1840.] Sketch of the Physical Geography of Seistan. 719 



unfavourable to the prosecution of it^ A description of the Hamoon 



however would be incomplete, without some notice of the more common 



animals to ^hich the lake gives birth or affords nourishment. 



The marshy and reedy parts of the lake shelter innumerable wild hogs. 



In a small history of Seistan written by a native, it 

 Natural History. 



is stated, that when a man cultivates a piece of ground, 



he calculates on losing half the produce by their ravages. The villagers, 



as may be supposed, spare no means to destroy these 

 Wild Hogs. 



destructors ; they lay snares for them, shoot them, and 



hunt them down with dogs. The dogs are large, strong, bold animals, 

 resembling the Bhil dogs of India, and are regularly trained to hunt. 

 Accompanied by a dozen or more of these you sally out, and as soon as you 

 approach the reedy grounds which the hogs frequent, you perceive on all 

 sides the earth ploughed up with their tusks. The Seistanis, who are eager 

 sportsmen, strip, and wade nearly naked through the mud. Soon a bark 

 is heard, the note is immediately taken up, and aU the dogs join in the 

 cry like a pack of English hounds. After a due quantity of holloing 

 and splashing the game is brought down, or if of large size, is held at bay 

 tiU the huntsmen come up and despatch it with their matchlocks. The Seis- 

 tanis though Sheeahs, and like all Sheeahs ftdl of prejudices, do not object 

 to handle the hog : the nearest huntsman cuts up the carcase and gives 

 slices of it to the dogs, and the rest is brought home as food for them. 



When the waters are rising in the spring, herds of thirty or forty are 

 to be seen swimming one behind the other from island to island. Large 

 numbers are thus sometimes collected into a small spot, and the hunting 

 then becomes most dangerous ; hardly a year passes without lives being 

 lost in the sport. 



The hogs are however a trifling nuisance compared with the hosts of 



insects bred in the stagnant waters. The mosquitoes 

 Insects. , , 1 . , • 1 



are so troublesome, that in the spring, the poorest 



villager is obliged to make a small room of a coarse open cloth called 



" kirbas, " into which he retires with his family as soon as the sun sets. " Clap 



your hands together," said a man whom I asked to give me some idea of 



their number, for when we passed through Seistan there were none, " and the 



palms will be covered with blood." Fleas are said to be no less numerous, 



and from them there is no escape ; but the worst plague of all are the flies. 



I had been sometime in Seistan before I understood why the inhabitants 



complained so much of these insects ; a few would now and then settle on 



the inside of our horses thighs, (every other part of the body being 



always protected by cloth) and where they bite a small stain of blood is 



