. Scottish geographical magazine. ere the famous cities of Shahrist;in and Z;ihidan. Towards the close of the fourteenth century Sistiin was invaded byTimur or Tamerlane, who destroyed the dam, and thus reduced plain to a waterless desert. This action affected the Helmand,whicli, while still keeping to the Rud-i-Nasru, created a second branchencircling Sehkuha, which had not hitherto been inhabited. There was apparently no other change until early in the nineteenthcentury, when the whole volume of water united to carve out a channelfurther east, to the west of the village and mound
. Scottish geographical magazine. ere the famous cities of Shahrist;in and Z;ihidan. Towards the close of the fourteenth century Sistiin was invaded byTimur or Tamerlane, who destroyed the dam, and thus reduced plain to a waterless desert. This action affected the Helmand,whicli, while still keeping to the Rud-i-Nasru, created a second branchencircling Sehkuha, which had not hitherto been inhabited. There was apparently no other change until early in the nineteenthcentury, when the whole volume of water united to carve out a channelfurther east, to the west of the village and mound of Nad-i-Ali. Ascultivated Sistiin was thereby left high and dry, the Rud-i-Sistan wascut a little to the north of Sehkuha—a task of great magnitude. Suchwas the state of affairs when some thirty years ago Sir Frederic Goldsmidmade his award, by which the river formed the boundary between Persiaand Afghanistan, but, in 1896, the Helmand began to forsake theNad-i-Ali channel and struck out a new course between it and the Kud-i-. GEOGRAPHY OF SOUTHERN PERSIA AS AFFECTING ITS HISTORY. 623 Nasru. This is now known as the Rud-i-Perian, and was a fine riverwhen I crossed it on a reed raft in 1899. It is, however, anticipated bythe greybeards of Sistan that the wayward Helmand will finally returnto the ancient Rud-i-Xasru. To conclude this brief survey, I would now refer to the Lut (see Fig.),perhaps the most salient characteristic of Persian physical geography. Itis considered that in early times it was an inland sea, which theory issupported by the presence of the active volcano of Sarhad, the extinctvolcano of Bazman, and many legends. But this is rather a geologicalquestion which I am not competent to discuss. Geographers have, withoutsufficient reason, I would urge, divided the great desert of Persia intotwo separate regions, that to the north being termed the Dasht-i-Kavir,the southern part being known as the Dasht-i-Lut. The word Kavir is undoubtedly the Arabic word Kafr, wh
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