رسائل وأوراق بخصوص السكة الحديدية العابرة لبلاد فارس والسكك الحديدية الأخرى في بلاد فارس [و‎‎٩‎٨] (٤٤٢/١٩٥)

whioh 'bisects Persia is one of the nost arid and inhospitable
regions in the world. It is uninhabited: possesses neither
wood* i^rass, water nor camel grazing: it cannot be crossed
except by dangerous tracks* few in nurfoer* ell well known, and
whioh are isolated from one another by Irrense distances. These
tracks are quite narrow and form. In military parlance, causeways
to leave whioh often entails considerable danger in consequence
of the stretches of mud, concealed under a layer of crusted
saltpetre, which skirts their sides in so many places. The ollnete of
this desert alternates from a cold which becomes extreme, in
winter, when swept by those icy ga.les from the North which are so
frequent at that season, to a heat, in Sumner, so fiery in its
intensity as to preclude all travelling by day and frequently to
debar passage itself. This region, in short, is one into which
the traveller enters with apprehension and leaves with Joy.
The drainage of the Chagai end Kharan Districts continue
estwards until they reach the depression, lying Hast of Jalk,
known as the Mashkel Hamun. Into this depression also flows,
by way of the Talab river, the eastern denudation slopes drainage
of the Sarhad mountain barrier wall, from a point Just South of
Koh—I-Mallk Siah: as well as a considerable amount of the
drainage of Persian Baluchistan, The letter enters the Mamun from
the South and Is brought down by the Meshifel (Meshkld) river and
as this river possesses a catchment basin of several thousand
square miles in area, the floods which make their way down its
channel in winter, which is the rainy season there, are frequently
very heavy and overflow the banks, on either side.
The Helmand turn North at Band-I-Kamal Khan and discharges
into the Naizar depression. Owing to the heavy percentage of
silt its waters carry, it forms constantly changing deltas. The
delta now forming shows a distinct tendency to swing Westwards
and it was largely (hie to this that water disputes, between
Afghanistan and Persia, arose whioh culminated in the deputation
of the Arbitration Ccmrdssion which was sent to Seistan, by Lord