The town derives its name from the mausoleum of a Bukhára saint buried here, and is the capital of the district of the same name, which comprises the divisions orbulúkof Maháwalát, Turbat, Záwah, Kháf, Azghan or Asgand, Báyak, and Rúkh. Previous to the famine this district was one of the most populous, fertile, and prosperous places in Persia, but it has suffered fearfully in the dearth of the last three years. Owing to deaths and emigration its population has been reduced by twenty thousand, and several villages are now deserted. It is reckoned it cannot recover its losses for another generation.Formerly, the silk crop alone in this district produced an annual profit of forty thousandtumans, or about eighty thousand dollars, but the yield now is less than a tenth of that amount. Formerly, too, from fifteen to twenty thousand pilgrims, mostly from Bukhára, annually visited the shrine here, but the famine has quite put a stop to this source of wealth.
Turbat is the headquarters of the Karai, a tribe of Tátár origin, whose settlement here dates from the time of Tamerlane. They subsequently became dispersed in the successive revolutions and conquests that for centuries convulsed this region, and their lands were left more or less waste and depopulated. Nadír resettled seven thousand families of the tribe in Turbat. On his death, Sháh Ahmad annexed the country to Afghanistan, and secured the good-will of their chief, Ishák Khán, by a liberal policy of protection and favour. On the decline of the Durrani dynasty, and the extension eastwards of the Cajar rule, this district, and the adjoining principality of Mashhad, wrested from the unfortunate Sháh Rokh Mirzá, were restored to Persia. The Karai, however, proved very rebellious subjects, and took a leading part in the successive revolts marking the earlier years of the Cajar authority on this border. In 1816, Ishák, and his son Husen ’Ali, were executed at Mashhad by Muhammad Walí Mirzá, the governor, and another son, Muhammad Khán, placed in the government of the district.
He too evinced a very dubious loyalty during the subsequent operations of Persia against Herat, and in the rebellion of the Salár, Hassan Khán, some years later, joined his standard against the Sháh. In 1849, Sultán Murád Mirzá, Hisámussaltanat, having recaptured Mashhad, executed the Salár and his son, and sent anumber of the Karai and Kurd chiefs who had sided with him as prisoners to Tehran. Since that time the power of the Karai has steadily decreased, and now, under a Persian ruler of the district, they are reduced to a complete subjection.
23d April.—Turbat Hydari to Asadabad, twenty-eight miles. Weather showery all day, cold and cloudy. We left Turbat as we entered it, through its bazár, and passing round its ditch and fortified walls, followed a good road leading due north over an undulating gravelly plain covered with rich pasture. At the eighth mile we passed a roadsideábambár, and at two miles farther on reached the foot of the hills, and ascending a narrow drainage gully, at a mile farther reached the crest of a ridge of chlorite slate. Its elevation is 5920 feet above the sea, and 1358 feet above Turbat Hydari, and affords a very fine view, which, though much obscured by clouds, is sufficient to convey a correct idea of the wild and picturesque combined in the scenery of these mountains. Descending into a deep little hollow, bright in the verdure of its spring vegetation, we passed the village of Kámih Páyín, and rose up to thesaraeKistkat, where we took refuge from the rain, and smoked ourselves dry at blinding and suffocating fires, raised with the stable litter strewing its interior.
On our way up to this we found several human skeletons strewed along the road, and I dismounted to pick up a tolerably bleached skull in my path. “Why burden yourself with that?” exclaimed he who had promised me the Turkman heads; “the road ahead is white with them, and you can pick up any number, much better and purer.” The one I held was certainly not as clear of its contents as it might have been, so I threw it aside and remounted; and calling up one of myown servants, directed him to pick up two or three perfect skulls as he went along towards camp. As events proved, I might have saved myself the trouble, for we did not see another skull on all our road from this to Tehran. So much again for Persian veracity.
