'Persia and the Persian Question by the Hon. George Nathaniel Curzon, M.P.' [‎359] (412/714)

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THE NORTHERN PROVINCES 359
Reza, who appears to have graciously distributed his relations in
the places which he could not patronise himself. This is situated
outside the walls on the north, a little to the west of the Ak Kaleh
gate. Six madressehs, or colleges, communicate a stinted and
obsolete education to such pupils as take advantage thereof; but
the vakf or religious endowments, in which the place is rich' sus
tain a dissolute crowd of mullahs and seyids, who appear to be a
curse to any spot which they afflict with their sanctity.
Soap boiling and the manufacture of gunpowder are the chief
local industries. The former is conducted in a very rude and
Local clumsy fashion, the potash employed being extracted
industries f rom a plant ^ grows on ^ banks of ^ ^
is the article, when manufactured, of a character or quality that
has ever warranted exportation. Gunpowder is made of sulphur
brought from Baku, nitre from Meshed, and willow charcoal locally
procured. A certain amount of felt carpets are also made, com
pounded of a mixture of camel's hair, goat's hair, and sheep's wool,
beaten together into a solid mass.
The abatement of Turkoman ravages has resulted in the
bringing under cultivation of a much larger area than heretofore
Peasant i n the province of Astrabad. The soil is so extraordinarily
productive that emigrants from a great distance, even
from Afghanistan, come and settle here. The climate is gentle ;
fuel is abundant; there is no jack of water ; and the land has
merely to be scratched in order to produce a manifold return.
Wheat, barley, and rice are the chief crops; and the rent of land
under grain cultivation is only about 8s. an acre. Partition of
property in equal moieties between the male and female members
of the family is here the law of landed inheritance ; and accord-
in S l y, several properties, not large at the commencement, have
shrunk into narrow plots, some fields of six acres having not less
than nine partner landlords. < This state of things,' as Colonel
Lev ett said in his Consular Report, ' tends not only to impoverish
the country, but is a fruitful source of the indolence and apathy
that characterise the inhabitants of this province, and also accounts
foi the rarity of handicraftsmen.' Many of the villages encountered
m the forest or in the open clearings are curious places, surrounded
by impenetrable bramble hedges; and the homesteads of the
peasants, 'constructed of split poles, wattle, and mud dabbing,'
thatched or tiled, and elevated above the ground, suggest
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