deg. 20' 30" N., and 62 deg. 11' 0" E., at an altitude of 2500 ft. above
sea-level. Estimated pop. about 10,000. It is a city of great interest
historically, geographically, politically and strategically, but in
modern days it has quite lost its ancient commercial importance. From
this central point great lines of communication radiate in all
directions to Russian, British, Persian and Afghan territory. Sixty-six
miles to the north lies the terminus of the Russian railway system; to
the south-east is Kandahar (360 m.) and about 70 m. beyond that, New
Chaman, the terminus of the British railway system. Southward lies
Seistan (200 m.), and eastward Kabul (550 m.); while on the west four
routes lead into Persia by Turbet to Meshed (215 m.), and by Birjend to
Kerman (400 m.), to Yezd (500 m.), or to Isfahan (600 m.). The city
forms a quadrangle of nearly 1 m. square (more accurately about 1600
yds. by 1500 yds.); on the western, southern and eastern faces the line
of defence is almost straight, the only projecting points being the
gateways, but on the northern face the contour is broken by a double
outwork, consisting of the _Ark_ or citadel, which is built of sun-dried
brick on a high artificial mound within the enceinte, and a lower work
at its foot, called the _Ark-i-nao_, or "new citadel," which extends 100
yds. beyond the line of the city wall. That which distinguishes Herat
from all other Oriental cities, and at the same time constitutes its
main defence, is the stupendous character of the earthwork upon which
the city wall is built. This earthwork averages 250 ft. in width at the
base and about 50 ft. in height, and as it is crowned by a wall 25 ft.
high and 14 ft. thick at the base, supported by about 150 semicircular
towers, and is further protected by a ditch 45 ft. in width and 16 in
depth, it presents an appearance of imposing strength. When the royal
engineers of the Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission entered Herat in 1885
they found its defences in various stages of disrepair. The gigantic
rampart was unflanked, and the covered ways in the face of it subject to
enfilade from end to end. The ditch was choked, the gates were
unprotected; the tumbled mass of irregular mud buildings which
constituted the city clung tightly to the walls; there were no gun
emplacements. Outside, matters were almost worse than inside. To the
north of the walls the site of old Herat was indicated by a vast mass of
debris--mounds of bricks and pottery intersected by a network of shallow
trenches, where the only semblance of a protective wall was the
irregular line of the Tal-i-Bangi. South of the city was a vast area
filled in with the graveyards of centuries. Here the trenches dug by the
Persians during the last siege were still in a fair state of
preservation; they were within a stone's-throw of the walls. Round about
the city on all sides were similar opportunities for close approach;
even the villages stretched out long irregular streets towards the city
gates. To the north-west, beyond the Tal-i-Bangi, the magnificent
outlines of the Mosalla filled a wide space with the glorious curves of
dome and gateway and the stately grace of tapering minars, but the
impressive beauty of this, by far the finest architectural structure in
all Afghanistan, could not be permitted to weigh against the fact that
the position occupied by this pile of solid buildings was fatal to the
interests of effective defence. By the end of August 1885, when a
political crisis had supervened between Great Britain and Russia, under
the orders of the Amir the Mosalla was destroyed; but four minars
standing at the corners of the wide plinth still remain to attest to the
glorious proportions of the ancient structure, and to exhibit samples of
that decorative tilework, which for intricate beauty of design and
exquisite taste in the blending of colour still appeals to the memory as
unique. At the same time the ancient graveyards round the city were
swept smooth and levelled; obstructions were demolished, outworks
constructed, and the defences generally renovated. Whether or no the
strength of this bulwark of North-Western Afghanistan should ever be
practically tested, the general result of the most recent investigations
into the value of Herat as a strategic centre has been largely to
modify the once widely-accepted view that the key to India lies within
it. Abdur Rahman and his successor Habibullah steadfastly refused the
offer of British engineers to strengthen its defences; and though the
Afghans themselves have occasionally undertaken repairs, it is doubtful
whether the old walls of Herat are maintained in a state of efficiency.
