'Report on Sistan and the Country Between It and Mashad' [‎28v] (61/118)

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ilie following average dimensions—banks 6 feet above ground level, water
3 feet deep, 5 feet broad, and sometimes as much as 4 feet below ground
level. Distance from the top of one bank to the top of the other 15 feet.
Add to this the fact that the watercuts often overflow, converting
the soil for some distance into a heavy bog, and it will be seen how difficult
it is for even a caravan to get from one village to another. The villages,
as I have before remarked, are all undefended, with the exception of Nasir-
abad. In the centre of a few villages are the remains of forts of which the
most noticeable is Sihkuha.
The only other feature of the country which I have not described in
detail is the Kuh-i-Khwaja, a low, circular, flat-topped
Kuh-i-Khwaja. hill, about 400 feet high, and having an area of about a
square mile of broken ground on its summit. It completely commands the
entrance into the country.
The road through the Naizar passes within 2^ miles of it. From the
west side guns could with a little work easily be got to the top, from which
there is an extensive view over the whole country. There is no water on
the hill, but its summit is covered with ruins, and there is a whole village,
the ruins of which are still in fair preservation, perched half way up its
southern slopes.
Half a mile to the west of the hill the ground is usually a swamp,
which extends north-east to a pillar marked on the map, a little south
west of Barang; then a strip of dry land intervenes, traversed by the main
route from Barang to Nasirabad, and then again comes flat marshy ground
merging into the hamun. When floods are out, the whole of this is one
sheet of water down to the Shela.
In considering the suitability of Sistan for military operations, it
is necessary to take some account of its surroundings.
tary a operations. 0r Supposing Afghanistan to be beyond the limit of
operations, Persian Sistan is a veritable oasis in a
desert. The approaches to it are from the side of India through the
deserts of Baluchistan or from the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. ; from the side of Russia
through the somewhat barren country of Birjand, and 60 miles of uninhabited
waste beyond, terminated by the Naizar swamp; while on the west it is
effectually cut off from Persia by nearly 200 miles of desert called the
Dasht-i-Lut. With regard to the approaches from India, according to
Major Jennings, there are two routes practicable for an army from the
coast—one from Bandar Abbas via Regan, Nahimabad, and Nasratabad, and
the other from Chahbar through Bampur and Sarhad. Of these, the first is
536 miles in length, 94 miles of which are across the Dasht-i-Lut, where no
fresh water is to be had, and the second is 515 miles, the last 94 miles of this
also being practically waterless ; while for 325 miles between Bampur and
Sistan there appear to be no supplies beyond fuel and grazing. As regards
the route across Baluchistan, the recent acquisition of Chageh somewhat
simplifies matters, but until a railway is built it will always remain a difficult
problem to transport any considerable force across the sandy waste between
Cbah Amir and the inhabited portion of Sistan, a distance of 160 miles.
The distance Horn Quetta to Sistan via Chah Amir amounts to 627
miles, and the feasibility of even small bodies of men crossing the desert
beyond _ Chah Amir depends largely on the amount of rainfall for the season.
If one includes Afghanistan, there are three other routes : one via Nushki and
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