A long detour--Mount Darband--A water-cut gorge--Abandoned watch
towers--Passes into the desert--A wall-like mountain range--The
tower and fortified caravanserai at camp Darband--Brackish
water--Terrific heat--Compensating laws of nature better than
absurd patents--Weird rocks--Cairns--Chel-payeh salt well--Loss
of half our supply of fresh water--Camels and men overcome by the
heat.
When we left camp soon after midnight on November 13th, we had to make
quite a long detour to take the caravan around the Darband Mountain,
which barred our way directly on the course we were to follow. On foot
one could have taken a short cut in a more direct line by climbing up to
a certain height on the western mountain slope, but it was out of the
question to take camels up by it. We had to go some distance due north,
through very broken country with numerous hillocks, after which we
followed a narrow gorge cut deep by the action of water. The sides of
this gorge were like high mud and gravel walls, occasionally rocks worn
smooth, averaging from 60 to 100 feet apart.
The river bed, now absolutely dry, evidently carried into the desert
during the torrential rain all the drainage of the mountainous country we
had traversed, practically that from Abid, the Leker Mountains, and the
combined flow of the Lawah plain from the mountains to the west of it, to
which, of course, may be added the western watershed of the Darband
Mountain itself. A glance at the natural walls, between which we were
travelling, and the way in which hard rocks had been partly eaten away
and deeply grooved, or huge hollows bored into them, was sufficient to
show the observer with what terrific force the water must dash its way
through this deep-cut channel. The highest water-mark noticeable on the
sides was twenty-five feet above the bed. The impetus with which the rain
water must flow down the almost vertical fluted mountain sides must be
very great, and immense also must be the body of water carried, for the
mountain sides, being rocky, absorb very little of the rain falling upon
them and let it flow down to increase the foaming stream--when it is a
stream.
Some sixteen miles from our last camp we came across a circular tower,
very solidly built, standing on the edge of a river cliff, and higher up
on a ridge of hills in a commanding position stood the remains of two
quadrangular towers in a tumbling-down condition. Of one, in fact, there
remained but a portion of the base; of the other three walls were still
standing to a good height. The circular tower below, however, which
seemed of later date, was in good preservation. According to the camel
men, none of these towers were very ancient and had been put up to
protect that passage from the robber bands which occasionally came over
westward from Sistan and Afghanistan. It had, however, proved impossible
to maintain a guard in such a desolate position, hence the abandonment of
these outposts.
This is one of the three principal passages by which the mountains can be
crossed with animals from Kerman towards the east (north of the latitude
of Kerman 30° 17' 30"). The other two passages are: one to Khabis over a
pass (north-east of Kerman) in the Husseinabad Mountains; the second
between the Derun Mountain and the Leker Kuh from Abid, also to Khabis.
From the latter place it is also possible to cross the Desert to
Birjiand, but the lack of water even at the best of times makes it a very
dangerous track to follow both for men and animals. Barring these
passages there are high mountains protecting Kerman and continuously
extending, roughly, from N.N.W. to S.S.E.
We travelled partly above the high cliffs, then, near the circular tower,
we descended to the dry river-bed of well-rounded pebbles and sand. Our
course had gradually swerved to the south-east, then we left the river
bed once more and went due east, over confused masses of mud hillocks
from twenty to a hundred feet high. To the north we had a wall-like
mountain range formed of superposed triangles of semi-solidified rock,
the upper point of each triangle forming either an angle of 45° or a
slightly acute angle; and to the south also another wall-like range,
quite low, but of a similar character to the northern ones. Beyond it, to
the south-west, twenty miles back (by the way followed) lay the Darband
Mountain, on the other side of which we had made our previous camp.
The camp at which we halted bore the name of Darband, and from this point
the desert again opened into a wide flat expanse. The mountains to the
north suddenly ended in a crowded succession of low mud-hills, descending
for about a mile into the flat. The desert in all its dignified grandeur,
spread before us almost uninterruptedly from due north to south-east, as
far as the eye could see. North, a long way off, one could perceive a low
range of hills extending in an easterly direction, and beyond at 30°
bearings magnetic (about N.N.E.) rose a very high mountain and yet
another very far north-east, with some isolated conical hills of fair
height standing before it in the same direction; otherwise everything
else in front of us was as flat and as barren as could be.
At Darband halting place there is an interesting old circular tower, much
battered, as if it had seen some fighting. The attacks on it seem to have
taken place mostly from the south-westerly side, which aspect bears
evident marks of violent assaults. The tower is most cleverly loopholed,
so as to protect the inmates while firing on the enemy, and has a
look-out house on the top. For additional protection the entrance door is
about twenty feet above the ground and can only be reached by a ladder,
which was drawn up in cases of emergency.
