رسائل وأوراق بخصوص السكة الحديدية العابرة لبلاد فارس والسكك الحديدية الأخرى في بلاد فارس [و‎‎١‎٠‎٦] (٤٤٢/٢١١)

12.
To stay the advance of a sand dune is quite feasible. The
sinplest inethod is to scatter stones, soil, gravel, or grit
over the exposed back. Each dune is covered with sand ripples
which are essential to the barchan* s existence and if their
formation is interfered v/ith, in this way, the dune* s advance
is arrested, it disintegrates, quickly falls into ruin and then
dissipates.
E. Main trade roads .
We are only actively concerned with five main roads These
ere the road which runs from Lash Juwain to Eastern Afghanistan,
North and parallel to the Dasht-I-Margo, cutting the Kandahar-
Grishk-Herat road at Grishk. The high road which connects Seistan,
by way of the Helmand valley, vdth Kandahar. The Nushki-Seistan
trade road, of which no description is necessary. The road which
merchants use when travelling from Meshed to Seistan, and which
passes through Birjand. And the old trade route which connected
the ancient Ormuz, on the Persian Gulf, with India by way of
Seistan and Afghanistan. This old time trade route, if we are
to judge it by the remains which mark its various "dasht" stages,
must, at one time, have enjoyed a high measure of prosperity.
These remains consist of caravanserais, fortified posts, storehouses,
wells, cisterns, and watch towers, on the summit of which there
are still to be found traces of the beacons which were kept
burning, at night. There is no reason to doubt that this old trade
route formed the main trade artery along which European merchandise
passed to India, prior to the Portugese discovery of the all sea
route, and that it competed, on favourable terms, with the sea
borne trade between the West of India and Gulf ports, handicapped
as the latter was by the monsoon conditions which prevailed for
so many months, during the year, and by the long distances to
which goods had to be forwarded up country after being discharged
from ship. This route skirted round the Eastern extremity of the
Impassable "Great Kirman Desert" and kept between it and the
rocky barrier wall which extends North, from Jalk, through Sarhad,