'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎179] (214/714)

S' ' J U Oft!
POLITICS AXD COMMERCE OF KHORASAN
fertilised by the same agency An office of the East India Company and, later, of the British Raj, headed by an agent. that originally brought it. A nettv
torrent named the Kusf gives life to a limited aiea of onltivafen
Rivers and neai Birjand m the south ; and there are a few seantv
c I iva ion confluents of the upper course of the Heri Rud With
these exceptions the rivers of Khorasan are confined to the northern
portion of the province, which has in consequence acquired its
reputation as one of the granaries of Persia. Here the Keshef
ud, of which I have spoken, drains the Meshed valley into the
Hen E„d Conversely, the Atrek and Gurgan on the western side
of the watershed dram towards the Caspian Sea. About midway
between the two the Kara Su and Kal Mura, already mentionec{
lose themselves in the Kavir. This is the sum total of the rivers
o a province that is more than half as large again as the whole of
itary, and not far short of the entire area of Spain.
The population of Khorasan is as varied as are its physical
characteristics. Successive waves of conquest have brought hither
Population s P eclm «« Of most of the great ethnic divisions of Asia
and, retiring, have left them rooted, in greater or less
degree, to the soil. Here, in addition to the original Iranian stock
and to other members of the Aryan family, are descendants of the
Mongols who came in the wake of Timur and Jenghiz Khan
Arabs who were borne on the flood tide of Mohammedan conquest'
Tartars Turkomans, and Turks-three really interchangeable
names for different branches of the same great family that in
succession to the Mongols, startled the West first with the Seljuk
and afterwards with the Ottoman invasion. The : Encyclopajdia
ritanmca,'in its latest edition, gives the relative proportions of
these races in Khorasan as follows :—
( Tajiks
I. Iranians
II. Mongols
III. Tartars
IV. Arabs .
Kurds .
( Beluchis
( Timuris .
( Hazaras
f Afshars .
I Kajars .
Total
400,000
250,000
10,000
250,000
50,000
100,000
100,000
1,160,000
But from what I can gather this estimate exceeds at least twofold
the verifiable total of the population, which may be set down
as between 500,000 and 600,000; the terrible famine of 1872
mm
N 2