ruined walls, the débris of palatial structures which at one time were the glory and wonder of the East. Of these structures indeed some have survived to the present day in a sufficiently perfect state to bear witness to the grandeur and beauty of the old architecture of Herat. Such was the mosque of the Mosalla before its destruction. Scarcely inferior in beauty of design and execution, though of more moderate dimensions, is the tomb of the saint Abdullah Ansari, in the same neighbourhood. This building, which was erected by Shah Rukh Mirza, the grandson of Timur, over 500 years ago, contains some exquisite specimens of sculpture in the best style of Oriental art. Adjoining the tomb also are numerous marble mausoleums, the sepulchres of princes of the house of Timur; and especially deserving of notice is a royal building tastefully decorated by an Italian artist named Geraldi, who was in the service of Shah Abbas the Great. The locality, which is further enlivened by gardens and running streams, is named Gazir-gáh, and is a favourite resort of the Heratis. It is held indeed in high veneration by all classes, and the famous Dost Mahommed Khan is himself buried at the foot of the tomb of the saint. Two other royal palaces named respectively Bagh-i-Shah and Takht-i-Sefer, are situated on the same rising ground somewhat farther to the west. The buildings are now in ruins, but the view from the pavilions, shaded by splendid plane trees on the terraced gardens formed on the slope of the mountain, is said to be very beautiful.
The population of Herat and the neighbourhood is of a very mixed character. The original inhabitants of Ariana were no doubt of the Aryan family, and immediately cognate with the Persian race, but they were probably intermixed at a very early period with the Sacae and Massagetae, who seem to have held the mountains from Kabul to Herat from the first dawn of history, and to whom must be ascribed—rather than to an infusion of Turco-Tartaric blood introduced by the armies of Jenghiz and Timur—the peculiar broad features and flattish countenance which distinguish the inhabitants of Herat, Seistan and the eastern provinces of Persia from their countrymen farther to the west. Under the government of Herat, however, there are a very large number of tribes, ruled over by separate and semi-independent chiefs, and belonging probably to different nationalities. The principal group of tribes is called the Chahar-Aimák, or “four races,” the constituent parts of which, however, are variously stated by different authorities both as to strength and nomenclature. The Heratis are an agricultural race, and are not nearly so warlike as the Pathans from the neighbourhood of Kabul or Kandahar.
The long narrow valley of the Hari Rud, starting from the
western slopes of the Koh-i-Baba, extends almost due west
for 300 m. before it takes its great northern bend at
Kuhsan, and passes northwards through the broken
ridges of the Siah Bubuk (the western extremity of the
Environs
of Herat.
range which we now call Paropamisus) towards Sarakhs. For
the greater part of its length it drains the southern slopes only
of the Paropamisus and the northern slopes of a parallel range
called Koh-i-Safed. The Paropamisus forms the southern face
of the Turkestan plateau, which contains the sources of the
Murghab river; the northern face of the same plateau is defined
by the Band-i-Turkestan. On the south of the plateau we find a
similar succession of narrow valleys dividing parallel flexures,
or anticlinals, formed under similar geological conditions to
those which appear to be universally applicable to the Himalaya,
the Hindu Kush, and the Indus frontier mountain systems.
From one of these long lateral valleys the Hari Rud receives its
principal tributary, which joins the main river below Obeh, 180
m. from its source; and it is this tributary (separated from the
Hari Rud by the narrow ridges of the Koh-i-Safed and Band-i-Baian)
that offers the high road from Herat to Kabul, and not
the Hari Rud itself. From its source to Obeh the Hari Rud is a
valley of sandy desolation. There are no glaciers near its sources,
although they must have existed there in geologically recent
times, but masses of melting snow annually give rise to floods,
which rush through the midst of the valley in a turbid red stream,
frequently rendering the river impassable and cutting off the
crazy brick bridges at Herat and Tirpul. It is impossible,
whilst watching the rolling, seething volume of flood-water
which swirls westwards in April, to imagine the waste stretches
of dry river-bed which in a few months’ time (when every
available drop of water is carried off for irrigation) will represent
the Hari Rud. The soft shales or clays of the hills bounding
the valley render these hills especially subject to the action
of denudation, and the result, in rounded slopes and easily
accessible crests, determines the nature of the easy tracks and
passes which intersect them. At the same time, any excessive
local rainfall is productive of difficulty and danger from the
floods of liquid mud and loose boulders which sweep like an
avalanche down the hill sides. The intense cold which usually
accompanies these sudden northern blizzards of Herat and
Turkestan is a further source of danger.
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
