1840.] Sketch of the Physical Geography of Seistan. 7U 



This is particularly the case round the hill of Roostum, the only mode of 

 reaching which in the summer is by a ditch two or 

 ^^''ifke"^ ^^^ ""^^ three feet wide, and having an average depth of 

 three feet of water, very salt, rank with putrifying 

 matter, and nearly as black as ink. Men, horses, and cows Avade 

 through the slime, people of the better classes are conveyed to and fro 

 in a species of canoe called Tootee, and peculiar, I believe, to Seistan. Four 

 or five bundles of reeds are fastened together by rushes, or by the flexible 

 tops of reeds, the cut edges forming a square stem, the upper ends being 

 tied in a point for a prow. The passenger seats himself in the middle, one 

 man pushes from behind, and another pulls at the front. During the 

 wet season the tootees are made of larger size, so as to admit of as many 

 as four men sitting in them, and are propelled by paddles and long poles, 

 but they are rarely taken into the deeper water, where the waves would 

 wet and sink them. These boats last only for a few days, for the wet 

 reeds soon become rotten and heavy ; they are made and navigated by 

 a particular class of men called Syads, a word which expresses their pro- 

 fession of fowlers. The ditch road I have mentioned has to be renewed 

 every year when the waters have subsided. 



The old Hamoon can be seen to the greatest advantage from the tops 



of the hill of Roostum, from which elevated posi- 



View from Roh-i- 

 Khwajeh. tion the eye travels uninterrupted over a plain bound- 



ed only by the horizon, except on the west, where, at 

 fifty miles distance, rises the chain of the Bundau hills. 



It was in September that I took my station on this hill ; immediately 

 beneath me lay a yellow plain, as level as a calm sea, formed by the tops 

 of reeds, and extending north and south long beyond the reach of vision. 

 On the east it was bounded by a strip of paler yellow, marking the borders 

 of the lake, where the less thickly growing reeds are annually burnt down, 

 and a few poor KheUs clear away the ground for the cultivation of water- 

 melons. Beyond again, in this direction, appeared the dark green of the 

 tamarisks, whole forests (11) of which fringe the lake. Here and there as we 

 looked around on every side, were seen patches of blue water, and on the 

 west a large clear lake stretched away till out of sight. All seemed waste, 

 but the towers of Chuling and Sekoha showed like white specks in the 

 distance ; and winding and shining through the tamarisks, you might trace 

 the course of several streams, which once formed the delta of the Helmund, 

 and in which water is still retained at intervals for the purposes of agri- 



11 Lest I be accused of a contradiction, as it has been said that there are no trees in Seistan, 

 I may mention, that the taiharisks rarely, if ever, attain any great size in that country. 



4 Y 



