326 Journal kept while travelling in Seistan. QNo. 112. 



twenty houses with domed roofs built of mud, with the exception of 



perhaps three rather larger places, such as the one I lived in. 



In the centre is a pond of stagnant water, which the inhabitants have 



not energy enough to drain off, though it is the 

 Unhealthiness of 

 Furrah. cause of much unhealthiness, and numbers of people 



fall victims to fever and ague when the plain is 

 inhabited. The rest of the fort is occupied by the mounds raised for 

 salt-pits ; some in use, others deserted. Round two or three sides of the 

 fort were the ruins of the town, now containing no inhabitants, nearly 

 all of them having fled to Laush. There were no Hindoos, no shops. You 

 could not have purchased a rupee's worth of grain. 



24th. — The sirdar proposed a pic nic to a celebrated Hindoo place 

 of pilgrimage, called the Bebehi (a corruption per- 

 haps of Bebe) Baran, of the raining lady, in the hills 

 N. of the town, or and about twelve miles off. A spring from the heights 

 above is discharged upon a large table rock, projecting from the side 

 of the hill, through which tLe water filtrates, dropping like rain for a 

 space of about fifty feet. The effect is very beautiful. On a small level 

 space just above the dripping rock, a Hindoo/a/feer had stationed himself, 

 and supported by numerous pilgrims, who flocked to him, had lived 

 there fourteen years. His visiters built him a very comfortable house 

 of two rooms, and outside was a clear place for bathing, a space set 

 apart for his cooking, and even a little garden. The Bebehi Baran is 

 situated at the end of a gorge, which on the Persians raising the siege of 

 Herat, the Furrahees fortified against the Candaharees, who had posses- 

 sion of their fort. The soldiers annoyed the hermit, or perhaps the 

 earthen vessels for grain which are remarked round his chamber were 

 not filled so regularly in those troubled times — he left his retreat. 

 I afterwards met him in Seistan; he was a young man still, not forty. 



„ • „ , He came to me, as a brother Hindoo, to bear the sift 



Hindoo Fakeer. & & 



of five rupees, to take him back again to his old 



house, where he says he intends to pass the remainder of his days. I 



gave him what he wanted, and I afterwards learnt that he has once 



more taken possession of his house on the Bebehi Baran. 



25th. — The two nobles who had accompanied me from Jaujer, sent 



Dismiss my two *° sav > tnat : ^ I would only feed them, they would 



guests * follow me into Seistan ; there were reasons for not 