The exact position of Herat, with reference to the Russian station of
Kushk (now the terminus of a branch railway from Merv), is as follows:
From Herat, a gentle ascent northwards for 3 m. reaches to the foot of
the Koh-i-Mulla Khwaja, crossing the Jui Nao or "new" canal, which here
divides the gravel-covered foot hills from the alluvial flats of the
Hari Rud plain. The crest of the outer ridges of this subsidiary range
is about 700 ft. above the city, at a distance of 4 m. from it. For 28
m. farther the road winds first amongst the broken ridges of the
Koh-i-Mulla Khwaja, then over the intervening _dasht_ into the southern
spurs of the Paropamisus to the Ardewan pass. This is the highest point
it attains, and it has risen about 2150 ft. from Herat. From the pass it
drops over the gradually decreasing grades of a wide sweep of Chol
(which here happens to be locally free from the intersecting network of
narrow ravines which is generally a distinguishing feature of Turkestan
loess formations) for a distance of 35 m. into the Russian railway
station, falling some 2700 ft. from the crest of the Paropamisus. To the
south the road from Herat to India through Kandahar lies across an open
plain, which presents no great engineering difficulties, but is of a
somewhat waterless and barren character.
The city possesses five gates, two on the northern face, the Kutab-chak
near the north-east angle of the wall, and the Malik at the re-entering
angle of the Ark-i-nao; and three others in the centres of the remaining
faces, the Irak gate on the west, the Kandahar gate on the south and the
Kushk gate on the east face. Four streets called the _Chahar-suk_,
running from the centre of each face, meet in the centre of the town in
a small domed quadrangle. The principal street runs from the south or
Kandahar gate to the market in front of the citadel, and is covered in
with a vaulted roof through its entire length, the shops and buildings
of this bazaar being much superior to those of the other streets, and
the merchants' caravanserais, several of which are spacious and well
built, all opening out on this great thoroughfare. Near the central
quadrangle of the city is a vast reservoir of water, the dome of which
is of bold and excellent proportions. The only other public building of
any consequence in Herat is the great mosque or _Mesjid-i-Juma_, which
comprises an area of 800 yds. square, and must have been a most
magnificent structure. It was erected towards the close of the 15th
century, during the reign of Shah Sultan Hussein of the family of Timur,
and is said when perfect to have been 465 ft. long by 275 ft. wide, to
have had 408 cupolas, 130 windows, 444 pillars and 6 entrances, and to
have been adorned in the most magnificent manner with gilding, carving,
precious mosaics and other elaborate and costly embellishments. Now,
however, it is falling rapidly into ruin, the ever-changing provincial
governors who administer Herat having neither the means nor the
inclination to undertake the necessary repairs. Neither the palace of
the Charbagh within the city wall, which was the residence of the
British mission in 1840-1841, nor the royal quarters in the citadel
deserve any special notice. At the present day, with the exception of
the _Chahar-suk_, where there is always a certain amount of traffic, and
where the great diversity of race and costume imparts much liveliness to
the scene, Herat presents a very melancholy and desolate appearance. The
mud houses in rear of the bazaars are for the most part uninhabited and
in ruins, and even the burnt brick buildings are becoming everywhere
dilapidated. The city is also one of the filthiest in the East, as there
are no means of drainage or sewerage, and garbage of every description
lies in heaps in the open streets.
Along the slopes of the northern hills there is a space of some 4 m. in
length by 3 m. in breadth, the surface of the plain, strewn over its
whole extent with pieces of pottery and crumbling bricks, and also
broken here and there by earthen mounds and ruined walls, the debris of
palatial structures which at one time were the glory and wonder of the
East. Of these structures indeed some have survived to the present day
in a sufficiently perfect state to bear witness to the grandeur and
beauty of the old architecture of Herat. Such was the mosque of the
Mosalla before its destruction. Scarcely inferior in beauty of design
and execution, though of more moderate dimensions, is the tomb of the
saint Abdullah Ansari, in the same neighbourhood. This building, which
was erected by Shah Rukh Mirza, the grandson of Timur, over 500 years
ago, contains some exquisite specimens of sculpture in the best style of
Oriental art. Adjoining the tomb also are numerous marble mausoleums,
the sepulchres of princes of the house of Timur; and especially
deserving of notice is a royal building tastefully decorated by an
Italian artist named Geraldi, who was in the service of Shah Abbas the
Great. The locality, which is further enlivened by gardens and running
streams, is named _Gazir-gah_, and is a favourite resort of the Heratis.
