314 THE BASTN OF EASTERN PERSIA AND SISTAN. 
(2) A decrease in the size of the lake ensued because of decreased rainfall or 
increased warmth. 
(3) Next, the lake stood at the level of the lower beach, with an area greatly 
diminished from that of the time of the upper beach. As this is the level at which 
the lake overflows permanently to the God-i-Zirrah, the water may have stood here 
twice. The last time was probably ver>- recent, because the bluffs left by it are so 
fresh that they can scarcely have existed more than a few hundred years. 
(4) From this tiiTie of relatively high water the lake appears to have shrunk 
gradually to its present condition, as is .shown by the transition from the lower of 
the old beaches to the present shoreline. Colonel McMahon believes that the 
condition of the reed-beds proves this decrease in size to be still in progress. 
The agreement between the traditional and the physiographic history of Sistan 
is so close as to amount almost to identity. If we assume that they are identical, 
and put them together, we find that they match a third set of facts, the historical, 
which have already been mentioned, and a reasonable sequence of events presents 
itself In this we begin with what was probably the last fluvial epoch, either when 
the lakes of Sistan and Zirrah were united and stood at the 25-foot beach, or more 
probably when the lake of Sistan stood for the first time at the 15-foot level and 
overflowed to Zirrah. As the fluvial epoch began to wane, springs dried up, the 
rivers decreased in volume, and the level of the lake fell. As the water retired the 
abandoned shores were occupied by human inhabitants, who we may suppose 
began to practice irrigation at an early date. At first the largest tract of irrigable 
land lav along the relatively elevated neck through which runs the Sliila. Accord- 
ingly the largest canals were dug in this direction. Thus it happened that the God- 
i-Zirrah, which was now separated from the Hanuni-i-Sistan, received the greater 
share of water. Indeed, it is probable that practically the whole stream of the 
Helmund flowed to Zirrah, for Smith (p. 285) says that in prehistoric ages the 
Helmund is reported to have flowed from the dam of Kamal, where it now turns 
north, in a southwest direction to the lake of Zirrah, and tradition has it that Khai 
Khusru sailed down it in a vessel. Sykes (p. 365) quotes Istakhri to the effect that 
in his day, the tenth century, the river flowed in the same way. Earlier classical 
writers speak of only one lake in this part of the world. It is probable that at this 
time Sistan was entirely drj', and the towns of Sabari, watered presumably by the 
Harud or Farah River, and of Kaha-Kaha, watered from the Shila, were built in 
what is now the lake. It is not to be supposed that the absence of water in the 
lake of Sistan indicates extreme aridity, for at this time not only was the lake of 
Zirrah a hundred miles long, according to Istakhri, but Sistan was in its glorj'. 
At the height of its prosperity a region which, as Curzon (I, p. 227) puts it, 
" contains more ruined cities and habitations than are perhaps to be found within 
a similar space of ground anywhere in the world," must have consumed an immense 
amount of water in the irrigation of its fields. To furnish this and at the same 
time fill the great lake of Zirrah, the rivers must have been larger than now. The 
limits of this period of prosperity and of abundant water-supply can not be stated, 
but they seem to have included Alexander, 300 b. c, and Istakhri, 900 a. d. 
