'GAZETTEER OF PERSIA. VOLUME IV.' [‎186v] (377/652)

KUR—KUR
384
The power of the Kurd chiefs of Sarhad continues almost undiminished to
the present day, although within the last few years they have submitted
to the Persian Governor of Bampur. (See also Sarhad.)
In 1881 General Gasteiger Khan, a German officer in the Persian service,
was sent on a special mission to the Baluch frontier. In his published
narrative of the journey from Tehran to Jalk, he gives the following highly
coloured account of his meeting with Said Khan, the present chief of
Sarhad, at Vasht (q.v.) in that country:—
I had special instructions for the chieftain Said Khan, so I sent an orderly a few
days in advance to inform him of my coming, and to tell him I had orders from His
Majesty the Shah, and also that I had selected Chash (Vasht) as a halting-place on
my journey to Jalk.
The chieftain was at this tijne along with his tribe in the hills which form the line of
demarcation between Sistan and Baluchistan. I shall first relate the past career of
this prince and then introduce him to the reader. About two hundred years ago the
ancestors of Said Khan emigrated to this place from Kurdistan, being induced to do
so by Shah ’Abbas the Great, from whom they received large grants of land, free
from taxes, for ever.
The Kurds, accustomed from boyhood to an unsettled life, and having a predilec
tion for fighting and plunder, found here, where they were surrounded by a wild
mountain people, a congenial life and a favourable field for their profession of
robbery and murder. So powerful were they, that the present chieftain has gained
a great reputation by his success in raiding all the surrounding people for the last
twenty years. He accomplished the most daring feats, and at the head of his tribe
invaded the pro vinca, of Khorasan.
Only a few miles from the gates of Tehran he emptied the well-filled granaries be
longing to the wealthy farmers in the plain of Varamin. Returning heavily laden
with plunder, he made many more daring expeditions in the neighbourhood of
Ispahan, Yazd, and Kirman. His success gave him great influence, and he soon
made an alliance with the robber hordes of Afghanistan, and also sometimes lent
troops to a less powerful chieftain, named Azad Khan, who was the ruler of Kharan,
and had a force of about 10,000 men.* I heard later that these chieftains are
still feared by the Government.
When no robber expeditions were going on, Said Khan used to return to the moun
tains, where he occupied his time in pleasure, agriculture, and rearing cattle. The
fertile plains give proof of his industry.
Several times the Persian Government tried to win over this daring chieftain ; but it
either did not choose the right means, or the chief was too crafty or cunning to trust in
the plausible speeches of the emissaries of the Shah who tried to entrap him. Since the
battle of Chash (i,e. Vaslit), where he was only conquered by the two guns which the
Government troops brought to bear against him, he has aided the Government to
subdue some of the rebel tribes, and the Shah has showered honours on him for
those services.
At last, worn out by the constant changes, hemmed in by the English in Afghanistan
and the Russians in Turkistan,f and dispirited by the condition of the people, who
b i ! me very much reduced in circumstances owing to the general drought which had
prevailed for several years, Said Khan was compelled to try and inaugurate an .i b’e
relations with the Government ; and to effect this was the object of my mission to him.
* Said Khan can hardly have been in alliance with any Afghan. A few from the
Helmand valley may occasional y have joined his plundering expeditions. Azad
Khan, whose force is not above half of what is here stated, appears to have been
generally at war with the Sarhadls ; in some of his raids he has been assisted by the
Baraichis of Shurawak .—[See Kharan in Gazetteer of Baluchistan.)
| It is hardly necessary to remark that the English and Russ'an movements can have
bad no effect whatever on Said Khan. Gasteiger writes as if this leader of bandits
was sovereign of an independent State.