It is held indeed in high veneration by all classes, and the famous Dost
Mahommed Khan is himself buried at the foot of the tomb of the saint.
Two other royal palaces named respectively _Bagh-i-Shah_ and
_Takht-i-Sefer_, are situated on the same rising ground somewhat farther
to the west. The buildings are now in ruins, but the view from the
pavilions, shaded by splendid plane trees on the terraced gardens formed
on the slope of the mountain, is said to be very beautiful.
The population of Herat and the neighbourhood is of a very mixed
character. The original inhabitants of Ariana were no doubt of the Aryan
family, and immediately cognate with the Persian race, but they were
probably intermixed at a very early period with the Sacae and
Massagetae, who seem to have held the mountains from Kabul to Herat from
the first dawn of history, and to whom must be ascribed--rather than to
an infusion of Turco-Tartaric blood introduced by the armies of Jenghiz
and Timur--the peculiar broad features and flattish countenance which
distinguish the inhabitants of Herat, Seistan and the eastern provinces
of Persia from their countrymen farther to the west. Under the
government of Herat, however, there are a very large number cf tribes,
ruled over by separate and semi-independent chiefs, and belonging
probably to different nationalities. The principal group of tribes is
called the _Chahar-Aimak_, or "four races," the constituent parts of
which, however, are variously stated by different authorities both as to
strength and nomenclature. The Heratis are an agricultural race, and are
not nearly so warlike as the Pathans from the neighbourhood of Kabul or
Kandahar.
Environs of Herat.
The long narrow valley of the Hari Rud, starting from the western slopes
of the Koh-i-Baba, extends almost due west for 300 m. before it takes
its great northern bend at Kuhsan, and passes northwards through the
broken ridges of the Siah Bubuk (the western extremity of the range
which we now call Paropamisus) towards Sarakhs. For the greater part of
its length it drains the southern slopes only of the Paropamisus and the
northern slopes of a parallel range called Koh-i-Safed. The Paropamisus
forms the southern face of the Turkestan plateau, which contains the
sources of the Murghab river; the northern face of the same plateau is
defined by the Band-i-Turkestan. On the south of the plateau we find a
similar succession of narrow valleys dividing parallel flexures, or
anticlinals, formed under similar geological conditions to those which
appear to be universally applicable to the Himalaya, the Hindu Kush, and
the Indus frontier mountain systems. From one of these long lateral
valleys the Hari Rud receives its principal tributary, which joins the
main river below Obeh, 180 m. from its source; and it is this tributary
(separated from the Hari Rud by the narrow ridges of the Koh-i-Safed and
Band-i-Baian) that offers the high road from Herat to Kabul, and not the
Hari Rud itself. From its source to Obeh the Hari Rud is a valley of
sandy desolation. There are no glaciers near its sources, although they
must have existed there in geologically recent times, but masses of
melting snow annually give rise to floods, which rush through the midst
of the valley in a turbid red stream, frequently rendering the river
impassable and cutting off the crazy brick bridges at Herat and Tirpul.
It is impossible, whilst watching the rolling, seething volume of
flood-water which swirls westwards in April, to imagine the waste
stretches of dry river-bed which in a few months' time (when every
available drop of water is carried off for irrigation) will represent
the Hari Rud. The soft shales or clays of the hills bounding the valley
render these hills especially subject to the action of denudation, and
the result, in rounded slopes and easily accessible crests, determines
the nature of the easy tracks and passes which intersect them. At the
same time, any excessive local rainfall is productive of difficulty and
danger from the floods of liquid mud and loose boulders which sweep like
an avalanche down the hill sides. The intense cold which usually
accompanies these sudden northern blizzards of Herat and Turkestan is a
further source of danger.
