthy sallow complexions; and I observed a marked prevalence of chlorotic anœmia from chronic disease of the spleen. The common diseases of the country are fevers, ophthalmic affections, rheumatism, and small-pox. The principal employments of the people are agriculture and breeding cattle. Some families are occupied solely as hunters, fowlers, and fishermen, and others live exclusively by handicrafts, as weavers, cobblers, potters, &c. During the cold season immense numbers of wild-fowl, swans (here called cú or ghú), and pelicans are trapped and shot for their feathers and fat, which fetch a high price in the Kandahar market.

The language current in Sistan is a mixed dialect of Persian, in which are found many Pushto, Baloch, and Turki words; but amongst themselves the several tribes speak their own mother tongues, as the Afghans Pushto, the Baloch Balockki, the Sárbandi and Persians Persian, and so on. Our short stay in this country and the unfavourable conditions of our relations with the people, prevented our learning much concerning their manners and customs or their language and its affinities.