"دليل بلاد فارس. مجلد III. جزء I: من A إلى K" [و‎‎٣‎٢‎٤] (١٢٧٨/٦٥٢)

FAR—FAR
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in direction the main mountain system, of which it is an outlying part.
The mountains ranges have a uniform direction of north-west to south
east. They are bare and rocky, and rise higher in successive ranges
inland from the sea, the altitude of the intermediate valleys also
increasing the farther they are trom the coast. The country is very
sparsely populated, about 15 miles being the average distance between
villages, while in some cases it is over 20 . Numerous ruins show signs
of a former prosperity ; but at the present day there is very little that is not
desert. There are no trees, and only a few scattered thorn bushes in places,
and nothing much else in the way of vegetation, except that after the rains
there is a crop of grass which is much scorched up by the middle of May,
though still affording a certain amount of grazing. The most fertile part of
this section is the plain of Firuzabad, wdiich is well-watered and fairly
populous, though for the last five or six years suffering from swarms of
locusts. Every village, however small, has a patch of cultivation around
it, the intervening country being desert.”
The hills in Fars are situated at different distances from the sea. At
Bushire they are distant 2f miles. Towards Bandar Rig the plain becomes
contracted and a few miles to the west of the village of Ganaveh, in the
Haiat Baud District, a low ridge suddenly projects out to the south and,
touching the sea, separates that district from the district of Llravi. This
projecting point is known by the name of Kuh-i-Bang {q.v.). It is of no
great height, and in breadth about 7 or 8 miles. Beyond this hill lies the
plain of Liravi. Here again the mountains are about 20 miles from the
sea, at which distance they continue for 8 or 9 miles, when they again ap
proach the south and form a circle in the neighbourhood of Bandar Dilam.
This low and advanced branch is known by the name of Zaidan, from a
small town not far from Behbehan. On turning the southern point of
the hills of Zaidan, they again abruptly retire to the north. At the port
of Bandar Ma’shur in ’Arabistan they are 30 miles from the sea, and at
Shushtar their most southern extremity crosses the thirty-second degree
of north latitude in the forty-ninth degree of east longitude.
South of Bushire, except for the valley and plain of the Mund river
mouth, the hills lie right along the coast line ; the first range is the Kuh-i-
Mund, and south-east of the Mund river, the range containing Kuh-i-
Darang.
The face of the country on the south-eastern side of Fars towards Darab
and Fasa, is somewhat difierent; here it is more open, the plains are of
greater extent, the soil more sandy and water less plentiful. Finally, on
the eastern side almost from Darab to Abrquh, is found one of those kavlrs
or sandy wastes, which, under the influence of a strong sauth-south-easterly
wind, occasionally invade the neighbouring cultivated tracts with results
similar to what occurred at the city of Rhages, south-east of Tehran, which
is said to have been abandoned on this account.
Fars contains the salt lakes of Nirlz or Bakatigan and Mahar-Lu in the
vicinity of Shiraz and the Daria-i-Parishan near Kazarun which is also
said to be salt.
The main rivers are the Kara Aghach and its tributaries, which becomes
the Mund river and pours into the Gulf at Khur Zlarat; the Band Amir