changes in the river beds, whereby often whole fields are swept away.
Much of this tract is moreover low and swampy; the climate is trying;
and rice is almost the only product that can be advantageously
cultivated.

The low region lying south of the Great Plateau is neither extensive
nor valuable. It consists of a mere strip of land along the coast of
the Indian Ocean, extending a distance of about nine degrees (550 miles)
from the mouth of the Persian Gulf to Cape Monze, near Kurrachee, but
in width not exceeding ten or, at the most, twenty miles. This tract
was occupied in ancient times mainly by a race which Herodotus called
Ethiopians and the historians of Alexander Ichthyophagi (Fish-Eaters).
It is an arid, sultry, and unpleasant region, scarcely possessing a
perennial stream, and depending for its harvests entirely upon the
winter rains, and for its water during the summer on wells which are
chiefly brackish. Tolerable pasturage is, however, obtainable in places
even during the hottest part of the year, and between Cape Jask and
Gwattur the crops produced are far from contemptible.

A small tract of coast, a continuation of the territory just described,
intervening between it and Kerman, was occupied in the early Persian
times by a race known to the Persians as Maka, and to the Greeks as
Mycians. This district, reaching from about Cape Jask to Gombroon,
is one of greater fertility than is usual in these regions, being
particularly productive in dates and grain. This fertility seems,
however, to be confined to the vicinity of the sea-shore.

To complete the description of the Eastern provinces two other tracts
must be mentioned. The mountain-chain which skirts the Great Plateau on
the north, distinguished in these pages by the name of Elburz, broadens