A large dilapidated and filthy caravanserai--a regular fortress with a
watch tower of its own and loop-holes all round--is erected in the
vicinity in another commanding position. In the gully below there is a
small oasis of palm trees and a few square yards of vegetation alongside
a small spring of brackish water--the only water there is--with a
reservoir. Next to this, west of the caravanserai, are the remains of a
few mud huts in ruins.
We were here only 3,780 feet above the sea. The heat was terrific.
[Illustration: Author's Camels being Fed in the Desert.]
Brackish water is not pleasant to drink, but it is not necessarily
unhealthy. Personally, I am a great believer in the compensating laws of
Nature in preference to the ill-balanced habits of civilised men, and am
certain that the best thing one can drink in the desert, under the
abnormal conditions of heat, dust and dryness, is salt water, which
stimulates digestion and keeps the system clean. Of filters, condensing
apparatuses, soda-water cartridges, and other such appliances for
difficult land travelling, the less said the better. They are very pretty
toys, the glowing advertisements of which may add to the profits of
geographical magazines, but they are really more useful in cities in
Europe than practical in the desert. Possibly they may be a consolation
to a certain class of half-reasoning people. But anything else, it might
be argued would serve equally well. One sees them advertised as
preventatives of malarial fever, but no sensible person who has ever
had fever or seen it in others would ever believe that it comes from
drinking water. Fever is in the atmosphere--one breathes fever; one does
not necessarily drink it. When the water is corrupted, the air is also
corrupted, and to filter the one and not the other is an operation the
sense of which I personally cannot see.
It has ever been my experience, and that also of others, that the fewer
precautions one takes, the more one relies on Nature to take care of one
instead of on impracticable devices--the better for one's health in the
end. I do not mean by this that one should go and drink dirty water to
avoid fever,--far from it,--but if the water is dirty the best plan is
not to drink it at all, whether filtered--or, to be accurate, passed
through a filter--or not, or made into soda-water!
One fact is certain, that if one goes through a fever district one can
take all the precautions in the world, but if one's system is so inclined
one is sure to contract it; only the more the precautions, the more
violent the fever.
But to return to our specific case, brackish water is not necessarily
dirty, and as I have said, is to my mind one of Nature's protections
against fever of the desert. In my own case, when I partook of it freely,
it decidedly kept the fever down.
We made a much earlier start, at 8 p.m., on November 13th, and I had to
walk part of the way as it was too steep for the camels. We had great
trouble in taking them down to the dry river-bed--which we were to
follow, being quite flat and therefore easier for the animals. We went
along between low hills, getting lower and lower, and some two miles from
the Darband tower we emerged into the open, the river-bed losing itself
here in the desert.
During the night of the 13th-14th we travelled 28 miles on the flat until
we came to more low hills, which we entered by another river-bed, also
dry. We had come in a north-north-east direction so far, but we now
turned due east among high, flat-topped hills which resembled a mass of
ruined Persian houses of a quadrangular shape, so strangely had they been
carved out by the corrosive action of water. They were of solid rock, and
eaten into holes here and there, which from a distance gave the
appearance of windows and doors, and of caves.
The river-bed on which we travelled was of soft sand--very
troublesome--and minute gravel strewn here and there with large boulders
fallen from the cliffs at the sides. Cairns had been erected in various
prominent points by caravan men, to show future travellers the way to
Naiband for Birjiand and Meshed.
Following this in an easterly direction we came to a large basin, and
then further on to another. We continued in zig-zag for a short distance,
when we arrived at a place where the river-bed makes an elbow, turning to
the north. At this spot a caravanserai was in course of construction,
built at the expense of some charitable person. There was only one well
of brackish water, and very little of that, too. The workmen would not
let us partake of it. Everything, of course, had to be brought, as
nothing could be obtained there, and the few workmen complained bitterly
of the hardships they had to endure in going on with their work. They
feared they would soon run short even of water. They were all
fever-stricken, and two quite in a pitiable condition. They had little
food left; most of their animals had died, and they were unable to leave.
Chel-Payeh was the name of this well (altitude 4,420 feet).
We were thirty-two miles from our last camp, and reached here at 8 a.m.
On taking the loads down we had a great disappointment. Sadek, who was
not accustomed to ride camels, was suffering considerably, and in order
to make himself comfortable he had contrived a clever device to avoid
coming in immediate contact with the wooden frame of his saddle. He had
fastened the two largest skins we had with our supply of good water on
the top of his saddle, and having covered them over with blankets and
carpets, on them, he sat and slept through the whole night. Alas! the
weight of his body burst both skins during the night and squeezed all the
water out!
So here we were, with only two small skins of fresh water left, which
would have to last the whole party several days. But we were to have a
further misfortune on the following march.
The heat was intense--146° in the sun--not an inch of shade in the middle
of the day, and the river-bed being cut into the plain, and therefore
lower than the surface of the remainder of the desert, the lack of a
current of air made this spot quite suffocating; so much so that both
camels and men were getting quite overcome by the heat, and we had to
start off early in the afternoon at 4 o'clock.