'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎135] (170/714)

FROM KUCHAN TO KELAT-1-NADIR1
135
have not been accessible to the public, what I did not see in
order that my readers may be able to form an accurate idea of
History Ivelat-i-Nadii i as it is at the present moment. They
Kelat will already have gathered that, though literally translated
and commonly called the Fort of Nadir Shah, it is not a fort at all
in the accepted sense of the term ; consisting as it does of a moun
tain plateau, with a mean elevation of 2,500 feet above the sea
intersected by deep gullies and ravines, some twenty miles in total
length by from five to seven in breadth ; and only so far resemblino-
a fortress that this vast extent ot ground, comprising a probable
area ot loO square miles, is surrounded as with a ring fence by a
mighty natural rampart enclosing it from end to end with a cliff-
wall of naked and vertical rock, 700 to 1,000 feet in sheer height
above the valley bottom. From early times the extraordinary
character of the place, which must have resulted from some ab
normal convulsion of nature, impressed itself upon the imagination
of the neighbouring peoples ; and Iranian legend localises here one
of the mythical combats between the hero liustam and the alien
forces of Turan under Afrasiab, who, expelled from Kelat by the
victorious hosts of Iran, fell back upon the Oxus, where they sus
tained a final and crushing defeat. Here too, according to the
Shah Nam eh of Firdusi, settled Ferud, the brother of Kai Khosru,
-and here he was attacked and slain by Tus. The inscription to
which I have alluded proves that as a defensible and defended
retreat it was known to the Mongol successors of Jenghiz Khan.
Timur is said to have possessed himself of it by stratagem.
But it was not till the times of Nadir Shah that full use was
made of its invaluable natural gifts. -Returning from India, laden
Portifica- with the spoils of conquered kingdoms and with the rifled
Nadir" treasures of the Great Mogul, he saw in Kelat, with which
Shah he must have been familiar from childhood, 1 the ideal
storehouse where this vast wealth could be deposited, and also an
invulnerable place of arms. Accordingly, he constructed powerful
fortifications at all the entrances, placed watch-towers on every peak
and point of vantage, artificially scarped the rocky battlements
both within and without, in order to render them still more impos
sible of access, built himself a residence on a plateau in the interior
(which it is said he rarely occupied), and provided for a supply of
1 Nadir Shah was born in a tent near Mohammedabad, the capital of the
neighbouring district of Deregez.