Page:EB1911 - Volume 10.djvu/202



The above sixty districts are grouped into eighteen sub-provinces under governors appointed by the governor-general of Fars, but the towns of Bushire, Lingah and Bander Abbasi, together with the villages in their immediate neighbourhood, form a separate government known as that of the “Persian Gulf Ports” (Benādir i Khalij i Fars), under a governor appointed from Teheran. The population of the province has been estimated at 750,000 and the yearly revenue it pays to the state amounts to about £150,000. Many districts are fertile, but some, particularly those in the south-eastern part of the province, do not produce sufficient grain for the requirements of the sparse population. In consequence of droughts, ravages of locusts and misgovernment by local governors the province has been much impoverished and hundreds of villages are in ruins and deserted. About a third of the population is composed of turbulent and lawless nomads who, when on the march between their winter and summer camping grounds, frequently render the roads insecure and occasionally plunder whole districts, leaving the inhabitants without means of subsistence.

The province produces much wheat, barley, rice, millet, cotton, but the authorities every now and then prohibiting the export of cereals, the people generally sow just as much as they think will suffice for their own wants. Much tobacco of excellent quality, principally for consumption in Persia, is also grown (especially in Fessa, Darab and Jahrom) and a considerable quantity of opium, much of it for export to China, is produced. Salt, lime and gypsum are abundant. There are also some oil