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Situated, like Pasargadae and Persepolis, in a capacious plain surrounded by mountains, which furnish sufficient water for cultivation to be carried on by means of kanats in most parts of the tract enclosed by them, and occupying a site through which the trade of the country almost of necessity passes, Kerman must always be a town of no little consequence.
The streams which flow from Zagros towards the East are few and scanty; they mostly fail in summer, which, even in Asia, is the campaigning season; and those who cross the desert at this time must depend on the wells wherewith the more western part of the region is supplied by means of kanats or underground conduits, which are sometimes carried many miles from the foot of the mountains.
The system of kanats, as they are called at the present day, aims at utilizing to the uttermost all the small streams and rills which descend towards the desert from the surrounding mountains, and at conveying as far as possible into the plain the spring water, which is the indispensable condition of cultivation in a country where except for a few days in the spring and autumn rain scarcely ever falls.
The mountains send down a number of small streams towards the south; and the water of these, judiciously husbanded by means of reservoirs and kanats, is capable of spreading fertility over a broad belt at the foot of the hills; which, left to nature, would be almost as barren as the desert itself, into which it would, in fact, be absorbed.
Years ago the utmost was made of the sources from which water is drawn; no pains have been spared to extract every possible drop of water from the heart of the hills within a considerable distance, and to convey it undiminished by evaporation to the city. This is done by underground channels called kanats, which are excavated with great ingenuity and skill, and are marvels of industry.
At present the kanats, or underground water-courses, are seldom carried to a distance of more than a mile or two from the foot of the hills; but it is thought that anciently the cultivation was extended considerably further.
There was an arrangement of loose-boxes in kanats, and she was in the next one talking to him. 'Which? How? Explain. 'You know what I mean The Dowd and The Dancing Master. We could hear every word, and we listened shamelessly 'specially the Hawley Boy. Polly, I quite love that woman! 'This is interesting. There! Now turn round. What happened? 'One moment. Ah h! Blessed relief.
Either by the system of kanats or subterranean aqueducts, which has prevailed in the East from very early times, or by an elaborate network of canals, the fertilizing fluid was conveyed to nearly every part of Mesopotamia, which shows by its innumerable mounds, in regions which are now deserts, how large a population it was made to sustain under the wise management of the great Assyrians monarchs.
It is remarkable that fish are caught not only in the open streams of Media, but also in the kanats or underground conduits, from which the light of day is very nearly excluded. They appear to be of one sort only, viz., barbel, but are abundant, and often grow to a considerable size.
Corn, no doubt, could be grown largely in the plains and valleys of the mountain tract, as well as on the plateau, so far as the kanats carried the water. There must have been, on the whole, a deficiency of timber, though the palms of the low tract, and the oaks, planes, chenars or sycamores, poplars, and willows of the mountain regions sufficed for the wants of the natives.
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