Opposite thesaraeis a collection of thirty or forty mud cabins, and overlooking it from the north-west is the snow-topped and cloud-beshrouded Bedúr mountain, with its bare slopes and rugged heights. We set out from thesaraein a steady set rain, and ascending a narrow gorge, in forty minutes reached the Gudari Bedár, on which are three observation towers for watching the movements of the Turkmans on thejúlagahRúkh below to the northward. This pass is over a watershed ridge of chlorite and trap rocks running east and west, and forming the boundary between thebulúkof Turbat and that of Rúkh. Its elevation is 7135 feet above the sea, and 2573 feet above Turbat, and from it is obtained a full view of thejúlagahRúkh running east and west.
The descent, at first steep, leads through a turfy dell, in which we found the wild rose, barberry, prickly astragalus, tulips, lilies, and a multitude of other herbs, with here and there arms and legs of human skeletons strewing the path, and at about four miles emerges on the plain at the little castle of Shor Hissár. We crossed thejúlagahdue north, and passing a new red brickrabátor post-house about half-way, at eight miles reached Asadabad, and camped on a gravelly slope covered with fresh sprouting rhubarb. The weather was cold, chill, and damp, and a strong north-west wind, with the thermometer at 46° Fah. at twoP.M., intensified its severity. Asadabad stands 5790 feet above the sea, and 1228 feet higher than Turbat. Its vegetation is very backward;the corn has hardly sprouted above the ground, and the fruit trees have not yet expanded their buds.
Quarters had been hastily prepared for us inside the fort, but we found them so filthy, and the stinks so disgusting, that we preferred to face the stormy elements in our tents. The entrance gate of this fortified village is of very peculiar construction, and similar to some others we have seen on this frontier. It consists of a circular opening closed by a great millstone about a foot thick and six feet in diameter, which rolls back into a side casement. Owing to the scarcity of timber, large slabs of slate or millstone grit are commonly used as doors for houses and gardens in this country. Asadabad was only built some ten years ago, by Asadullah Mirzá, one of the princes of the blood royal. There are eight or ten other fortified villages seen from it on thejúlagahorjúlgah. The wild sheep (kochm. andmeshf.) and wild goat (takkam. andbuzf.) abound on these hills. Here, as at Turbat, specimens of each, shot in the vicinity, were brought to our camp as dainties for our table.
Our next stage was thirty-four miles to Sharífabad. Weather cold, cloudy, and windy, with alternating showers, mists, and sunshine. Route northerly, up a gentle slope to the foot of a hill range running north-west to south-east, then, passing between low marly hillocks, ascends a steep ridge of chlorite, to the Gudhari Rúkh. Elevation, 6962 feet above the sea, and 1172 feet above Asadabad, six miles distant. The descent leads down a long winding defile, flanked by bare rugged hills of chlorite and trap and granite, and then, at four miles, passing through a narrow gorge between high perpendicular hills of green and red rocks, emerged on to the valley of Rabáti Sufed. This gorge is only about forty yards wide, and perhaps five or six hundred long,for our horses walked through it in six minutes, along a clear little rivulet that flows in its midst.
The crest of the hill on the right of this gorge is topped with the ruins of an ancient fort called Calaedukhtar. It looks down upon a domed chamber built of very solid masonry on the plain below, and called Darocsh-khána. Tradition assigns the fort as the retreat of some ancient king’s beautiful daughter, whilst a devoted suitor pined away in unrequited love in the domed chamber. At the foot of the hills to the left are two or three similarly domed chambers. They stand on separate little mounds, and are calledátash kadah, or “fire temple.” Farther out on the level stands an oldsarae, and on a ridge of hill at the farther end of the valley, to the left, is the village of Rabáti Sufed. It is the first we have seen with flat-roofed houses. This little valley communicates westward with the Nishabor plain, and is constantly infested by Tymúri and Turkman robbers.
