Birjand in 1900
Birjand
itself was a good-sized town, and was said to
contain 25,000 people. The town had a flourishing
look, in so far that all the houses appeared to
be inhabited, and few ruins were to be seen
about, as is generally the case in most Persian
towns. There were few gardens around it, owing to
the general want of water. The qanat water in
the town was brackish, and sweet water had to
be brought from springs near the chiefs village
at the foot of the Kuh-i-Bakiran. These hills,
which bound the Birjand plain on the south, are
said to be twelve farsakhs in length and four in
breadth, and to have numbers of small springs in
the upland villages, to which many people move up
in the summer. This may account for the want of
game in them, as both ibex and oorial were said
to be scarce.
As to
trade in Birjand, the preponderance was said to
be with Bandar Abbas, but this did not appear to
be a certainty. The wool trade was mostly in the
hands of the Armenian merchants at Sabzawar, who
had agents in Birjand, and 5000 camel-loads of
wool and other goods were said to have been
exported during the year to Sabzawar for shipment
on the Caspian. Sugar appeared to be pretty
evenly divided between Russian from Sabzawar and
French from Bandar Abbas, the former selling for
6£ krans, and the latter for 7 krans per man of
6£ lbs.
English
piece goods were said to preponderate over
Russian in the proportion of 5 to 3, but how far
that was actually the case I had no means of
testing. However, during the year 3800
camel-loads of dried fruit, skins, saffron, and
opium had been despatched, it was said, by Birjand
merchants to Bandar Abbas. These camels mostly
went the long round via Neh and Bam, by which
they took two months going and the same
returning, and they brought back with them piece
goods, as well as tea, spices, iron, indigo,
sugar, and copper.
Regarding
the revenue of Birjand, I found that for the
whole Kain district the amount of 32,300 tuman
(£6660) was levied in cash from the
Shaukat-ul-Mulk by the Persian Government.
Khurasan and Sistan by Lieut.-Colonel
Charles Edward Yate. Edinburgh And London UK.
William Blackwood and Sons MDCCCC (although
MDCCCC does equal 1900, MCM is the proper usage)