Manuscript of Persia and the Persian Question (Continued) [‎32r] (63/690)

i I
dzS' cC *'
(BUrJl lC.
i^Moliaifimerah itself is buried in palm-groves, that would conse
crate/tiny landscape ; but at Gisbah, about eight miles up the riverj
tmp/edging of green suddenly ceases, and henceforward as far as
Jund-i-Kir the banks are either absolutely bare or are covered only
with low scrub and tamarisk bushes^here and there intersected by
creeks or the deaeerated beds of forgotten canals. In this lower
part of its course the banks are everywhere low and flat, but farther
on they increase in height till they attain an altitude above the water,
sometimes of from twenty to thirty feet. Here too, the Karun is in
volume and dimensions a noble river, commonly from three hundred
yards to a quarter of a mile across, it not being till above Ahwaz
that it is sometimes contracted in width to two hundred yards. At
this time the river was very full, a heavy fall of snow or rain in the
mountains having just preceded ; and mud held in turbid solution
changed its waters 4 to the colour of Turkish coffee, and its consis
tency to tha t of prison-gruel.
At a distance of from 10 to 12 miles above the Bahmeshir occurs a'
&
)!
J
9s
C^ATtASV^J
third, but now choked and disused channel of the Karun, by which
also, in days probably anterior to the Bahmeshir, it once sought the sea.
This dried-up bed, which is supposed to be that up which the fleet of
Nearchus sailed to join Alexander the Great at Susa, is called the
Karun-el-&«w«Ai, or Blind Karun.(?Tt was followed by the officers of the
Euphrates Expedition in 1836 towards the sea, and was found by them
to consist of a depression 200 yards in width, in the middle of which
still existed a small channel that was filled by the flowing tide, but left
with only one foot of brackish water at the ebb. The probability of this
having been the original or earliest mouth of the Karun is enhanced by
the fact that the Oriental geographers describe the Haffar Canal as being
four parasangs, or about 15 miles in length, figures which almost exactly
correspond with the length of the present stream from the mouth of the
Karun-el-am^ah to Mohammerah; so that we should be justified in
regarding the entire river-bed below the former point as an artificial
creation. S «<' gx o-e-c,’ 4" Ay
' 4
'3
K
^ a. e/"
tt/v. [i- <-£_-
(/iaM-
, &77T n j ■ e-JL ~
<2,^X1-^
j/^aUrtu^ 'C.
-4 \/ - fcXe-
1/4
From the Karun-fi-amidi has been cut a canal conducting to the
former Ea’b capital of Fellahieh, on the Jerrahi river, and variously
known as tbe Kaban or Gobban. In the last century a dam was thrown
across the Kanin at this point by $ Sheikh Salman, i.e. Suleiman, of the
Ka’b tribe, with the object of diverting its waters either into this canal
or into the Karun41-ami*h. In the Persian invasion of Karim Khan
this dam was destroyed, and the Blind Karim consequently achieved
blindness. The canal is still navigable at season s to Fellalne h .
time before^ reaching it, the pyramidal Tomb, in twelv e steps or
(T j
t
Jr
ry^
u
ulrv^
stages, of Robein-ib\- YaFub^rTThe right bank stands out the sole
feature in “ tho level wastefthe rounding grey,” appearing alter
nately on the right and left hand as the river twists and turns.
Beyond, another small tomb, known as ImaHqAli^IIus^ein, shaded
by a cluster of six palms, succeeds and is in turn\caught up and left
behind. Further on w r e pass Imam Saba on tli^right bank, the .
halfway stage to Ahwaz- ^ ^ ^ A
A /) ^ ‘gj-j-G-
tea. * *
///) ^
7ZZc' ■
• C [/((KArG^
fc. , <A /c-t^rw
Ay
y < or > i
(Sc /
T^f pfoA**-* CygY-VH ' 2 -
tClJL
!/ Ua ‘A\
ia-atC
ILIV^
ItJ-
hre
*r