From Obeh, 50 m. east of Herat, the cultivated portion of the valley
commences, and it extends, with a width which varies from 8 to 16 m., to
Kuhsan, 60 m. west of the city. But the great stretch of highly
irrigated and valuable fruit-growing land, which appears to spread from
the walls of Herat east and west as far as the eye can reach, and to
sweep to the foot of the hills north and south with an endless array of
vineyards and melon-beds, orchards and villages, varied with a brilliant
patchwork of poppy growth brightening the width of green wheat-fields
with splashes of scarlet and purple--all this is really comprised within
a narrow area which does not extend beyond a ten-miles' radius from the
city. The system of irrigation by which these agricultural results are
attained is most elaborate. The despised Herati Tajik, in blue shirt and
skull-cap, and with no instrument better than a three-cornered spade, is
as skilled an agriculturist as is the Ghilzai engineer, but he cannot
effect more than the limits of his water-supply will permit. He adopts
the karez (or, Persian, _kanat_) system of underground irrigation, as
does the Ghilzai, and brings every drop of water that he can find to the
surface; but it cannot be said that he is more successful than the
Ghilzai. It is the startling contrast of the Herati oasis with the vast
expanse of comparative sterility that encloses it which has given such a
fictitious value to the estimates of the material wealth of the valley
of the Hari Rud.
The valley about Herat includes a flat alluvial plain which might, for
some miles on any side except the north, be speedily reduced to an
impassable swamp by means of flood-water from the surrounding canals.
Three miles to the south of the city the river flows from east to west,
spanned by the Pal-i-Malun, a bridge possessing grand proportions, but
which was in 1885 in a state of grievous disrepair and practically
useless. East and west stretches the long vista of the Hari Rud. Due
north the hills called the Koh-i-Mulla Khwaja appear to be close and
dominating, but the foot of these hills is really about 3 m. distant
from the city. This northern line of barren, broken sandstone hills is
geographically no part of the Paropamisus range, from which it is
separated by a stretch of sandy upland about 20 m. in width, called the
Dasht-i-Hamdamao, or Dasht-i-Ardewan, formed by the talus or drift of
the higher mountains, which, washed down through centuries of
denudation, now forms long sweeping spurs of gravel and sand, scantily
clothed with wormwood scrub and almost destitute of water. Through this
stretch of _dasht_ the drainage from the main water-divide breaks
downwards to the plains of Herat, where it is arrested and utilized for
irrigation purposes. To the north-east of the city a very considerable
valley has been formed between the Paropamisus and the subsidiary
Koh-i-Mulla Khwaja range, called Korokh. Here there are one or two
important villages and a well-known shrine marked by a group of pine
trees which is unique in this part of Afghanistan. The valley leads to a
group of passes across the Paropamisus into Turkestan, of which the
Zirmast is perhaps the best known. The main water-divide between Herat
and the Turkestan Chol (the loess district) has been called Paropamisus
for want of any well-recognized general name. To the north of the Korokh
valley it exhibits something of the formation of the Hindu Kush (of
which it is apparently a geological extension), but as it passes
westwards it becomes broken into fragments by processes of denudation,
until it is hardly recognizable as a distinct range at all. The direct
passes across it from Herat (the Baba and the Ardewan) wind amongst
masses of disintegrating sandstone for some miles on each side of the
dividing watershed, but farther west the rounded knolls of the
rain-washed downs may be crossed almost at any point without difficulty.
The names applied to this debris of a once formidable mountain system
are essentially local and hardly distinctive. Beyond this range the sand
and clay loess formation spreads downwards like a tumbled sea, hiding
within the folds of its many-crested hills the twisting course of the
Kushk and its tributaries.
