'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎76r] (156/862)

DESCRIPTION OF THE LAND
97
the mountains. The Christian monastery of Rabban Hormizd clings
to these cliffs in the style of a Tibetan lamasery. In the east the
3,ooo-foot ridge of Chiyapang forms the last link of these foothills
east of the Gomel Su.
The rocky wooded hills of the Chiyakira Dagh and Aqra Dagh
which form the boundary to the Assyrian plain to the east are dealt
with later (p. 106). Their rough southern spurs sink down to grass-
covered gravelly hills cut by torrent beds. In one such ravine is the
town of Aqra (p. 526).
Iraqi Kurdistan
(a) The Mountain Basins of the Diyala and of the Adhaim (fig. 25)
The boundaries of this region are the watershed of the Tauq Chai
and Diyala on the north, the Persian boundary on the east and south
east, and the Bazian ranges, made up of the Qara Dagh, Sagirama
Dagh, and Kani Shaitan Hasan Dagh, on the south-west (p. 81).
The Diyala, or Ab-i-Sirwan as it is known on both sides of the
Persian frontier, drains a large mountain area of western Persia before
breaking between the Avroman Dagh and Kuh-i-Shand to meet the
international boundary near the village of Pir-i-Kuvan, 35 0 06' N.,
46° 12' E. Its course is a succession of narrow and inaccessible defiles,
flanked by precipices gashed by ravines, but where the mountains
recede their slopes are wooded. The Avroman Dagh receives a heavy
snowfall in winter, so that the Sirwan in this section is most inaccessible
in spring; for nearly 20 miles the river forms the boundary between
Iraq and Persia.
About the middle of this section the river turns north-west along
the strike of the folded rocks, but is separated from the broad trough
containing the plains of Halabja and the Tanjero by the long Balambo
spur of Avroman Dagh. It picks up two Persian tributaries, the Lera
and Zinkan, before meeting the Av-i-Tanjero, and with this affluent
it breaks south-west through the Baranand Dagh at the defile known
as Darband-i-Khan. Five miles farther on it passes the south-eastern
end of the Qara Dagh, and thereafter the valley broadens, the gradient
of the river lessens, and the bed widens, the waters flowing between
banks of shingle (p. 83).
Two large right-bank tributaries join the Ab-i-Sirwan: the Av-i-
Tanjero, draining the fertile Sulaimaniya trough between the Azmar
Dagh and Baranand Dagh, and the Cham-i-Dawana, from between
the Baranand Dagh and Qara Dagh. The first of these is already a
A 5195
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