RESIDENCE OF THE MISSION AT BUSHIRE. 49 
quently extensive plains, confined by a second range, which likewise 
run parallel to the coast. This is the case behind Congoon : and in the 
route to Shiraz we found several successive plains, (of great absolute 
elevation indeed, but) thus separated from each other by alternate ranges 
of higher land. The plain of Merdasht , beyond Shiraz , is the Hollow 
Persis of ancient geography. These great inequalities of surface natur- 
ally produce a corresponding variety of climates. 
The administration of the provinces of Persia is now committed to 
the Princes. The jurisdiction of Prince Hossein Ali Mirza, 
one of the King's Sons, is very extensive: it comprises, under the 
general name of Farsistan , not only the original province of which Shiraz 
was the capital (as subsequently it became that of all Persia, and as it 
still is of the governments combined under the Prince) but Laristan also, 
to the south ; and Bebehan to the north-west; which severally, as well 
as Farsistan , possessed before their particular Beglerbegs. 
Of Farsistan, under this its present more extensive signification, the 
hot and desert country is called the Gerrnesir, a generic term for a warm 
region, which will be recognised under the ancient appellations of 
Germania, Kermania, or Carmania. The termination of the Persian 
dominion in this direction, is an undefined tract between the Gerrnesir 
and the Mekran. It was the ancient boast of Persia, that its boundaries 
were not a petty stream or an imaginary line, but ranges of impervious 
mountains or deserts as impervious. In this quarter there is little pro¬ 
bability that the country will ever become less valuable as a frontier, 
by becoming more cultivated and better inhabited. The land is put to 
so little use, that no power would greatly care to press the extension of 
an authority so unprofitable. Every age has marked the unalterable 
barbarism of the soil and of the people. The Balouchistan, or the 
country of the Balouchcs, the most desert region of the coast begins 
about Minou, on the west of Cape Jasques . Their country is perhaps 
nearly the Mekran of geography. They once owned subjection to 
Persia, but they have now resumed the independance of Arabs, and live 
in wandering communities under the government of their own Sheiks, 
h 