_History._--The origin of Herat is lost in antiquity. The name first
appears in the list of primitive Zoroastrian settlements contained in
the _Vendidad Sade_, where, however, like most of the names in the same
list,--such as _Sughudu_ (Sogdiana), _Mouru_ (Merv or Margus),
_Haraquiti_ (Arachotus or Arghand-ab), _Haetumant_ (Etymander or
Helmund), and _Ragha_ (or Argha-stan),--it seems to apply to the river
or river-basin, which was the special centre of population. This name of
_Haroyu_, as it is written in the _Vendidad_, or _Hariwa_, as it appears
in the inscriptions of Darius, is a cognate form with the Sanskrit
_Sarayu_, which signifies "a river," and its resemblance to the ethnic
title of Aryan (Sans. _Arya_) is purely fortuitous; though from the
circumstance of the city being named "Aria Metropolis" by the Greeks,
and being also recognized as the capital of Ariana, "the country of the
Arians," the two forms have been frequently confounded. Of the
foundation of Herat (or Heri, as it is still often called) nothing is
known. We can only infer from the colossal character of the earth-works
which surround the modern town, that, like the similar remains at Bost
on the Helmund and at Ulan Robat of Arachosia, they belong to that
period of Central-Asian history which preceded the rise of Achaemenian
power, and which in Grecian romance is illustrated by the names of
Bacchus, of Hercules and of Semiramis. To trace in any detail the
fortunes of Herat would be to write the modern history of the East, for
there has hardly been a dynastic revolution, or a foreign invasion, or a
great civil war in Central Asia since the time of the prophet, in which
Herat has not played a conspicuous part and suffered accordingly. Under
the Tahirids of Khorasan, the Saffarids of Seistan and the Samanids of
Bokhara, it flourished for some centuries in peace and progressive
prosperity; but during the succeeding rule of the Ghaznevid kings its
metropolitan character was for a time obscured by the celebrity of the
neighbouring capital of Ghazni, until finally in the reign of Sultan
Sanjar of Merv about 1157 the city was entirely destroyed by an
irruption of the Ghuzz, the predecessors, in race as well as in habitat,
of the modern Turkomans. Herat gradually recovered under the enlightened
Ghorid kings, who were indeed natives of the province, though they
preferred to hold their court amid their ancestral fortresses in the
mountains of Ghor, so that at the time of Jenghiz Khan's invasion it
equalled or even exceeded in populousness and wealth its sister capitals
Of Balkh, Merv and Nishapur, the united strength of the four cities
being estimated at three millions of inhabitants. But this Mogul
visitation was most calamitous; forty persons, indeed, are stated to
have alone survived the general massacre of 1232, and as a similar
catastrophe overtook the city at the hands of Timur in 1398, when the
local dynasty of Kurt, which had succeeded the Ghorides in eastern
Khorasan, was put an end to, it is astonishing to find that early in the
15th century Herat was again flourishing and populous, and the favoured
seat of the art and literature of the East. It was indeed under the
princes of the house of Timur that most of the noble buildings were
erected, of which the remains still excite our admiration at Herat,
while all the great historical works relative to Asia, such as the
_Rozetes-Sefa_, the _Habib-es-seir_, _Hafiz Abru's Tarikh_, the _Matla'
a-es-Sa'adin_, &c., date from the same place and the same age. Four
times was Herat sacked by Turkomans and Usbegs during the centuries
which intervened between the Timuride princes and the rise of the Afghan
power, and it has never in modern times attained to anything like its
old importance. Afghan tribes, who had originally dwelt far to the
east, were first settled at Herat by Nadir Shah, and from that time they
have monopolized the government and formed the dominant element in the
population. It will be needless to trace the revolutions and
counter-revolutions which have followed each other in quick succession
at Herat since Ahmad Shah Durani founded the Afghan monarchy about the
middle of the 18th century. Let it suffice to say that Herat has been
throughout the seat of an Afghan government, sometimes in subordination
to Kabul and sometimes independent. Persia indeed for many years showed
a strong disposition to reassert the supremacy over Herat which was
exercised by the Safawid kings, but great Britain, disapproving of the
advance of Persia towards the Indian frontier, steadily resisted the
encroachment; and, indeed, after helping the Heratis to beat off the
attack of the Persian army in 1838, the British at length compelled the
shah in 1857 at the close of his war with them to sign a treaty
recognizing the further independence of the place, and pledging Persia
against any further interference with the Afghans. In 1863 Herat, which
for fifty years previously had been independent of Kabul, was
incorporated by Dost Mahomed Khan in the Afghan monarchy, and the Amir,
Habibullah of Afghanistan, like his father Abdur Rahman before him,
remained Amir of Herat and Kandahar, as well as Kabul.
See Holdich, _Indian Borderland_ (1901); C. E. Yate, _Northern
Afghanistan_ (1888). (T. H. H.*)