ges surely that fact further establishes the
continuity of the city.

Personally, however, I have my doubts whether Major Sykes is correct in
placing the Rud-i-Nasru to the west of the city in Zaidan's days of
glory. There are signs of a canal, but to the east of the city. The
Hamun, too, I think, no more stretched across from east to west in the
northern portion than it does to-day, but rather formed two separate
lakes--the eastern one fed by the surplus water of the Halmund; the
western filled by the Farah Rud. The space between is liable to be
occasionally flooded by the excess of water in these two lakes, but that
is all.

All the evidence goes to show that the great city, under different local
names, extended continuously northwards as far as Lash Yuwain, passing
between the two marshy lakes. In the next chapter I have brought
undoubted evidence pointing to that conclusion, and if any one is still
sceptical about it, all he has to do is to go there and see for himself.
In such a dry climate the ruins, although gradually being covered over
with sand, will remain long enough for any one wishing to spend some time
there and to make a thorough study of them.

To the east of the Zaidan fort, about 100 yards and 200 yards
respectively, are the remains, still fairly well preserved, of a high
double wall, castellated and with loop-holes half-way up the wall. These
two walls, where free from sand, stand some 40 feet high, but in most
portions the sand has accumulated to a height of 15 to 20 feet.

These parallel walls were somewhat puzzling. They were only a few feet
apart and protected a road between them which went from north-west to
south-east. Each wall was constructed very strongly of two brick walls
filled between with beaten earth. The lower portion of the wall was much
corroded by the wind and sand, but the upper part where it had not
collapsed, was in good preservation. There were rows of holes at the
bottom on the east side, where there appeared to have been extensive
stables with mangers for horses. The lower portion of the wall was of
kiln-baked bricks, and the upper part in horizontal layers of baked
bricks every four feet and mud bricks between.

Of the two parallel walls the eastern one was not castellated, but the
western or inner had a castellated summit. There was an outer moat or
canal.

Only a comparatively small portion of this double wall stood up to its
former height--merely a few hundred feet