ground, accounts for tliis change in the appearance of the
country; about two-thirds of which are, from the absence of
water, reduced to a desert. The nature of the surface, however,
varies considerably, the soil being, in many places,
suited to the wants of a pastoral people ; whilst in others it
consists of a deep and moving sand, which seems doomed to
hopeless sterility, and such is the worst part of the Baluchistan
desert. In other places the ground consists of pebbles
and flints, with a dark burnt appearance, destitute of grass,
or only showing a few stunted tamarisks and other shrubs,
together with a sprinkling of leafless, purple-coloured lilies,
which have forced their way through what otherwise seems
to be an impenetrable crust.
Most generally, the country presents to the eye of the
traveller only a monotonous, dry, cracked soil, encrusted with
nitrous particles in the warm season; and covered with
brackish marshes, in the low parts, during the winter. This,
though unfit for the permanent abode of man, is not altogether
destitute of vegetation, but bears the soap-plant, camel-
thorn, tamarisk, bebul, and other stunted shrubs, of which
there are sufficient for the support of the camels.
In places where the desert assumes its least unpromising
aspect, it presents the appearance of a parched, cracked surface
at one period of the year, but at another it yields a scanty
supply of sheep grass; and, in consequence, it affords the
means of nourishing the horses and flocks of the Iliyats,
Kurds, and other tribes, when the severity of the weather
forces them to descend into the plains, and change their
locality as the pasture fails. Trees are very rarely seen, but
wild liquorice and rue, the spice-plant, gum ammoniac, the
tamarisk, bebul, and other shrubs, are scattered over the
surface, which, not unfrequently, is barren from neglect,
rather than from the want of capability in the soil itself.
An uninhabited tract, partaking in different places of each
of the above kinds of desert, intervenes between the cities of
Teheran and Ispahan. It is known as the salt desert, and
penetrates eastward into Khorasan, spreading southward
from thence to the borders of Fars. Another such waste
commences northward of the city of Kirman, from whence it
branches eastward till it joins that of Seistan, and westward
till it unites with the preceding desert; so that, with the
exception of the oases preserved by industry about the towns
and villages, the desert extends upwards of 500 miles from
west to east, and more than 300 miles from north to south.
The soil is composed of hard clay mixed with dark gravel,
or, which is more generally the case, it consists entirely of
the former substance, in that exceedingly indurated state,
which is, in all tropical climates, the natural consequence of
the continued absence of water. Even where it is cultivated,
the latter character prevails largely, till that period of the
year at which the clay, or in some cases the clay mixed with
gravel, is, by means of irrigation, brought from a state of
barrenness to one of the utmost fertility.
In a country deprived both of wood and water, consisting
of wide-spreading plains, terminating with brown, irregular,
rocky ridges, looking like the ruins of gigantic walls, and in
which, moreover, the verdure of pasturage is confined to a
brief period of the spring, there can be but little to diversify
the scenery. A dreary, monotonous, reddish-brown colour
is presented by every thing in Iran; including equally the
mountains, plains, fields, rocks, animals, and reptiles. For
even in the more favoured districts, the fields which have
yielded an abundant crop are so parched and burnt before
midsummer, that if it were not for the heaps of corn in
the villages near them, a passing stranger might conclude
that a harvest was unknown in that apparently barren
region.
The extremes of climate usually found in a territory comprehending
many degrees of latitude are greatly modified by
the immense extent of the steppes,.which produce a considerable
uniformity of temperature. The surface of iran may,
however, be considered as enjoying four kinds of climate;
viz., the warm, the humid, the temperate, and the cold. A
dry heat, exceeding that which is experienced in the West
Indies, or even in Gibraltar during the height of summer,
almost always prevails in the greatest part of Irak Arabia,