"أيام ثيم ولَّت" [و‎‎٤‎٨] (٢٤٨/٩٥)

CHAPTER 8
The Land of the Scythians and of the Wind
Strange as i t
Teheran, had
Baluchistan,
dividing line
India was
Kavir and
1939-1945
may seem, although having
no represent at i on in East Persia
When British armies occupied Iran
between those based on Iraq and
an Ambassador at
- Khorasan and
in 1914-1918 the
those based in
roughly North-South through the deserts of the Dasht-i-
the Dasht-i-Lut. The same
war .
arrangement prevailed in the
British interests in East Persia were the responsibility of the
Government of India (sensibly enough because the great majority
dIsc B h r ar t c,'e Sh th S i t l bJeCtS we .': e . , J nd 1 an merchants and traders) and, to
d -! ^ [ 9 th responsibility, the F & p kept a Consul-General
aided by a Vice-Consul, in Meshed, a Consul in Za'hidTn (which was
the terminus of the railway from India and the principal point of
this^ias'^o'be me! ^ Char9e ° f SeiSt * n 4nd the Q ‘ a1nit ’ and
Zahidan was
the Sh ah s -
dotted with adobe
from each other
course, that one
wife, and office,
the Middle East.
a far from impressive point of entry to the empire of
an utterly barren, windswept, treeless, gravel plain
one-storied buildings spaced at some distance
serving no discernible purposes; except, of
housed the long-suffering British consul, his
and another the manager of the British Bank of
the ^ place had on1 y been thought up with the advent of
Riza Shah and means, if it means anything, "hermits" or
recluses"or perhaps, I like to think, "sufferers". Indeed the
apDro'DHate'^S, p Th -' e r S H waterH )’ ^ch more picturesque
appropriate. Water indeed was a scarce commodity in the area
I have seen teal fly down into well-shafts to find it.
and
and
couldn a t n h S o t0 hn P 1 e h d at . Zahidan - perhaps,one felt, because it simply
couldn t be bothered to go any further, but
track ended there was no doubt relevant.
the fact that the
The
and
The
to
country was almost unrelieved semi-desert with a little scrub
— where date-palms and parched crops qrew
people were Baluchis, Sunni muslims speaking a language akin
more independent than
and warlike
and
f ar-spaced oases
Baluchis, Sunni
P e rsian and Pashtu, but tougher
p!fhl an vn ’ a 9 ers while less aggressive and warlike than the
Pathan^. There was no ethnic frontier and the Baluchis - no
respecters of frontiers anyway - would wander regardless from
Indian territory into Persia and across into Afghanistan. Some
South Russia around Merv, where they originally
cotton harvest. The country and the
of interest and many of the British
n • ^ ^ • • -..w.v. found it absorbing. By contrast thp
Pan r iah?s f C ’1 ,S h COnSidered U a P ena1 and the educed
Panjabis from Lahore had an equally low opinion
even lived in
went to find work at the
wild life too were full
officers who served there
of it
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Oddly