The Gerayli Turks of
Mazandaran
December 10th, 1874. To Nikah, 16 miles.
― Marched to the village of Nikah, on the banks of the stream of the same name,
which rises in the Shankuh Mountain, and flows into the sea 12 miles
west-north-west of Nikah. The high road from Ashraf is in unusually good order;
in place of the rough boulder pavement it is laid down in gravel, and is well
raised, drained, and fenced. It has the advantage, however, of running through
an open cultivated country and over dry hill-skirts. The Nikah stream is
spanned by a fine bridge in perfect order. The village of Nikah, the principal
place in that Beluk, has 150 to 200 houses and farms scattered about over the
cultivated land on both banks of the river. The people are Geraili Turks, of
which tribe there are six other villages in the Beluk. A large village,
Nowrazabad, lies at the mouth of the stream, but there is no port, the nearest
being Mash-had-i-Sar, further west on the Babil stream. East of the head of the
Miankullar peninsula the forest commences again, and extends along the coast as
far as the eye can reach. It is broken only by clearings. The bare marshy
plains of Ashraf were probably, till very lately, covered by the shallow waters
of the bay, the deposits of salt from which prevent the growth of the usual
luxuriant vegetation of the coast. The shore for many miles is flat, and is
submerged for some distance inland during northerly gales. The water of
Karatuppa and of other villages on the plain is brackish, and most of the
vegetation indicates a saline soil.
The
mountain-slopes to the right of the high road are to some extent cleared of
forest and cultivated. This I found was a result of the American war and the
famine, by which the demand for cotton and wheat was greatly increased. The
price of cotton at that time rose to 40 tomans per kharwar of 40 Tabriz maunds,
the normal price being 7 to 8. Production still pays and is increasing.
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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