Jafarabad
October 25th, 1874. To Jafirabad, 27 miles.
― Between Radkan and Jafirabad is a dry, barren tract, lying between the head
springs of the Kashaf Rud, or Ali Mashad, and the Koochan tributary of the
Atrak. Midway on the march is a stream of water from a “karez,” quite brackish.
The soil is sandy and unfertile, growing nothing but salt-plants, thorns, and a
few scattered bushes of tamarisk. The width of the plain is from 15 to 18
miles. It slopes gently up to the hills on either side, and to within 2 or 3
miles of Jafirabad, where it is broken by undulations and low ridges thrown out
by the mountains on the north. In winter, snow lies very deep, and the plain is
swept by a cold wind from the steppes, known as the “ayesh.” Jafirabad is a
small village of thirty houses of Zafaranlu Kurds, and Turks, the first in the
State of Koochan. The dryness of the climate, and the high winds prevalent in
the winter and spring, which destroy all vegetation not protected by a covering
of snow, leave the villagers dependent on their wheat-crops. There are no
gardens and no trees. In the famine years the wheat failed, and the village was
almost destroyed of families, only thirty remaining.
G. C. Napier, Kazi Syud Ahmad — Extracts from a Diary
of a Tour in Khorassan, and Notes on the Eastern Alburz Tract. With Notes on
the Yomut Tribe (1876)
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