Manuscript of Persia and the Persian Question (Continued) [‎48r] (95/690)

y^l/7 • 33 ,
'A’Hi.j iiuar A'limiy uir
wa. it placed at the most unfavourable angle of the river, hut instead
of being pushed out little by little from one bank, in order to drive
the current towards the other, it had been commenced simultaneously
• from both banks, with the result that as the two arms approached,
the whole volume of the river torrent swept through the narrow
aperture between, and rendered the completion of the work impos
sible. It had consequently been suspended as a bad job, and through
a gap of about fifteen yards the water was racing with foam and
fury, while the two unfinished extremities were already beginning to
subside and disappear. . -I should m>t be aurprinod in h onr tViat
spring- floods thm. ■year have completely jt / and that the
whiala to be undorfrolion -nh itt+tiv agaiu/ Until (be
bridge is yopo^rjod oommwiaiontion vrith Dh’M is uiucaiimifri and-at
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aioanon witn -Uiziiil ia uiucanou^, ana a
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tSS^-The Mina^ Canal. This is the artificial canal fhaThas beeh^
diverted from the main stream through a tunnel perforated in the ■*
face of the castle rock, in order to irrigate the high-lying lands to
the south of the city, round which it winds in a deeplv-furrowed
loop. I .call tt by-th<) above namia) barviii'ip it 'ippaars to-Wthat" by
-which it m now-, knnma, nil hough Rawlinson and h»tpr- travellers ^
cnpiang from him have designated it the Nahr-i-Darjan^or Ab-i-
MiJJandab—the latter, which signifies “ river between two waters,”
being a perfectly correct description of its situation^—while Colonel
Bell calls it the Ab-i-Khurd. After leaving the cutting through
the rock^whieh is said by Rawlinson to be throe hundred yards long
and -fifteen broad^it passes into the sandy soil behind the town, and
here its level was till lately regulated by artificial dams, of ■which
the most curious is a bund, thrown right across the ravine cut by the
canal, and supporting a quaintly irregular, bridge, the roadway of
which is stone-paved, and runs sharply uphill on one side fn order to
reach the top of the bank, where is a ruined gateway and guard
house. This bridge is called the Pul-i-Lashkar. When I inspected
it no water was flowing through the arches of the bund, whilst I
have already mentioned that on entering the town I was able to ford
the shrunken continuation of the same canal at a point further to
the east. The reason of its failure has been the rupture of Vale
rian’s bund and bridge, by which the level of the river at the point
where it formerly fed the canal, has been seriously lowered, and its
consequence is visible in the desiccation and sterility that have over
taken the small Mesopotamia which it was intended to irrigate.
I have so frequently used the terms Valerian’s bund and bridge
in speaking of the Bund-i-Mizan, that it wull be well now to explain
that I have only done so in deference to popular legend, and because
they are always so called; but in no sense because I believe that the
Journal of the f7inijn'<ijiUi'<i«Ki f <Sm i i>i l i/, vol. ix., p. 7^. ^
ft. Gr -S . '