"دليل بلاد فارس. مجلد III. جزء I: من A إلى K" [ظ‎‎١‎٢‎٠] (١٢٧٨/٢٤٥)

114
BAK—BAK
purposes, besides young stock being grazed and trained with a view to
ultimate sale, are very considerable. Major Arbuthnot, in his report
on this subject (1905), estimates their numbers in the Chehar Mahal alone
at 12,000 head. Those travelling through neighbouring districts would
be included amongst this number 5 so that a fair estimate of the total
number throughout the whole Bakhtiaii territory, of one year and upwards
in age, would be 15,000 head. Of this number, 8,000 animals may be held
to be fit for immediate transpcrt purposes. The neighbouring province
of Luristan, where these mules are almost entirely bred, is the chief source
of the mule-supply of Persia.
Other animals.—X few donkeys of a very fine breed and a very limited
number of camels, merely brought into the country for carrying purposes,
complete the tale of live-stock in these regions.
' Coal and naphtha—It is asserted by the Khans themselves that their
mountains contain coal in abundance, though nothing has been done by
them to profit by this knowledge. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company has
completed (April 1912) a pipe line (total length 130 miles) to convey oil
from the fields at Maidan-i-Naftun, some 30 miles south-east of Shushtar, to
Abbadan Island at the mouth of the Shatt-al-’Arab. The original stipula
tion was that a sum of £ 2,000 per annum should be paid to the chiefs
for the protection of the oil-fields, and a further sum of £ 1,000 for the
protection of the pipe line. Under present arrangements, however, £600 is
retained by the company for the payment of the Bakhtiari guards at the
oil-fields, whom it pays itself, and, it is believed that the guards actually
cost the company some £ 8,200 over and above this sum.
Communications — External .—The Bakhtiari country, as already de
scribed, lies embedded between the provinces of Isfahan, Luristan, Pars,
and ’ Arabistan . On the north its boundary lies some 40 miles distant from
Isfahan by the road ; the prolongation of which is generally known as
the Lynch road. The first village of any importance reached in the
Bakhtiari jurisdiction is that of Kaveh, Rukh, distant 56 miles from
Isfahan. From the north-west, i.e., Luristan, the approaches are through
an inhospitable country and by lofty and difficult mountain passes.
From the east, i.e., Fars, the approaches which pass through the Qashqai
country are equally inhospitable, though physically less formidable. It
is from the south that this country is most easily reached, and, more im
portant still, from the sea—by the great, and only, waterway of Persia,
the Karun river. This river, the origin of which has been briefly noted on
above, after a tortuous course through the wild gorges and defiles of the
higher Bakhtiari mountains, at length emerges from the hills immediately
to the north of Shushtar, in a due southerly direction, and pursues its
sinuous course over the wide alluvial plain that stretches to the Shatt-al-
’Arab and the Persian Gulf. On the way it receives at Band-i-Qir its
m? n affix ent the Ab-i-Diz ; while lower down its channel is interrupted
and its navigation impeded by the rapids at Ahwaz. Twj steamers
work between Ahwaz and Shalalleh, about 35 miles below Shushtar, but
above Band-i-Qir the river navigation during summer and autumn is very
difficult. For further details see Karun River. All outside trade with the
lakhtiarl, not to mention what is carried through to Isfa an and places