"ملاحظات ميدانية: بلاد الرافدين. هيئة الأركان العامة في الهند. فبراير ١٩١٧". [ظ‎‎٦‎٢] (٣٥٠/١٣١)

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•there are ordinarily no serious obstacles to navigation; but
sandbanks and heaps of stone occur, and the depth of water is
sometimes insufficient. The banks here vary in height from 10
to 30 feet and have gravelly plains, behind them towards Ahwaz
they are of marl : the brushwood which once clothed them
has mostly disappeared.
The rapids of Ahwaz, though passable by towing, are a veiy
serious obstacle even to native boats, especially with a very
high or a very low river,* and bulk is commonly broken at this
point, goods for up-country being conveyed by a light railway,
of which the trucks are at present drawn by horses, from Nasiri
on the lower river to a place a quarter of a mile above Ahwaz
village upon the upper. The length of the rapids is about
2,000 yards, they are reckoned to be five in number and the
real obstacle to navigation is the second rapid from the top.
At this place a reef runs out from the left bank leaving between
its point and the right bank a channel, only 100 yards wide;
through which the water rushes with a fall of 1 in 50 : this
channel is moreover broken up by rocky islets into two or three
passages, of which the one adjoining the right bank is the easiest
of ascent, but has a width of only 50 yards. Both reef and
islets carry masonry remains, those of a great irrigation barrage
which here raised the surface of the river, to the level of the
surrounding country.! Above the rapids the river is 400
yards broad, between them in places as much as 700, and below
them only 200 to 300; from head to tail the total loss of
level is 1 foot with a .high river and 7 or 8 feet with a low
one.
From Ahwaz to Muhammareh, a distance of over 100 miles
by river, the Karun averages a quarter of a mile in width and
flows through an open uncultivated country. The banks are
generally low upon this part its course, and in winter they
are occupied by Arab encampments around which some slight
and shifting cultivation takes place; but in summer, with the
exception of the permanent villages mentioned below,'they are
totally deserted. The worst reach for steamers is the 20 miles
immediately below Nasiri; vessels of only 3|- feet draft some
times have difficulty in navigating it during the low season
and are even obliged to unload part of their cargo.
* The steamer “ Assyria ” ascended the rapids successfully in 18i2 and the
•steamer “ Shushan ” in 1890.
t This barrage was called the Shadhurwan, and it existed in the 10th century
A. D. (vide Le Strange).