1840.J Sketch of the Physical Geography of Seistan, 715 



see, of the change which was gradually preparing by the annual deposition 

 of alluvial matter. The great embankments, whose ruins still record the 

 names and wisdom of kings of yore had been neglected or destroyed, and 

 the canals which enriched more than one desert district, were dry, and the 

 fields they had watered a waste. Zirreh, so celebrated in history, which 

 defied the arms of Chengiz and Timour, did not boast one inhabitant. Of 

 Tragu, Killah Put, and Pshaweroon, and of other great cities, through the 

 ruins of which the traveller wanders for days, all that remained were the 

 walls and the name. 

 About nine years ago an unusually large inundation changed the whole face 

 of the country. The main stream of the Helmund de- 



ect'of'fhe'counU?' ^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^' ^^^ cutting for itself a wide channel 

 out of that of the small branch which went off from 

 Khwajeh Ahmed, carried the greater part of its waters to the Duk-i-Teer. 

 This lake was insufficient to contain so large an accession to its mass; 

 the superfluous waters forced themselves a passage through a narrow 

 and low neck of land to the westward, and discharged in this manner into 

 the old lake, thus connected, and made the two one. 



The inhabitants of Seistan were at length roused from their indifference 

 by a disaster which threatened their very existence, as it deprived them 

 of the means of irrigating their fields. United by the common danger, a 

 large body of men of the different tribes assembled together, and in the 

 course of the ensuing summer raised an immense mound across the river, 

 near the place where the waters had diverged; but through their igno- 

 rance of physics, their labour was thrown away. The next flood turned 

 the embankment, and the river, as in the preceding year, passed away from 

 Seistan. Since that time the Seistanis despairing of success, have made 

 no further effort to reclaim their river. The greater part of the water of 

 the Helmund is discharged into the Duk-i-Teer by several mouths, and 

 the now scanty stream of the old bed, confined by numerous bunds, hardly 

 suffices to water the lands it formerly overflowed, and is a never ending 

 source of contention, between the various tribes which inhabit its banks. 

 Geographers have been at a loss to account for the many different names 



which have been given to the lake of Seistan. The 

 Name of the lake , ,. ^,, , . . , 



of Seistan. solution of the puzzle is very simple. 



The Persian word Hamoon ^^^» 1:5, signifies a plain 



level ground. (9) The Seistanis apply the term to any expanse of water, 



9. It is frequentlj^ found in this sense in Persian authors, as in the Bostan : — 

 Ze deria ama bur amud Ruse, 

 Sufur KurdAh deria wo Hamoon buse. 

 I know of no instance of any author having used the term to express an expanse of water. The 

 similar sounding name of the Oxus, Amoo, is probably descriptive of its periodical swell. 



