In summer its wide surface is clothed with the richest pastures, on which vast flocks of goats and sheep find sustenance, and covered with the tents of Elyát tribes occupied with their care, whilst the numerous villages now barely discernible in the sheltered nooks along the hill skirts bursts into full view with the budding of the gardens amongst which they are nestled. The climate of this region is described as most delightful and salubrious, but the winter is rigorous. If the appearance alone of the people be taken as the test, they certainly speak well in its favour, for they are remarkably fair, robust, and healthy-looking as a whole. They appear to be a prosperous and peaceable community, being well clad and well conducted. They are principally employed in the manufacture of woollen carpets of the kind called cálín, but those produced here are of inferior quality.
Our next stage was twenty-two miles to Calá Múd, where we camped close to the village, under the ruins of an old fort. Our route was in a north-west direction along a beaten track skirting the Sarbesha hill at first, and then across a small plain enclosed by hills. It is called Bayaban-i-Hanz, from a reservoir of water in its centre. After marching nine miles, we halted at this reservoir for breakfast. It is a masonry cistern covered by a dome, and flanked on each side by a couple of vaulted chambers for the shelter and refreshment of wayfarers. Similar reservoirs are common on all the highroads throughout this Persian province of Khorassan, and are found generally at intervals of four or eight miles. They are called ábambár, or “water store,” and are all built on the same plan, though not always provided with the flanking chambers. The cistern is mostly stocked from the surface drainage after rains, and consequently some of them are often found dry. Many, however, are fed from natural springs, or from some adjoining subterranean conduit, called kárez, and contain a constant supply of generally sweet water. They are sometimes built as an act of charity by the piously disposed, but most owe their construction to the actual requirements of the country, and the interest of the local governors or chiefs. Without them, indeed, travelling would be almost impossible in this region, for the villages are so far apart, and the hill spring so far away from the beaten track, that neither man nor beast could support the privation conveniently.
Beyond the reservoir our path continued across the plain towards some broken country and low ridges of rock that separate the Sarbesha plateau from the valley of Múd. On our passage over this ground we saw several villages in the nooks of the hill range bounding the Sarbesha valley to the northward. The principal of these, Bedár and Shíka, are prosperous and populous-looking places, surrounded by fruit gardens just now beginning to bud.
Múd or Mód is an open village of neatly-built domed housed, situated below a mound occupied by the ruins of a castle, and at a short distance to the south-east are the more recent ruins of a considerable square fort. The latter was dismantled some fifteen years ago, when this district passed into the possession of the reigning dynasty of Persia. The ground around its walls is now occupied by zirishk or barberry plantations, the fruit of which is made into preserves, and largely exported into the interior in the dried state.
The village of Múd is only half-peopled; many of its houses are deserted, and others are fallen to decay. This is partly owing to the emigration during the past three years of famine, but principally to the insecurity of the country during the past century. It is only within recent years that the country has enjoyed immunity from the forays of Baloch, Afghan, and Turkman robbers, who used to harry their villages, and carry off their cattle and people.
Múd is situated at the top of a long and narrow valley, that slopes rapidly to the south-west down to Birjand. The valley to the northward is separated from the western prolongation of the Sarbesha plateau by a low ridge of sandy hills, and is bounded to the south by a high range of snow-covered hills called Bághrán. This range consists of chlorite and slate, and its base is studded by a close succession of villages, castles, and hamlets, surrounded by gardens and watered by springs, all the way down to Birjand.
During our stay here the weather was cloudy, cold, and wintry, and the scenery, singularly wild naturally, now bore an unusually inhospitable aspect. The valley and lower heights have only lost their winter snows during the present month, and the highest elevations are said to keep a more or less scattered coating of snow throughout the year. For three months the whole country is covered deeply with snow, over all the more elevated region between this and Duroh, but on the lower level of Birjand it does not lie so long.
From Múd we marched twenty-five miles west by north down the slope of the valley to Birjand, where we camped outside the town under the walls of the castle occupied by the governor. The valley has an average width of less than four miles, and its surface slopes up to the Bághrán range of hills, forming its southern boundary. In the opposite direction its hollow is occupied by a drainage ravine. The soil is a firm gravel, from which were commencing to sprout a variety of herbs, such as wild rue, orchids, tulips, &c., and a thin grass in abundance. No trees are seen on the plain, but the hill skirt to its south is fringed with a close succession of fruit gardens and vineyards, amongst which are nestled numerous villages, castles, and country-houses. The principal villages are, from east to west, Cháhikan, Nanfiris, Banjár, and Bahuljird. Their gardens produce the jujube, barberry, apricot, peach, plum, apple, mulberry, &c., &c., and give the place a look of prosperity and plenty, strangely in contrast with the wild character of the country and the bare aspect of its hills. Those to the south, below the snow-streaked summit of the range, present a bare glistening surface, and are set at their bases by a succession of mounds, very prominent objects of attraction from their bright hues of green, blue, and orange, evidently formed by the disintegration of the chlorite and schistose slates of the range, which altogether wear a richly metalliferous look. There is said to be a copper mine in this range, some ten or twelve miles south-west of Sarbesha. It was worked in the time of the late Mirzá Hamza, governor of Mashhad, but was abandoned four or five years ago, owing to the expenses exceeding the yield of ore.
To the north the valley is bounded by a low ridge of bare sandy hills, scored in every direction by sheep-walks. Through a gap in the ridge, which gives passage to the Múd ravine, we got a good view of the Sarbesha plateau, which here stretches away in a wide upland to the hills closing the prospect towards the north, where is situated the district of Alghór.
Proceeding from the ábambár where we halted for breakfast, we marched down the valley in sight of Birjand, at its lower end, and at three miles came to the village of Bojd. In Yár Muhammad’s time, it was the residence of the Afghan revenue collector for the district of Gháyn. It is now a decayed and nearly depopulated collection of some eighty houses, on the slope of a ridge, overlooking corn-fields and fruit gardens, that cover the here widening valley up to Hájíabad, a couple of miles farther on. This last is a neat country-house, standing in its own grounds, and is the residence of the mother of Mír Alam Khán, the present chief of Gháyn, and Persian governor of Sistan. She is said to be a very clever and wealthy old lady, and exercises considerable influence in the government of the province.