Correspondence and Papers on Persia [‎44r] (81/107)

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irrigation. This is frequently seen to be the case in
streams and rivers along the margins of which extend
thick incrustations of salt; but the most striking evidence
of the enormous quantities of this mineral contained in
the soil, and hence in solution in the water passing
through it, is that of the “ Darya-i-Namak ” or Plain of
Salt, half way between Teheran and Ispahan, where an
area of upwards of 400 square miles in an extensive
hollow in the desert is found covered with an incrustation
of salt of unknown depth in many parts, and increasing
in extent year by year, and yet this can only have been
formed by the salt held in solution in the waters of the
various springs and rivers, which, issuing from the valleys
of the neighbouring mountains, have emptied themselves
or run to waste in this low ground, the waters have
become evaporated year by year in consequence of the
heat and dryness of the atmosphere during the hot season,
but the salt has remained.
This, of course, as also that of the salt lakes near
Shiraz, and the Koh-i-Namak or Salt Mountain, near Kum,
is a Mi} exceptional case, but to the smaller proportion of
salt held in solution in varying degrees in most of the
rivers and streams, even when these are made use of for
purposes of irrigation, the surface of the ground bears
witness, w hich glitters in many places that have been
undated from them, with a slight efflorescence of salt.
1 liis is especially noticeable in the case of the plains
round Ispahan and the lands watered by the Zainda Rud,
ne o the most fertile tracts of country, at any rate, in
the central and eastern portion of the Empire.
-0. But a comparatively small portion of the vast
legion known under the comprehensive designation of the
ersian Empire would thus really be susceptible of
cu tivation and capable of supporting life, let alone
pint luing superfluous necessaries or luxuries on such an
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extensive scale as would guarantee the belief that the
amount of its exports could be very largely increased ;
indeed, could a trustworthy estimate be made of the
entire area throughout the country susceptible of culti
vation, it is probable that its extent, as compared with
that actually under cultivation, would not exceed the
proportion of half as much again, and this fact is princi
pally owing to the decrease of the population by famine
and other causes, whereby lands formerly cultivated have
fallen out of cultivation, the remaining population having
found that the extent now actually under cultivation would
be as much as they could work.
21. From this it appears that, limited as is this
cultivable area as compared with its entire extent, the
country is yet capable of sustaining a
considerably larger number of inhabitants
than are at present found existing in it ;
and it is to this fact that the well-to-do
appearance of most of the population may
be attributed, for, though money is very
scarce indeed amongst the poorer classes, there are but
few of them who are not sufficiently supplied with the
necessaries of life.
This is, as has been said, owing to the fact that land
capable of cultivation is abundantly in excess of the
present requirements of the population, and any man
who has industry can find a patch of ground somewhere
or other sufficient to grow the crops necessary for his
daily food, while the vast extents of plain and moun
tain, in spite of their arid and unpromising appearance,
supply him with an inexhaustible pasturage without fee.
To this same fact—namely, the scantiness of the popula
tion as compared with the area of cultivable land avail
able—may be attributed also his comparative immunity
from heavy taxation and from the oppression of the tax-
M'ell-to-do
condition of
population as
regards abso
lute necessaries
of life.