'Report on the North-Eastern Frontier of Persia and the Tekeh Turkomans' [‎108v] (8/50)

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CHAPTER II.
Pusht-i-Badam is one of the most miserable places it has ever been my lot to visit.
It contains 150 inhabitants, and nearly the whole place is in ruins. Heavy rain fell
some years ago, and the place collapsed like a house of cards, and the people have
never had the energy to build it up again, and have contented themselves with
repairing only a small portion. There is a dirty had caravanserai A roadside inn providing accommodation for caravans (groups of travellers). , just outside which
there is a spring of slightly brackish water. Inside the village, which is situated in a
sort of fort, there is a spring of good water. From these two springs about a square mile
of ground is irrigated and cultivated, but the place does not produce enough food even
to feed its own inhabitants, and could supply nothing for an army. I found it difficult
to get supplies of any sort, and the people were not particularly civil. Pusht-i-Badam
is a depressing sort of place altogether, and when one thinks of the great extent of
miserable country to be passed over before one gets out of this desert, one’s thoughts
are not particularly cheerful. The horse I was riding to-day fell with me about
three miles from the village from sheer fatigue, though I had made two short halts and
fed the horses twice between Sukund and Pusht-i-Badam, but 38 miles is a very long
march for horses carrying heavy saddle hags, besides their riders. Also, the want of
water on the road is very trying to the horses in this hot weather. The road I am
travelling and that passed over by Colonel Macgregor have coincided for the last
marches. From this point they separate, as Colonel Macgregor went off the road
from here to visit some villages in the desert to the westward, called Beabannak.
The people were in a very excited state about Biluchis declaring that it was impossible
to travel just now, as the Biluchis were between Pusht-i-Badam and Robat-i-Khan,
the next stage. I had very great difficulty in persuading any one to accompany me as
guide, but after a great deal of trouble a man was found who consented to go, on being
paid about three times as much- as he usually would have received. I would have
gone on without a guide, only I required a donkey or pony to carry a pair of saddle
bags, as one of my horses had a bad sore hack, and I had to have him led without a
load. At last a guide and two donkeys were procured, and I left on the afternoon of
the 20th for Robat-i-Khan. This is the worst march on the whole road; the desert is
more terrible and trying both to man and beast, and the march longer before any
human habitation is reached. This part of the country may be considered the
dividing line between the Dasht-i-Kavir, or Great Salt Desert, and the Dasht-i-Lut,
or desert which extends far away to the great Seistan swamp, if the spot where
two deserts meet can be called a dividing line. After leaving Pusht-i-Badam, the road
leads over the usual barren plain for 4^ miles, when a poor little hamlet of four
houses and a tower is reached. Here there is a small spring of brackish water, and a
little patch of cultivation, but the people trust more to feeding a few goats and sheep
on the edge of their cultivation on some tamarisk scrub than on what they can
raise from their fields. At 18 miles a tower with a fine reservoir for water,
but which is now empty, is reached. It is built on a small ridge of firm
ground, the country before arrriving at it and after passing it being very
sandy. Ibis ridge is the dividing line between Khorasan, the ancient Parthia, and
the government of Yazd. Pusht-i-Badam is in the government of Yazd. My guide
was in great terror of the Biluchis, and declared that this was just one of the places
they were likely to be hiding, to pounce upon unwary travellers. I went a few
hundred yards off the road, and rested the horses for three hours in a small ravine, and
started again about midnight. The moonlight was almost as bright as day, and we
pushed on. I, and one servant, want on ahead w hile the guide and the other servant
followed with the two donkeys, who delayed us a good deal. Soon after passing
Haoz-i-Shah Abbas w r e came to some of the worst sand dunes that I have ever seen.
The road leads up one sand lull and down another, each so like the other that it was
very difficult to keep the track. The guide had been left far behind, and w r e toiled on
for several miles, our horses sinking almost to their knees in the sand. At 24 miles
the road ascends a low rocky ridge of hills, and the relief of getting upon firm ground
once more was very great. This piece of sandy desert is the only impediment to guns
or wdieeled conveyance over the whole of this desert country. The sand can, however,
be avoided by a considerable detour. At 32 miles the road descends into a plain, and
at the foot of the descent is a tiny spring of good w-ater. I had been especially
warned about this place at Pusht-i-Badam. It was said that this little spring in the