THE PERSIAN DESERT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2968, 1 February 1911, Page 79

THE PERSIAN DESERT.

: SVEN HEDIN’S JOURNEY. Sven Hedin’s latest journey through ' Persia—l9os-6 —takes the reader through ! countries that he probably knows little | about. “My journey proper,” he says, “began from Teheran, and outside the j gates of Teheran begins the desert, and 1 then there is nothing but desart all the ! way to India. . . Even in March 1 Polo’s time Eastern Persia- was occupied ; by immense deserts, which, could be trai versed only by carrying water and follow-, i ing the- shortest routes between the oasis, i The great Kevir has a maximum length ' of 500 miles and breadth of 150 miles. ! The area is 21,000 square miles, or about 1 that of Lake Michigan. The Kevir is a ; kind of masked subterranean lake, concealed and filled up by the loose material carried into it by the watercourses. It is a. lake which contains more mud than j water; a lake with a bottom, which, paraI doxical as it may sound, lies higher than I the water surface, and we should have to 1 dig down some Bin into the solid matter j before coming to the water. The Kevir [ appears to the eye, as we glance over it, | a dried-up lake, and all the channels I which enter it are, without exception, | quite dry. It is really , a hydrographic ; system of beds without water. _ But, though the land now lies dry and lifeless,’ I and though one listens in vain for the 1 sound of purling water, yet there is water l beneath the dry, dark crust, and turbid j flood streams foam along the furrows after heavy vain. It is a rare occurrence, and I the beds dry up again after the rains have i ceased; wind end weather begin again to j do their part, and after the next rain all I the fine 'material is washed into the j Kevir, and helps to fill up the depression. I In the region where Bed in first made 1 acquaintance with a true Kevir its sur- ; face was as level as a lake, without refer- ! ence to small irregularities. “It may | then he concluded that these low regions ! are a bed of mud, a viscous mass, with ■ a surface which, like that of other fluids, 1 assumes a horizontal position. When ! fresh mud is swept into the Kevir ,it forms no elevations, but spreads out : evenlv and horizontally. The shore, or j the flat strip of steppe, is usually 100, ! seldom 200, yards broad, nd we have the , front, of the hills on the right hand and the Kevir on our left. The zone of the ! Kevir which runs close along the shore is j yellow, and forms a kind of transitional I stage from the steppe belt, but farther 1 out the surface of the Kevir becomes j darker, and in the distance gleams a pure white streak, beyond which is seen a I thinner black line, which looks like water, i One would gladly believe that the thin. 1 surface salt in the small creeks nearer in I fr<.nt of us are collections of water, but we are deceived by the mirage, the light I and; distance, and the perfect flatness of the" desert. A herdsman, on being asked if be considered it possible to cross the

Lvavir towards the north, exclaimed, 'No, God forbid; you have only to go no farther from, the shore than a shout can be heard and you will sink in the mud and be inevitably lost.' " —Bad Weather. —■ The weather on the Kevir was terribly bad. "Such rain I have not experienced" (says Hedin) "all the way from Trebizond. It is a dense, close, dismal rain, and! its persistent rush gives no hope of its stopping. We have just reached the margin of the Kevir, and are on the. point of venturing over the flat, quaking marsh, when the. only kind of weather which can interfere with our plan breaks loose. The party take possession of a miserable hut for shelter. T go out to read the iostruments, but sink in the mud, which spurts up under my feet, and I creep back into the dirty, ill-smelling cabin/ 'How long will the. desert take to dry up if it continues to rain all night?' I ask. 'Three or four days.' 'And if it still rains to-morrow also?' 'Ten days.' " This is the sort of experience that the travellers have over the greater part of the Kevir or salt desert —.rain, snow, and wind, with mud in which a man may be lost. One of Hedin's men was two years ago with a caravan, which lost five of its camels in consequence of a very violent and heavy snowstorm. Worse climatic condi- ; tions than the Kevir it is hard, to imagine, ; and they lasted for weeks and weeks, the 1 mud and snow being varied by sand. | —The Palm Trees of Tebbes.— The oasis of Tebbes lies to the east of the Kevir, and is very isolated} the : nearest town being 80 miles distant. It | contains 2000 houses and 10,000 inhabij tants. There art? 200 large palm orchards, 1 and as many small ones. It is estimated J that there are 100,000 female palms, and in every garden there are two male palms The palms first bear fruit after 15 or 20 years, but some palms are 200 ' years old. They -are said never to rise above a certain height, on account of the : storms and the cold that prevails in : winter above the warmer layer of air on i the surface of the ground. Here we are on the northern limit of the date palm, for no palm is to be found north of the great Kevir, except, perhaps, a single, well-protected specimen. The Persians say that palms are like human beings: they languish and die from a gunshot, they are drowned if flooded with water, and they .are frozen to death by cold, i The male palm, they say, has several : wives, like the Mohammedans; the female is noble, delicate, and dainty, and must be tended with the greatest care. The palm grows up from the root, and must some day decay and die in the same place. An old Persian said that the palm differed from other trees in having life and a soul, and being able to think, mourn, and rejoice. If she is treated with kindness, she lets dates ripen in large, rich clusters under her crown of leaves; but if she is neglected, she becomes surly and refuses to bear fruit. All Tebbes lives solely on the produce .of palms, and there is no part of the palm that is>not useful in some way. Hedin was told that the roots went "down to a depth of 115 ft, where the subsoil water lies. With all its remoteness, solitude, and insignificance, Tebbes is a pearl among the towns of Iran. —Outbreak of Plague.— The first case of plague, as far as ie known, occurred in November, 1904, in the eastern province of Seistan. During the winter the epidemic spread with such virulence that the Indian Government sent a doctor, with Hindu assistants, to observe the disease, and prevent it from spreading westwards. The physician selected was Captain Surgeon Kelly, who had shortly before been General Macdonald's staff surgeon on the expedition to Lhassa. The small poverty-stricken village of Dehgurg became a focus of infection. It had only 170 inhabitants, of whom- nearly all died. The disease spread to other villages, for the people were opposed to European ideas, and allowed no preventive measures to be taken, so that most of them also died. As the plague continued to spread, several hundred soldiers were placed round the villages. But Persian troops had as little conception of the danger as the rest of the people, and did not obey instructions, so the disease went on spreading. Serious ! riots took place. The mob, instigated by I priests, attacked the Belgian hospital, ! and burned it. Then 500 fanatics at- | tacked the English consulate at Nasreta- , bad. All the drugs were destroyed, and there was no medicine. The anisguided ; people could not understand why Europeans should come to their aid without reward, nor how it was that not a single European was attacked by the plague. The small double town of Nasretabad and Husseinabad has ordinarily about 7000 inhabitants. The plague broke out, and Nasretabad was practically evacuated, while only 2000 were left in Husseinabad'. There is an important_ difference between plague and cholera. If plague is introduced into a. family, it does not leave until all the inmates are dead. Cholera may kill only one or more members. At first the people in Seistan would not allow themselves to be inoculated, but later on they came eagerlv to the doctors for treatment. Experience showed them that those who wee inoculated lived, while those who were not died. Captain Kelly kept a record of the patients who were inoculated, and found that of over 400 not one had died. The priests could have helped the English to extirpate the plague in a month: but they would do nothing, as they wished to retain their hold and influence over the people. Horrble scenes occurred when the poor could not affed burial, and threw the corpses into 11 e streets. Cool weather was considered favourable to plague, _ whereas it declined, and almost ceased, in the sum- ' mer. I