'GAZETTEER OF PERSIA. VOLUME II' [‎184r] (372/706)

kirmanshah
355
PvMic health. —The water-supply in Kirmanshah is plentiful, but as the
water runs from the tank of one house to that of the next, and as in these
tanks the cooking utensils and house-linen are washed, the vater generally
used for drinking purposes is polluted and contaminated. The water of the
hammams or public baths is only changed once or twice a year. Notwith-
s andmg this, and the total absence of drains, Kirmanshah is, through the
rynessofits climate, a healthy place. The water is heavy and indigestible
and diarrhoea and dysentery are the result. The usual illnesses are fever,
small-pox and diphtheria.
Kirmanshah during the last century suffered many times and very
severely from cholera, plague and famine. In 1801 Sir J. Macdonald Kinneir
estimated the population at 60,000 souls, but the plague which ravaged
the town m 1830 is said to have reduced the population to 12,000 souls.
n October 1910 cholera appeared in Kirmanshah, and there were as manv
as 4o deaths m one day. There were no cases after November 8 th Small
pox also appeared in October of that year. '
Ethnography.
The population of Kirmanshah town is estimated at 60,000, but this is
a minimum figure.
It must be taken into consideration that the Kurds live huddled together
small rn^h 1 ^^ 7 ' ^ ^ }mt UP 311 a mud ll0Use consisting of three
, rooms, and it is said that m no town in Persia are there so many in-
Wrotp-^' TW' ISa ^ nd - Din 1 ?“ w cll aware of this fact ihen
fV n> ; T h ® town of K irmanshah has 7,000 houses,” and further “ the
inhabitants of this town are a mixture of Kalhurs, Zanganehs, a few Gurans
ana other tnoesmen. The town is old and composed of foreign elements
and numbers, 70,000 inhabitants, whilst in most seasons the °popuktion
hy the c r mg and going ° f ^ wm^noticed
7 n - I s . ^ . ll01lse JS usuall T taken to represent five inhabitants, Nasir-
™ s P eakin S of Kirmanshah, reckons a house at 10 inhabitants
The nobility of Kirmanshah consists of Qajar princes the
descendants of Muhammad ’Ali Mirza, Daulat Shah and o his sons aid of
some of the chiefs of the Kurdish tribes. ’ ^ 0t
ha , Ve SC f Cely any influence in Kirmanshah, but the chiefs
of the tribes maintain their authority over their tribesmen in town and in
ince^ r ° VmCe ' * ° r th6 tnbeS ° f thlS province under Kirmanshah (Prov-
Merc/iants.-Most of the merchants of Kirmanshah are really only com
mission agents for their friends of Hamadan and Baghdad 7 There are
about 200 merchants dealing mostly in Manchester goods, got direct from
Manchester or through Baghdad, in sugar, from Marseille ; and in opium
gums, goat-skms, carpets and wool, which they export to Baghdad and
England. There are about 20 Ottoman Jews, who have in their hands tin
greatest part of the foreign import and export trade. Kashi mel a l
import from Kashan: tobacco, native silk goods copper-ware to t frn i
amount of some 100,000 turnons, which they coyer byhxports io Ka Mn
of prints and foreign goods received from Baghdad.
nf 9 Ain/w- rC - antS i3 , np0rt henna and Yazd silk from Yazd to the amount
of 20,000 tumems, and export an equal amount of foreign goods to Yazd