some of the principal buildings clearly refer their date to
the period of the Arab conquest, and further, as is evidenced by the
domes and arches forming the roofs of the houses, that then, as now, the
country was devoid of timber fit for building purposes. The most
remarkable characteristic of these ruins is their vast extent and
excellent preservation."

I, too, am of Bellew's opinion about these points. The several
inscriptions I found at Zaidan, photographs of which I have given in this
book, were, as we have seen, in Arabic; the ornamentations of which I
took tracings were Arabic in character.

Bellew reckons the great extent of the Peshawaran section of the ruins as
covering an area of about six miles by eight. He states that they were
the outgrowths of successive cities rising on the ruins of their
predecessors upon the same spot, and, like the other few travellers who
have intelligently examined the ruins, came to the conclusion that in
point of architecture and age the whole length from Lash Yuwain to the
north to Kala-i-Fath to the south, and including Peshawaran, Zaidan and
Kali-i-Fath were absolutely identical.

Goldsmid supplies information similar to Bellew's regarding the
Peshawaran ruins, and he writes that on his march north to Lash Yuwain he
had to go three or four miles to the west on account of the ruins. He
speaks of seeing a place of worship with a _mihrab_, and, curiously
enough, on the wall above it he found "the masonic star of five points
surrounded by a circle and with a round cup between each of the points
and another in the centre." He also saw the tomb of Saiyid Ikbal, also
mentioned by another traveller, Christie.

Eight miles west by north-west from the ruins rises a flat-topped
plateau-like hill, called the Kuh-i-Kuchah, not dissimilar in shape to
the Kuh-i-Kwajah to the south-west of Sher-i-Nasrya. Four villages are
found near it. To the east of it is found the Farah Rud, and to its west
the Harut Rud,--two rivers losing themselves (when they have any water in
them) into the lagoon. The Harut is not always flowing. To the south is
the Naizar lagoon forming part of the Hamun-Halmund. (This lagoon was
mostly dry when I went through.) It has formed a huge lake at various
epochs, but now only the northern portion, skirting the southern edge of
the Peshawaran ruins, has any permanent water in it, and is principally
fed by the delta of canals and by the overflow of the Halmund, over the