'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎70v] (145/862)

92 GEOLOGY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE LAND
later they depart and the Qaraj again becomes empty and brown,
except for narrow strips along the river banks where some cultivation
is carried on.
Communications are easy except for the lack of water. There is
only one permanent spring along the first 20 miles on the route from
Qala Sharqat to Makhmur. In the last operation of the war of 1914-
1918 the cavalry which made a wide turning movement across this
region in November carried water for their horses and men in Ford
vans. There are occasional ferries over the Tigris but no bridges.
Thtjabal Qara Chauq stretches for 40 miles between the two Zabs,
a rough, gaunt black range, worn by rain; it is treeless but has some
sparse oak-scrub, and it is grass-covered in spring. It rises to 2,636
feet and 2,915 feet on either side of a low gap (1,200 ft.) which forms
the rough pass of Husain al Ghazi, on the road between Qala Sharqat
and Erbil. Elsewhere tracks across it are chiefly limited to the lower
ends of the range towards the Great and Little Zabs.
Immediately north-east of the Qara Chauq is a shallow trough
known as the Kandinawa, averaging 12 miles in width, and drained
north-westwards and south-eastwards by tributaries of the two Zabs.
The soil is very fertile, but in the south-eastern half the ground is
much intersected by rain-fed stream-beds (kandas). Here rainfall
is sometimes insufficient for good crops, and water is derived from
springs and wells, many of them brackish. But the northern half is
one of the most consistently fertile regions of the Erbil division; it
is slightly undulating, much less cut up by kandas, and has many
wells of sweet water. Two perennial streams are also used for irriga
tion, and there is a larger settled population than in the south. Crops
ripen a fortnight later than at the southern end of the Kandinawa,
and at the beginning of May the landscape is still green. The princi
pal village is Dibega on the Qala Sharqat-Erbil road. Quwair, on the
Great Zab, has always been an important crossing-place between
Mosul and Erbil.
The Avana Dagh rises from the Erbil plain about 9 miles east of
Quwair and stretches south-eastwards for 30 miles to the Little Zab,
which it reaches immediately below Altun Kopru. It is treeless but
grass-covered, and is an extension of the Kani Domlan hills; together
they form the Kirkuk oilfields. The surface strata are thrust-faulted
so that the south-western slope shows a succession of rock faces.
The plain of Koi Sanjaq includes the broken watercourse of the
Shalgha and the basin and tributaries of the Rubar-i-Koi, which have
already been mentioned as affluents of the Little Zab. It is much