‘GAZETTEER OF PERSIA VOL. I Comprising the Provinces of ASTARÁBÁD, SHÁHRUD-BÚSTAN, KHÚRÁSÁN, AND SÍSTÁN’ [‎226v] (459/722)

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one, and sometimes only by an ass. The number of animals used, however
depends on the consistency of the soil, as in some parts as many as four oxen
are used to drag the plough. Besides the plough, the Persians have a large
rake which serves as a harrow, and is fastened to a pole and drawn, like a
plough, by yoked oxen. They have another implement of agriculture, which
is certainly capable of much improvement. It is a pole fixed transversely on
another to which the oxen are yoked. On each of these is a small wooden
cylinder, about half a foot long; and these insignificant things are dragged,
as roller, over the ground.
«Among the products are gum tragacanth, asafoetida, yellow berries
henna (coarser than that of Egypt), madder roots, which grow wild upon
the mountains, and are brought down for sale by the iliat, or wanderino-
tribes. Indigo is cultivated for the dyeing of linen and of beards, and grows
about Shustar, Dizful, and in Laristan. It is not so fine as the indigo from
India, which, indeed, is a great article of the import trade of Persia. They
use the leaf only for their beards. There is no cochineal. Cotton is produced
enough for the "interior consumption of the country. The best manufacture
which they make is a cotton cloth, called the ‘ kaduk/ Of this, there is an
exportation to Turkey. The finest is manufactured at Isfahan.
“ Irrigation. —All cultivation in Persia depends so entirely on irrigation
that it will not be out of place to give an account of the famous kanats,
or aqueducts, of that country, which are for the purpose of supplying this
want. The extreme dryness of the climate, and the great deficiency of rivers,
have obliged the natives to turn all their ingenuity to the discovery of
springs, and to the bringing of their streams to the surface of the earth.
To effect this, when a spring has been discovered, they dig a well until
they meet with the water; and if they find that its quantity is sufficient
to repay them for proceeding with the work, they dig a second well so
distant from the other as to allow a subterranean communication between
both. They then ascertain the nearest line of communication with the
level of the plain upon which the water is to be brought into use, and dig
a succession of wells, with subterranean communications between the whole
suite of them, until the water at length comes to the surface, when it is
conducted by banked-up channels into the fields or wherever may be its
destination. The extent of country through which such streams are some
times conducted is quite extraordinary. Mouths of wells are to be frequently
met with in lonely valleys, and may be traced in different windings into the
plain. It is because the water flows through these, invisible of course to
the eye, that the historian said no water is ever seen above the surface of
the ground ; and the immunities which he mentions the Persians bestowed
upon those who brought water to places in which there was none before,
evidently show that they were held in the same degree of consequence as at
the present day. Such is the local consequence of a new kanat, that the
day when the water is brought to its ultimate destination is made a day of
rejoicing among the peasants. The astrologers are consulted to name a
fortunate hour for the appearance of the stream, and, when it comes forth,
it is received by songs and music, attended by shouts of joy and exclama
tions of ‘ mubarak bashad/ ' prosperity attend it/
c< The labour and expense of a kanat, of course, depends greatly upon the
distance whence the water is to be brought. The mode of making the
wells is very simple. A shaft is first dug, then a wooden trundle is placed
over it, from which is suspended a leather bucket, which is filled with the