From Obeh, 50 m. east of Herat, the cultivated portion of the valley commences, and it extends, with a width which varies from 8 to 16 m., to Kuhsan, 60 m. west of the city. But the great stretch of highly irrigated and valuable fruit-growing land, which appears to spread from the walls of Herat east and west as far as the eye can reach, and to sweep to the foot of the hills north and south with an endless array of vineyards and melon-beds, orchards and villages, varied with a brilliant patchwork of poppy growth brightening the width of green wheat-fields with splashes of scarlet and purple—all this is really comprised within a narrow area which does not extend beyond a ten-miles’ radius from the city. The system of irrigation by which these agricultural results are attained is most elaborate. The despised Herati Tajik, in blue shirt and skull-cap, and with no instrument better than a three-cornered spade, is as skilled an agriculturist as is the Ghilzai engineer, but he cannot effect more than the limits of his water-supply will permit. He adopts the karez (or, Persian, kanát) system of underground irrigation, as does the Ghilzai, and brings every drop of water that he can find to the surface; but it cannot be said that he is more successful than the Ghilzai. It is the startling contrast of the Herati oasis with the vast expanse of comparative sterility that encloses it which has given such a fictitious value to the estimates of the material wealth of the valley of the Hari Rud.
The valley about Herat includes a flat alluvial plain which might, for some miles on any side except the north, be speedily reduced to an impassable swamp by means of flood-water from the surrounding canals. Three miles to the south of the city the river flows from east to west, spanned by the Pal-i-Malun, a bridge possessing grand proportions, but which was in 1885 in a state of grievous disrepair and practically useless. East and west stretches the long vista of the Hari Rud. Due north the hills called the Koh-i-Mulla Khwaja appear to be close and dominating, but the foot of these hills is really about 3 m. distant from the city. This northern line of barren, broken sandstone hills is geographically no part of the Paropamisus range, from which it is separated by a stretch of sandy upland about 20 m. in width, called the Dasht-i-Hamdamao, or Dasht-i-Ardewán, formed by the talus or drift of the higher mountains, which, washed down through centuries of denudation, now forms long sweeping spurs of gravel and sand, scantily clothed with wormwood scrub and almost destitute of water. Through this stretch of dasht the drainage from the main water-divide breaks downwards to the plains of Herat, where it is arrested and utilized for irrigation purposes. To the north-east of the city a very considerable valley has been formed between the Paropamisus and the subsidiary Koh-i-Mulla Khwaja range, called Korokh. Here there are one or two important villages and a well-known shrine marked by a group of pine trees which is unique in this part of Afghanistan. The valley leads to a group of passes across the Paropamisus into Turkestan, of which the Zirmast is perhaps the best known. The main water-divide between Herat and the Turkestan Chol (the loess district) has been called Paropamisus for want of any well-recognized general name. To the north of the Korokh valley it exhibits something of the formation of the Hindu Kush (of which it is apparently a geological extension), but as it passes westwards it becomes broken into fragments by processes of denudation, until it is hardly recognizable as a distinct range at all. The direct passes across it from Herat (the Baba and the Ardewán) wind amongst masses of disintegrating sandstone for some miles on each side of the dividing watershed, but farther west the rounded knolls of the rain-washed downs may be crossed almost at any point without difficulty. The names applied to this débris of a once formidable mountain system are essentially local and hardly distinctive. Beyond this range the sand and clay loess formation spreads downwards like a tumbled sea, hiding within the folds of its many-crested hills the twisting course of the Kushk and its tributaries.
