Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/654

624 PERSIA [GEOGRAPHY. there to settle from distant parts of Persia, Afghanistan, and the Indian border. "Puce," he writes, "is husked under tilt-hammers worked by a water-wheel apparatus, a rude and clumsy contrivance, but strong, simple, and cheap. Corn and barley are ground by water-mills of primitive construction ; the best wheat -flour produced is inferior to English middlings. They are careless as to the use of rusty corn ; the effect of eating bread made with flour containing any of the noxious element is to render those unused to it very giddy." Sir John Malcolm considered the shores of the Persian Gulf to be sandy and unproductive in comparison with the rich clayey soil on those of the Caspian. Yet at Bushahr, and elsewhere on the lowlands of the southern border, patches of luxuriant vegetation may be found and a soil producing wheat and barley. Wiaes. Vines are abundant, and the Persian grapes are not only of a good flavour and kind, but the wines made from them by the Jews and Armenians have more than a mere local reputation. That of Shiraz is the most universally known and celebrated ; but a description of port manufactured at Ispahan is equally palatable and less astringent. It might not, however, bear the vicissitudes of export. A light wine made at Hamadan, diluted with water, is found very drinkable by European visitors and residents. Other cities in Persia could be cited where the juice of the grape is turned to similar account. Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin, who explored the southern shores of the Caspian in 1771, observed that the wines of Gilan and Mazandaran were all made from the wild grape only. Forests. Flora. Eastwick refers to the trees in the low country of Gilan as "part of that great forest which extends some 400 miles from Astarabad to Talish." No longer do the sparse olive and occasional plantation of fruit-trees here meet the eye of the traveller descending from the Persian plateau, but his path will be through dense thickets of "jangal," amid which the birch and the box and many familiar friends are recognized. There is an oak-forest in the vicinity of Shiraz, but no part of the country is so thickly wooded as the tract south of the Caspian. For the greater part of the province of Astrabad, Lovett surmises that nine-tenths of the surface is covered with forest. He excepts the pasture-lands of Shah Kuh, a high mountain- range between Shah Riid and the sea. The trees are mostly deciduous. He had counted forty different kinds, including shrubs, but was unable to identify all. There were the oak, beech, elm, walnut, plane, sycamore, ash, yew, box, and juniper, but no pine, fir, or cedar, though these last were said to exist in the dense forests of Fin- derisk, and on the slopes of the Goklan Hills to the east ward. He applies to the oak, beech, and elm used in building the native names of "mazu," "niis/ and "azad." Fruits. Fruits and flowers are abundant, and are fully appre ciated in Persia. Poets sing of them, and prince and peasant delight in them. Of fruits the variety is great, and the quality, though not always the best, is in some cases unrivalled. There is perhaps no melon in the world superior to that of Nusrabad, a village between Kashan and Kum. It were easier to name the few English fruits such as the gooseberry, strawberry, raspberry, currant, and medlar that are seldom, if at all seen, than the many that are commonly enjoyed by Persians. Apples and pears, filberts and walnuts, musk-melons and water melons, grapes, peaches, plums, nectarines, all these are to be had in profusion and so cheap as to be within reach of the poorest inhabitant. Flowers. Among the flowers are roses of many kinds, the mari gold, chrysanthemum, hollyhock, narcissus, tulip, tube rose, convolvulus, aster, wallflower, dahlia, white lily (much valued), hyacinth, violet, larkspur, pink, and many ornaments of the European parterre. Of the roses, Lady Sheil observes that they are so profuse during the sprin^ at Tehran that some are cultivated in fields as an object of trade to make rosewater. The double-coloured orange rose at Nishapur is exceptionally attractive and fragrant. As with fruits and flowers, so also with vegetables for Vege the table. If the parsnip be excepted, which is probably kbit not found because not wanted, all those commonly used in England are to be had in Persia. Fauna. Mr W. T. Blanford has described with great care and minuteness the zoology of Persia. In company with Major St John, R.E., he made a large collection of the verte brate fauna in a journey from Gwatar to Tehran in 1872. Having added to this a previous collection made by the same officer with the assistance of a native from Calcutta, he had before him the principal materials for his work. Before commencing his analysis he adverted to his prede cessors in the same field, i.e., Gmelin (whose travels were published in 1774-84), Olivier (1807), Pallas (1811), Menetries / (1832), Belanger (1834), Eichwald (1834-41), Aucher Eloy (1851), Loftus, Count Keyserling, Kok- schy, Chesney, the Hon. C. Murray, De Filippi (1865), Hume (1873), and Professor Strauch of St Petersburg. All of these had, more or less, contributed something to the knowledge of the subject, whether as writers or as collectors, or in both capacities, and to all the due meed of credit was assigned. Blanford divided Persia into five zoological provinces : ( 1 ) the Persian plateau, or from Zool the Kopet Dagh southwards to nearly 28 N". lat., includ- c ^ I ing all Khurdsan to the Perso-Afghan border, its western vme limit being indicated by a long line to the north-west from near Shiraz, taking in the whole upper country to the Russian frontier and the Alburz ; (2) the provinces south and south-west of the Caspian; (3) a narrow strip of wooded country south-west of the Zagros range, from the Diyah river in Turkish Arabia to Shiraz ; (4) the Persian side of the Shattu l- Arab, and Khuzistan, east of the Tigris ; and (5) the shores of the Persian Gulf and Baluchistan. The fauna of the Persian plateau he described as " Paleearctic, with a great prevalence of desert forms ; or, perhaps more correctly, as being of the desert type with Palaearctic species in the more fertile regions." In the Caspian pro vinces he found the fauna, on the whole, Palasarctic also, " most of the animals being identical with those of south eastern Europe." But some were essentially indigenous, and he observed " a singular character given to the faima by the presence of certain Eastern forms, unknown in other parts of Persia, such as the tiger, a remarkable deer of the Indo-Malayan group, allied to Germs axis, and a pit viper (Haiys)." Including the oak-forests of Shiraz with the wooded slopes of the Zagros, he found in his third division that, however little known was the tract, it appeared to contain, like the second, " a Palaearctic fauna with a few peculiar species." As to Persian Mesopotamia, he con sidered its fauna to belong to the same Palaaarctic region as Syria, but could scarcely speak with confidence on its characteristic forms. The fifth and last division, Baluch istan and the shores of the Persian Gulf, presented, however, in the animals common to the Persian highlands "for the most part desert types, whilst the characteristic Pakearctic species almost entirely disappear, their place being taken by Indian or Indo- African forms." Blan ford adds : " Just as the fauna of the Persian plateau has been briefly characterized as of the desert type with a large admixture of Palaearctic forms, that of Baluchistan and the shores of the Persian Gulf may be described as being desert with a small admixture of Indian species." Irrespective of scientific classification and detail, it may be Doi 1 stated that among the tame animals of Persia the horse, anil mule, and camel occupy an important position, and, jointly