'IRAQ AND THE PERSIAN GULF' [‎83r] (170/862)

DESCRIPTION OF THE LAND
105
are the
>gMhe
s ' It is
breab
)in the
apidly
eet, it
lined
'eon
'ated
east,
Bawi
force
d.
ml-
and
ered
the
ition
same
e are
near
sy in
iefin
ihati
)$■
lereit
I by a
)hakh-
itream,
jiece of
blocked by the junction of the Khati Dagh and Shakh-i-Harir. It is
slightly elevated, open and undulating, fertile, well watered, and
intensively cultivated. Its principal streams are the Av-i-Harash
draining the eastern Babachichek hills, the Soraq, and the Barazan,
which rises from a col on the Shakh-i-Harir and drains its western
slopes.
The Shakh-i-Harir (Harir Dagh) and Bejan Dagh are two broad
folds enclosing the Alana Su which then cuts through the Bejan Dagh
at the Khalifan gorge to join the Rubar-i-Ruwandiz. North-west
wards, beyond the gorge, the two folds are pressed together to form
the Kala Chin Dagh, the fold of the Shakh-i-Harir being deeply dis
sected by a tributary of the Barazan; these two circumstances combine
to form the natural route up to the Spilik pass (3,600 ft.) which leads
to the Alana Su, the Khalifan gorge, and Ruwandiz.
The Shakh-i-Harir becomes a separate range south-east of the
Spilik pass and continues south-south-east for 16 miles, rocky but
well wooded, with precipitous south-western flanks where it falls
nearly 3,000 feet to the Harir plain and the Barazan stream; the north
eastern slopes are less steep, falling 1,000 feet in a mile, but the ridge
is difficult to cross even on foot, being over 5,000 feet above sea-level.
Near the watershed of the Little Zab it loses height, and there are
easy cols of about 4,000 feet, one at the head of the narrow wooded
valley of the Alana Su, the other between the Barazan and Balisan
valleys to the Rania plain (p. 101).
North of the Spilik pass the Bejan Dagh is continued by the Kala
Chin and by the Berat Dagh beyond the Bekhme gorge. It is cut
through at the Khalifan gorge by the Alana Su. Immediately to the
south-east it rises precipitously to Shakh-i-Kurrek (7,457 ft.) and
other jagged peaks 5 it extends south-east for 16 miles as far as the
massifs of Arasin (8,298 ft.) and Betirkhen (8,249 Htter on
the Little Zab watershed. On the south-west it is separated from the
main Alana valley by the precipitous ridge of Airon (6,000—7,000 ft.),
which is severed from the Bejan Dagh by the deep Bila Zhori trench,
the Airon ridge itself forms the Little Zab watershed and, after
joining the Bejan Dagh, continues south-eastwards as the Makok
Dagh (p. 101).
The Bejan Dagh is crossed by a rough pass south of Ruwandiz
(fig. 27). On the north the gorge of Gali Ali Beg, 1,500 to 3,000 feet
deen has been carved out of its limestone slopes by the Rubar-i-