10 JOURNEYS IN PERSIA LETTER xvi

mills, and the hand mills worked by women, grind the
wheat into the coarse flour used by them.

It appears from the statements of the Mollah-i-Murtaza,
Aziz Khan, an intelligent son of Chiragh All Khan, and
others, that the tenure of arable lands is very simple
and well understood. " From long ago " certain of such
lands have been occupied by certain tribes, and have
been divided among families. Some of the tribes possess
documents, supposed to secure these rights, granted by
Ali Mardan Khan, the Bakhtiari king of Persia, in the
anarchical period which followed the death of Nadir Shah.
Those of them who are without documents possess the
lands by right of use. Nearly all the tribes have indi-
vidual rights of tillage, and have expended much labour
on their lands in irrigation and removing stones. A fee
for the use of these lands is paid to the Ilkhani every year
in money or cattle.

For pasturage there is only the right of "use and wont/'
and the grazing is free. For camping-grounds each tribe
has its special "use and wont/' subject to change by
the order of the Ilkhani, but it was out of quarrels con-
cerning these and the pasture lands that many of the
feuds at present existing arose.

We left Ali-kuh in a westerly direction, followed and
crossed the Karun, left it at its junction with the Duab, as-
cended this short affluent to its source, crossed the Garclan-
i-Cherri at an elevation of 9200 feet, and descended 4000
feet into the Bazuft or Eudbar valley, where the camps now
are. The road after leaving Ali-kuh, where the slopes were
covered with pink and white hollyhocks, keeps along a
height above the Karun, and then descends abruptly
into a chasm formed of shelves of conglomerate, on the
lowest of which there is just room for a loaded mule
between the cliffs and the water at the narrowest part.
Shadowed by shelf upon shelf of rock, the river shoots