É. Apor (ed.): Stein, Aurel: Old Routes of Western Iran. (Budapest Oriental Reprints, Ser. B 2.)

Chapter II. —In Kohgalu Tracts

CHAPTER II IN KOHGALU TRACTS SECTION I—FROM BÄSHT TO THE KHAIRÄBÄD RIVER ON reaching the valley of Bäsht we had left Färs behind and entered the province of Khüzistän. We found Bäsht village, some 5 miles up the valley, once apparently a larger place and still the headquarters of a military district officer, reduced to some two dozen huts, and the fort of its late chief shelled into a ruin. Though Bäsht receives some water for irrigation from a high massif close on 10,000 feet in height and carrying old snow on its top, cultivation in the valley is very scanty, and the consequent delay in securing fresh fodder supplies for the onward journey necessitated a day's halt. Apart from a decayed quadrangular wall and ditch within which the hamlet nestles, and an abandoned village site with a large cemetery about 2 miles to the south, I did not learn of any old remains in the valley itself. The Qal'a-i-dukhtar, which was visited on December 7th on the way to Khän Hammäd, our next stage, proved to be a ruined small fort crowning a narrow precipitous ridge at a height of some 4000 feet to the north of the nullah followed by the motor road. The name of the ruin suggested antiquity. But when it was reached after a difficult climb we found only ruined 53