-Nasrya. The three
words mean the "City of Nasr," Nasr being an abbreviation of Nasr-ed-din
Shah, in honour of whom the city was named. In Sistan itself the city
goes by the shortened name of mere "Sher" or "city," but letters sent by
Persians from other parts of the Shah's dominions are generally addressed
Sher-i-Nasrya, or simply Sher-i-Sistan.

[Illustration: Women at Bandan.]

[Illustration: Dr. Golam Jelami and his Patients.]

When the place was first conquered by the father of the present Amir,
Mir-Alam-Khan, it was spoken of as Nusratabad, or the "City or Victory,"
just the same as we speak of the "City of the Commune," or the "Eternal
City," or the "City of Fogs." The name "Nusratabad" only applied to
the victory and not to the city. We should certainly not wish to see the
names of the three above illustrations given on maps for Paris, Rome, or
London.

As for calling the city Nasirabad, as the Trigonometrical Survey maps do,
there is no excuse whatever for this, which is a mere blunder--not the
only one, unfortunately--and attributes to the city the name of a small
village some eight miles off.

The present Sher-i-Nasrya is not more than twenty years old. It has a
double wall all round, a higher one with semicircular castellated towers,
and a lower on a mud bank with outwardly projecting semicircular
protected platforms, the walls of which, eight feet high, are loopholed
in a primitive fashion. On the inner side of the lower wall there is a
platform all along the wall for soldiers to stand upon. The city wall,
forty feet high, is separated from this outer defence by a road all round
the city, and outside of all there is a moat, but with very little water
in it.

The wall on the south side (really S.S.W.) has ten towers, the two
central ones being close together and larger than the others, between
which is the principal city gate, reached by an earthen bridge and a
tortuous way, as the entrance of the outer wall is not in a line with the
inner. The east and west side have only eight towers, including the
corner ones, the double towers being the fourth and fifth. Every tower
is semicircular, with loopholes pointing towards the sky--very useful in
case of defence--and a large opening for pieces of artillery. The corner
towers have two of these apertures, one under the other.

A kind of bastion or battlement has been formed by piling up the earth
removed from the moat round the lower wall. The moat is forty