'Collection of journals and reports received from Captain the Hon G C Napier, Bengal Staff Corps, on special duty in Persia, 1874. Includes revised index. London: HMSO, 1876' [‎25r] (53/409)

and probably much further and wider than we have at present
any reason to suspect. The high character then established and
the influence acquired has not been lost, and would repay tenfold
their cost, if at any time the course of events should bring us back
to the old positbns. It was a striking proof of this to find the
names of officers who had served there, household words, and their
justice and generosity and humanity extolled in a remote valley
hundred of miles from the scene of their labours.
Znd October. Kelat .—Rode up the hills to the north-west of
Geo Gunbuz to see the ruins of Nadir’s palace, and a fine view, Imarat-i-
said to be commanded by a high point of the barrier. A narrow Na<iin -
path, ascending 1,200 feet, winding up and round s.teep spurs
composed at base of red sandstone, then to the summit of lime
stone, the lower strata hard and showing only minute particles of
shells, the upper 100 feet soft and composed almost entirely of
fossils, “ gryphoea,” with which the surface was strewn, led on to
an open cultivated plateau on which stood the Imarat-i-Nadir,
Nadir’s palace or house, for the ruins looked more like those of a
section of a suburban villa than of an Eastern monarch’s palace,
The site was well chosen, and commanded a fine view over hill
and plain. The whole extent of the natural barrier and enclosure
of Kelat, with its plateaux, mountains, and deep precipitous gorges,
was visible, while to the north the maze-like ramifications of the
lower spurs of the chain fall away into the Atak and the vast
desert of the Turkomans, extends in an unbroken expanse to the
horizon. The ruins themselves are singularly uninteresting ; they
consist of a line of rectangular enclosures, the largest of which,
known as the Diwan Khana is about 60 feet square. The outer
walls of stone and lime, the inner of brick. There being no springs
on the plateau and no possibility of getting a supply by wells,
a line of domed* had been constructed in the glen leading down
from a hill on the west side of the barrier and the water carried
by a covered aqueduct across the undulating plateau for about
a mile to "the buildings. Only one village, which has literally risen
on the ruins of the palace, stands on the plateau. They have Avells,
which are slightly brackish, and reservoirs. The cultivation is
entirely dependent on rain, but a good crop is generally obtained.
3rd October. Kelat .—Received a visit from a Turkoman of
Merve, who had come to Kelat with horses to be exchanged for
prisoners. He fell at once into politics, as is their habit. The
Turkomans, he said, acknowledged only three powers superior to a Turkoman
themselves. First, the Dowlut-i-Inglis, whose subjects they were on politics,
prepared to be ; second, the Afghans, their co-religionists; third,
the Dowlut-i-Room, for which they have a traditional veneration.
Of the other nations of whom they knew anything, the Persians
they despised, and the Russians they feared and cordially de
tested. He almost admitted, however, that a sense of the inevit
able might in course of time induce to submission to them. Ihe
son of Kousheed Khan of Merve was at Cabul asking for support,
Sic in orig., Cisterns.