History.—The origin of Herat is lost in antiquity. The name first appears in the list of primitive Zoroastrian settlements contained in the Vendidād Sadē, where, however, like most of the names in the same list,—such as Sughudu (Sogdiana), Mourū (Merv or Margus), Haraquiti (Arachotus or Arghand-ab), Haetumant (Etymander or Helmund), and Ragha (or Argha-stan),—it seems to apply to the river or river-basin, which was the special centre of population. This name of Haroyu, as it is written in the Vendidād, or Hariwa, as it appears in the inscriptions of Darius, is a cognate form with the Sanskrit Sarayu, which signifies “a river,” and its resemblance to the ethnic title of Aryan (Sans. Arya) is purely fortuitous; though from the circumstance of the city being named “Aria Metropolis” by the Greeks, and being also recognized as the capital of Ariana, “the country of the Arians,” the two forms have been frequently confounded. Of the foundation of Herat (or Heri, as it is still often called) nothing is known. We can only infer from the colossal character of the earth-works which surround the modern town, that, like the similar remains at Bost on the Helmund and at Ulan Robat of Arachosia, they belong to that period of Central-Asian history which preceded the rise of Achaemenian power, and which in Grecian romance is illustrated by the names of Bacchus, of Hercules and of Semiramis. To trace in any detail the fortunes of Herat would be to write the modern history of the East, for there has hardly been a dynastic revolution, or a foreign invasion, or a great civil war in Central Asia since the time of the prophet, in which Herat has not played a conspicuous part and suffered accordingly. Under the Tahirids of Khorasan, the Saffarids of Seistan and the Samanids of Bokhara, it flourished for some centuries in peace and progressive prosperity; but during the succeeding rule of the Ghaznevid kings its metropolitan character was for a time obscured by the celebrity of the neighbouring capital of Ghazni, until finally in the reign of Sultan Sanjar of Merv about 1157 the city was entirely destroyed by an irruption of the Ghuzz, the predecessors, in race as well as in habitat, of the modern Turkomans. Herat gradually recovered under the enlightened Ghorid kings, who were indeed natives of the province, though they preferred to hold their court amid their ancestral fortresses in the mountains of Ghor, so that at the time of Jenghiz Khan’s invasion it equalled or even exceeded in populousness and wealth its sister capitals Of Balkh, Merv and Nishapur, the united strength of the four cities being estimated at three millions of inhabitants. But this Mogul visitation was most calamitous; forty persons, indeed, are stated to have alone survived the general massacre of 1232, and as a similar catastrophe overtook the city at the hands of Timur in 1398, when the local dynasty of Kurt, which had succeeded the Ghorides in eastern Khorasan, was put an end to, it is astonishing to find that early in the 15th century Herat was again flourishing and populous, and the favoured seat of the art and literature of the East. It was indeed under the princes of the house of Timur that most of the noble buildings were erected, of which the remains still excite our admiration at Herat, while all the great historical works relative to Asia, such as the Rozetes-Sefā, the Habīb-es-seir, Hafiz Abrū’s Tarīkh, the Matlā’ a-es-Sa’adin, &c., date from the same place and the same age. Four times was Herat sacked by Turkomans and Usbegs during the centuries which intervened between the Timuride princes and the rise of the Afghan power, and it has never in modern times attained to anything like its old importance. Afghan tribes, who had originally dwelt far to the east, were first settled at Herat by Nadir Shah, and from that time they have monopolized the government and formed the dominant element in the population. It will be needless to trace the revolutions and counter-revolutions which have followed each other in quick succession at Herat since Ahmad Shah Durani founded the Afghan monarchy about the middle of the 18th century. Let it suffice to say that Herat has been throughout the seat of an Afghan government, sometimes in subordination to Kabul and sometimes independent. Persia indeed for many years showed a strong disposition to reassert the supremacy over Herat which was exercised by the Safawid kings, but great Britain, disapproving of the advance of Persia towards the Indian frontier, steadily resisted the encroachment; and, indeed, after helping the Heratis to beat off the attack of the Persian army in 1838, the British at length compelled the shah in 1857 at the close of his war with them to sign a treaty recognizing the further independence of the place, and pledging Persia against any further interference with the Afghans. In 1863 Herat, which for fifty years previously had been independent of Kabul, was incorporated by Dost Mahomed Khan in the Afghan monarchy, and the Amir, Habibullah of Afghanistan, like his father Abdur Rahman before him, remained Amir of Herat and Kandahar, as well as Kabul.
