É. Apor (ed.): Stein, Aurel: Old Routes of Western Iran. (Budapest Oriental Reprints, Ser. B 2.)
Chapter II. —In Kohgalu Tracts
6 8 IN KOHGALU TRACTS [Chap. II Owing to the depth of the river no crossing was practicable near the ruined bridge, and the approach of nightfall would not allow time for seeking a ford elsewhere ; so I was unable to examine closely the remains on the right bank, or what looked like the ruins of a caravanserai above them. But what we had seen of the size and solidity of the later bridge gave a sufficient impression of the amount of labour its construction must have involved, and also of the extent and importance of the traffic it must have carried in early Muhammadan times. I have not been able to find any reference to this bridge in the Arab geographical records made accessible in Professor Schwarz's Iran im Mittelalter, nor could I learn of any local tradition regarding it. But comparing its structural features with those subsequently observed at certain ruined bridges in Lüristän, one at least of which is exactly dated by an inscription of A.D. iooi, 3 I should think it difficult to ascribe it to a period later than that of the Abbasids, or the nth-i2th century of our era. The direct road leading from the ruined bridge to Lishtar is still known to the people of the Buyair Ahmad tribe now settled at the village of Qadräbäd, higher up on the river, but it has certainly been abandoned for centuries. There was no information obtainable about a large canal, undoubtedly old, which can be traced for a considerable distance below the bridges, and which in one place is carried by a tunnel through the cliffs above the river-bed on its left side. It had obviously served to irrigate the high-lying ground near the previously noted medieval site of Häji All. Evidence of much more ancient occupation 3 See below, pp. 271 sq.
