SISTAN. 
279 
stretching eastward along the northern shore for at least another 25 miles. On the 
opposite side of the lake, sonth of the delta of the Helnuind, I followed them again for 
30 miles, and saw them extending indefinitely farther in both directions. On this 
eastern side of the lake they lie far from the present shore, and ninst have been cut 
when the lake stood higher than now. So far as I can gather from the chance 
remarks of travelers who have approached Sistan from \-arioiis directions, the whole 
of Sistan, including the lake, the swamp, and the arable plain, is surrounded by these 
wave-cut bluffs (Bellew, p. 263, 264). Sometimes the bluffs stand close to the lake 
and attain a height of hundreds of feet, while sometimes, especially on the east side, 
they are distant 20 or 30 miles from the shore and attain a height of only about 25 
feet. Everj'where the cliffs are composed of alternating pink silt and white or 
greenish clays, capped with gravel. 
Fig. 165. — A Raft o( Reeds poled by a Sayid, or " Fowler," on the Edge of the Swamp of Sistan. 
The district surrounded by these lake bluffs is the real Sistan. It has a breadth 
of about 60 miles from east to west and a length of 100 from north to south. Wlicn 
the traveler, arriving by the main road from tlie northwest, first views Sistan 
from the bluffs back of Bereng, he is impressed 1)\- the monotonous uniformity and 
flatness. In front, if the lake level be high, lies a broad sheet of water, blue 
sometimes, but oftener a dull gray to match the hazy sk}'. Here and there, 
(figs. 165 and 166) surrounded by the water, or fringing it, stretch miles upon miles 
of "naizar" or reedy swamp, green in summer, l)ut in winter sadly brown or 
blackened by fire, where the inhabitants of the swamp have burned the reeds in 
order to facilitate the growth of the young shoots on which the cattle grow fat. 
Bordering the reed-beds, and blending imperceptibly into them, come the fertile 
fields, green, flat, and treeless, except where the rivers flood the land in spring and 
allow the growth of graceful tamarisk jungles. In all the view there is nothing to 