See Holdich, Indian Borderland (1901); C. E. Yate, Northern Afghanistan (1888).
(T. H. H.*)
HÉRAULT, a department in the south of France, formed from Lower Languedoc. Pop. (1906) 482,779. Area, 2403 sq. m. It is bounded N.E. by Gard, N.W. by Aveyron and Tarn, and S. by Aude and the Golfe du Lion. The southern prolongation of the Cévennes mountains occupies the north-western zone of the department, the highest point being about 4250 ft. above the sea-level. South-east of this range comes a region of hills and plateaus decreasing in height as they approach the sea, from which they are separated by the rich plains at the mouth of the Orb and the Hérault and, farther to the north-east, by the line of intercommunicating salt lagoons (Etang de Thau, &c.) which fringes the coast. The region to the north-west of Montpellier comprises an extensive tract of country known as the Garrigues, a district of dry limestone plateaus and hills, which stretches into the neighbouring department of Gard. The mountains of the north-west form the watershed between the Atlantic and Mediterranean basins. From them flow the Hérault, its tributary the Lergue, and more to the south-west the Livron and the Orb, which are the main rivers of the department. Dry summers, varied by occasional violent storms, are characteristic of Hérault. The climate is naturally colder and more rainy in the mountains.
A third of the surface of Hérault is planted with vines, which are the chief source of agricultural wealth, the department ranking first in France with respect to the area of its vineyards; the red wines of St Georges, Cazouls-lès-Béziers, Picpoul and Maranssan, and the white wines of Frontignan and Lunel (pop. in 1906, 6769) are held in high estimation. The area given over to arable land and pasture is small in extent. Fruit trees of various kinds, but especially mulberries, olives and chestnuts flourish. The rearing of silk-worms is largely carried on. Considerable numbers of sheep are raised, their milk being utilized for the preparation of Roquefort cheeses. The mineral wealth of the department is considerable. There are mines of lignite, coal in the vicinity of Graissessac, iron, calamine and copper, and quarries of building-stone, limestone, gypsum, &c.; the marshes supply salt. Mineral springs are numerous, the most important being those of Lamalon-les-Bains and Balaruc-les-Bains. The chief manufactures are woollen and cotton cloth, especially for military use, silk (Ganges), casks, soap and fertilizing stuffs. There are also oil-works, distilleries (Béziers) and tanneries (Bédarieux). Fishing is an important industry. Cette and Mèze (pop. in 1906, 5574) are the chief ports. Hérault exports salt fish, wine, liqueurs, timber, salt, building-material, &c. It imports cattle, skins, wool, cereals, vegetables, coal and other commodities. The railway lines belong chiefly to the Southern and Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée companies. The Canal du Midi traverses the south of the department for 44 m. and terminates at Cette. The Canal des Étangs traverses the department for about 20 m., forming part of a line of communication between Cette and Aigues-Mortes. Montpellier, the capital, is the seat of a bishopric of the province of Avignon, and of a court of appeal and centre of an academic (educational division). The department belongs to the 16th military region, which has its headquarters at Montpellier. It is divided into the arrondissements of Montpellier, Béziers, Lodève and St Pons, with 36 cantons and 340 communes.
Montpellier, Béziers, Lodève, Bédarieux, Cette, Agde, Pézenas, Lamalou-les-Bains and Clermont-l’Hérault are the more noteworthy towns and receive separate treatment. Among the other interesting places in the department are St Pons, with a church of the 12th century, once a cathedral, Villemagne, which has several old houses and two ruined churches, one of the 13th, the other of the 14th century; Pignan, a medieval town, near which is the interesting abbey-church of Vignogoul in the early Gothic style; and St Guilhem-le-Désert, which has a church of the 11th and 12th centuries. Maguelonne, which in the 6th century became the seat of a bishopric transferred to Montpellier in 1536, has a cathedral of the 12th century.