Beyond this we crossed a low ridge, and passing down a long turfy slope, halted for breakfast on a patch of fresh green sward, close under Káfir Calá, a small castle on the summit of an isolated mound, which appears to be of artificial construction. Though strongly situated, the village has, it is said, been several times swept clear of its occupants by the Turkmans. During the last year they have made repeated raids in this direction, and have carried off most of the people belonging to Sebzar, a small fortified village in a nook of the hills about two miles to the S.S.E. Some years ago a large body of Turkmans, in collusion with the Tymúri Hazárah of Turbat Shekh Jám, were returning by this way from a foray to Nishabor, when they were overtaken by troops sent out from Mashhad to intercept them. A largenumber of them fell into the hands of the Persians, and received punishment, not according to their deserts, but according to the necessities of the case. Thus the Tymúri, who are accounted subjects of the Persian Government, were put to death with the most horrible cruelties. Some were put out of their misery at once by having their throats cut or their heads chopped off, some were cut to pieces limb by limb, and others were ripped up and disembowelled, and many were impaled or doomed to a lingering death of torture, pegged to the ground by a stake driven through the belly. The real Turkmans, on the other hand, were sent to Mashhad, and there retained as hostages for exchange with Persian subjects carried off by their brethren in other forays. As a rule, the Persians seldom kill their Turkman captives, for fear of retaliation on their own captive fellow-countrymen.
The Káfir Calá hollow is closed to the westward by a ridge of red clay hills, in which is a mine of very pure white rock salt. It is quarried extensively for the Mashhad market. On the gravelly mounds skirting this ridge we found the burrows of a large species of rat, calledmúshi Sultánya. A couple were shot by one of our party, and measured about a foot from the snout to the root of the tail, which is short and bushy. The head resembles that of the beaver, and has long incisors. The colour of the fur is a yellowish grey, inclining to brown. Their burrows are very extensive, and render the ground unsafe for the movement of horses.
From this the road continues to slope towards the north, and passing over an undulating tract of red marl, drops on to a wide valley or plain, thejúlagahBewajan, which is bounded on the north by a snow-topped mountainof the same name—a terminal prolongation to the south-east of the Nishabor mountain. The Bewajan plain is dotted with a number of fort-villages, which are remarkable from the absence of gardens or trees about them. The plain presents a gently undulating pasture-covered surface, and extends for many miles east and west and forms a long, narrow strip of tableland between the deserts on either side. To the eastward it drops suddenly, by a very broken surface, on to the Sarjam district, which presents a wide waste of red clay hummocks, of no use whatever but to provide concealment and shelter to the Turkman. To the south of Sarjam is seen a great snowy mountain, on which there is said to be a glacier. It is continuous to the north-west with the Turbat Hydari range of Asgand, and to the eastward separates Turbat Shekh Jám from Bákharz. To the north-east Sarjam is continuous with the desert of Sarakhs and Marv, and is the general rendezvous of the Takka, Sarúc, and Sálor Turkmans. To the westward Bewajan drops on to the plain of Nishabor on the one hand, and thekavírof Yúnasi, through which it is continuous with the waste of Pul Abresham, on the other. Bewajan is the route by which the Marv Turkmans invade Nishabor and Sabzwár, and the country up to Shahrúd, where they meet their brethren of the Yamút and Goklán tribes.
We crossed the Bewajan plain in a N.N.E. direction, and passing the fortified village of Sháh Tughi—which, what with Turkmans and famine, had been reduced to only three miserable families, who longed to escape the burthen of its desolation, the dread of Turkmans, and the thoughts for their daily bread; but there was none to cheer them, nor to relieve them, nor even to commiserate them—rose gently up to some low ridges of slate,trap, and granite, towards a ruined tower that stands on the edge of a muddy pool. At this point the caravan route from TehranviâNishabor joins that from Turbat to Sharífabad and Mashhad. We here turned to the right, and descending into the secluded hollow in which stands Sharífabad, camped near itssarae. This is a commodious and substantial building, erected by Ishák Khán, Karai, when this town formed the frontier of his territory in this direction.