'Travels in Beloochistan and Sinde; accompanied by a geographical and historical account of those countries, with a map.' [‎229] (271/476)

ACCOUNT OF KIRMAN.
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the Persian government leaves no chance of their being repaired.
The total population of Bunder Abass is about twenty thousand
souls, and composed of Arabs, Hindoos, Persians, Indians, and other
foreigners.
The desert region of the province of Kirman extends in length
two hundred and seventy miles, from the northern boundary of Nur-
mansheer, in latitude 29° 30' north, to the mountains of Khorasan, in
latitude 34° north ; and, in breadth, two hundred miles from the city
of Yezd, in longitude 55° 40' east, to a range of mountains separating
it from Seistan, in 60° east. The soil of this tract is impregnated to
such a degree with salt, and so decidedly barren, that it does not
even produce grass, or any other vegetation, for eighty or ninety
miles at a stretch j and water is entirely out of the question. The
Uffghan army, on its march to invade Persia in 1719, suffered the
most dreadful hardships in this waste, and after one third of the
whole had perished, the remainder reached Nurmansheer with the
loss of all their equipage and baggage. There is a path through it
from Kirman to Heerat in Khorasan, by which couriers can go in
eighteen days ; but the risk of perishing is so great, that a per
son of that description' demanded two hundred rupees Indian silver coin also widely used in the Persian Gulf. to take a
letter from me to Captain Christie, who had directed me to write
to him.
The town of Khubees lies nearly in the centre of it, in latitude 32° 20'
north, on a spot which is verdant the whole year round, and has
many pleasant gardens. It seems to have been founded as a place
of refuge, or intended, in former times, to promote the trade be
tween Persia and Seistan, as it is equi-distant from those countries.
It formerly flourished, and was the residence of a Beglerbeg on the
part of the chief of Seistan, but now is a miserable decayed place,
and the inhabitants are notorious robbers and outcasts who subsist by
infesting the highways of Khorasan and Persia, and plundering
Karawans. When they are pursued, they retire by paths only
known to themselves, through the desert to their homes.
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