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 2. Outer Seistan, the country on the right bank of the Helmund, and east of its embouchure in the Hamun, extends more than 100 m. in length, or from a point between the Charboli and Khuspas rivers north to Rudbar south. In breadth the district of Chakhansur, measuring from the old bed of the Helmund, inclusive of Nad Ali, to Kadah, may be estimated at some 30 m. It produces wheat and barley, melons, and perhaps a few vegetables and oil seeds. Beyond the Chakhansur limits, southward or up to the Helmund, there is probably no cultivation save that obtained on the river bank, and ordinarily illustrated by patches of wheat and barley with melon beds. On the opposite side of the river, in addition to the cultivated portions of the bank, there is a large tract extending from south of Kuhak, or the Seistan dam (band), to the gravelly soil below the mountain ranges which separate Seistan from Baluchistan and N armashir. The distance from north to south of this plain may be computed at 40 m., and from east to west at 80 or 90 m. Lands north of the Naizar not belonging to the Afghan district of Lash ]uwain may also be included in Outer Seistan; but it is unnecessary to make any distinction of the kind for the tract marked Hamun on the west, where it merges into the Persian frontier. The inhabitants are Seistanis or Parsiwans, Baluch nomads and Afghans. Between the Kuhak band and Rudbar they are mainly Baluch. Most of the less nomad tribesmen are Sanjurani and Toki, the sardars jealously claiming the former appellation.

The population is about 205,000, but the country, even with the lazy methods of the present day, furnishes a very large amount of grain and food-supplies in excess of local requirements, and it could, of course, be made to furnish very much more. Under improved government Seistan could with but little trouble be made into a second Egypt.

The inhabitants of Seistan are mainly composed of Kaianis, descendants of the ancient rulers of the land; Sarbandis and Shahrakis, tribes supposed to have consisted originally of immigrants from western Persia; and Baluchis of the Nharui and Sanjurani (Toki) clans. Bellew separates the “Seistanis”; but it is a question whether this term is not in a large measure applied to mixed inhabitants of the country, whatever their descent and nationality. The dense reed-beds (Naizar) skirting the Hamun, often several miles in width and composed of reeds 10 ft. or more in height, look impenetrable, but narrow winding lanes, exist in them, known only to the Sayāds (Arab. for “hunter”), a strange aboriginal race of Seistan, who live by netting fish and water-fowl. These people live all the year round at the water’s edge, in huts made of reeds, and change their abodes as the waters advance or recede. They have a language of their own, and are an unsociable people, suspicious of strangers, ever ready to decamp if they think a tax-collector is near.

History.—The ancient Drangiana (Zaraya, Daranka, “lake land”) received the name of “land of the Sacae” after this country was permanently occupied by the “Scythians” or Sacae, who overran Iran in 128 It was included in the Sassanian empire, and then in the empire of the caliphs. About 860, when it had undergone many changes of government under lieutenants of the Bagdad caliphs, or bold adventurers acting on their own account, Yakub b. Laith al-Saffar made it the seat of his power. In 901 it fell under the power of the Samanids, and a century later into that of the Ghaznevids. An invasion of Jagatais and the irruption of Timur are, salient points in the, history of Seistan prior to the Sefavid conquest (1508). Up to 1722 Seistan remained more or less a Persian dependency. At the time of the Afghan invasion of Mir Mahmud (1722), Malik Mahommed Kaiani was the resident ruler in Seistan, and by league with the invader or other intrigue he secured for himself that particular principality and a great part of Khorasan also. He was slain by Nadir Kuli Khan, the general of Shah Tahmasp, who afterwards, as Nadir Shah, became possessor of Seistan as part of his Persian dominions. Shortly after the death of Nadir (1751) Seistan passed, together with other provinces, into the hands of Ahmad Shah Abdali, the first sovereign in a united Afghanistan. On the death of Ahmad Shah in 1773 the country became a recognized bone of contention, not so much between Persians and Afghans as between Herat and Kandahar; but eventually the internal dissensions of Afghanistan gave Persia the desired opportunity; and by a steady course of intrigue and encroachment she, managed to get within her grasp the better lands on the left bank of the lower Helmund and something on the right bank besides. When the British arbitrator appeared on the scene in the beginning of 1872, though compelled to admit the shah’s possession of what has been called “Seistan Proper,” he could in fairness insist on the evacuation of Nad Ali, Kala Fath, and all places occupied on the right bank by Persian troops; and furthermore he left to the Afghans both sides of the river Helmund from the dam of Kuhak toits elbow west of Rudbar. A part of the work of General Sir Frederic J. Goldsmid, K.C.S.I., who conducted thehrst Seistan demarcation commission in 1872, was left undone and completed only in 1903–1905 by Col Sir Henry McMahon, K.C.I.E.

