‘GAZETTEER OF PERSIA VOL. I Comprising the Provinces of ASTARÁBÁD, SHÁHRUD-BÚSTAN, KHÚRÁSÁN, AND SÍSTÁN’ [‎74r] (152/722)

off into hopeless slavery. The price for which a man can he ransomed is
from 25 to 5U tumans—a sum far beyond the reach of the ordinary
villager.
The Atak villages pay no revenue, but they are valuable as an outer
line of defence, and serve also to keep the enemy at a greater distance.
Beyond these to the west are some Turkman camps, which pay a small
tribute to the Khan of Daraghaz for immunity from attacks, and are useful
in furnishing information of projected allamans, and in negotiating for
the ransom of prisoners.
For the first few miles from the foot of the hills the soil of the Atak is
poor and sandy. It is in many parts also saline and covered with saline
efflorescence. Further out it becomes more fertile. The fertile belt extends
from or 5 to 16 and 20 miles, and is then lost in a sandy waste that
extends to the Caspian and Aral.
The Atak of Daraghaz has always belonged to Persia, and has always been
ruled by the Persian Governor of Daraghaz without interruption, and cer
tainly has been very strongly held since Lutf Ali Khan built Lutfabad
about the commencement of the present century. Previous to 1832 the
Atak of Daraghaz was, as were most of the outlying provinces of Khurasan,
more or less independent of Kajar rule ; but in that year Abbass Mirza forced
it to submit, and since then it has, though very subject to Turkman raids,
formed a portion of Persia, as fully under Persian dominion as any part
of Persia. In 1882, however, the Russian Governor of Askabad pro
claimed that all the Sum villages in the Atak belonged to Russia, and that
they were notin future to pay any revenue to the Persian Government; and,
as a matter of fact, this has been actually carried out, the Shiah villages
alone paying revenue to Persia. It is believed that this was done under
orders from Tehran. Under these circumstances, the Shiahs, finding the
Sdnfs pay no revenue, are very anxious also to become Russian
subjects.
'Mountains .—The principal peaks of the enclosing mountains are the
Zarin Kuh, north-north-west of the chief village (about 6,000 feet); the
Kuh Kuchan, standing isolated at the west end of the valley, about 4,000
feet; Kuh Asalman, west of the valley, standing far up on the north side
of the river; Kuh Ala Dagh, also to the west, on the south side of the river;
and the Kfih Duz a little to the south of west. These last three are not
less than 8,000 feet in height. The lower hills and hill skirts are of
soft marls, and shales weathered into easy slopes; the higher masses of
limestones and slates. There are no forest trees, and even the chaiacteristic
juniper is rarely seen; but the pasturage herbage are more luxuriant
on the southern face of the chain ; and the ravines are well filled with thickets
of barberry, dwarf maple, and other deciduous shrubs. <
Daraghaz This river, also called the Durangar river, is the largest
of the streams flowing north from the Atak range. It rises in the junction
of the Alburz and Damanu-Kuh between Daraghaz and Kuchan, and drains
the plateau north-west of Kuchan, flows west through the glen of Shorak
Darbudam, and through a narrow defile enclosed by cliffs of great neight mto
the glen of Durangar, past the first Daraghaz villages, and thence winding
between rugged hills enters the basin of Daraghaz, and traversing it in an
easterly direction for 13 or 14 miles, bends north to the Atak. Its whole
course is about 80 miles, and where unreduced by irrigation, it has a depth
of 21 feet and a width of 20 feet about 16 miles from the Darband or