HERAT, city and province, Afghanistan. The city lies in 34° 20' 3o" N., and 62° I I' o" E., 2,50o ft. above sea-level. Esti mated pop. about io,000. It has quite lost its ancient commercial importance. From it lines of communication radiate to Russian, British, Persian and Afghan territory. The city forms a quad rangle about 1,600 yd. by 1,5oo yd.; on the west, south and east, only the gateways project from the line of defence but on the north there is a double outwork consisting of the Ark or citadel, and a lower work at its foot, called the Ark-i-nao, or "new citadel," which extends 1 oo yd. beyond the line of the city wall. That which distinguishes Herat from all other Oriental cities is the stupendous earthwork upon which the city wall is built. This earthwork averages 25o ft. in width at the base and about 5o ft. in height, and as it is crowned by a wall 25 ft. high and 14 ft. thick at the base, supported by about 15o semi-circular towers, and is further protected by a ditch 45 ft. in width and 16 in depth, it presents an appearance of imposing strength.
When the royal engineers of the Russo-Afghan Boundary Commission entered Herat in 1885 they found its buildings in various stages of disrepair and lacking all effective defences. Outside, ancient ruins and mounds impeded all field of fire. To the north-west, beyond the Tal-i-Bangi, the magnificent outlines of the IVIosalla filled a wide space with the glorious curves of dome and gateway and the stately grace of tapering minars. The needs of defence, however, called for its destruction, but four minars standing at the corners of the wide plinth still remain to attest to its glory and to exhibit samples of decorative tilework of intricate beauty of design and exquisite taste in the blending of colour. At the same time the ancient graveyards round the city were swept smooth and levelled; obstructions were demolished, outworks constructed, and the defences generally renovated. Whether or no the strength of this bulwark of north-western Af ghanistan should ever be practically tested, the general result of the most recent investigations into the value of Herat as a strategic centre has been largely to modify the once widely-accepted view that the key to India lies within it. Abdur Rahman and his suc cessor Habibullah steadfastly refused the offer of British engi neers to strengthen its defences; and though the Afghans them selves have occasionally undertaken repairs, it is doubtful whether the old walls of Herat are maintained in a state of efficiency.
The city possesses five gates, two on the northern face, the Kutab-chak near the north-east angle of the wall, and the Malik at the re-entering angle of the Ark-i-nao ; and three others in the centres of the remaining faces, the Irak gate on the west, the Kandahar gate on the south and the Kushk gate on the east face. The main streets, the Chahar-ma are well built, the principal one having a vaulted roof. Near the central quadrangle of the city is a vast domed reservoir of water. The only other public building of any consequence in Herat is the Jamma Musjid or Great Mosque which comprises an area of Boo yd. square, and must have been a most magnificent structure. It was erected towards the close of the i 5th century, during the reign of Shah Sultan Hussein of the family of Timur, and is said when perfect to have been 465 ft. long by 275 ft. wide, to have had 408 cupolas, t 3o windows, 444 pillars and 6 entrances, and to have been adorned in the most magnificent manner with gilding, carving, precious mosaics and other elaborate and costly embellishments.
Along the slopes of the northern hills there is a space of some 4 m. in length by 3 m. in breadth, the surface of the plain, strewn over its whole extent with pieces of pottery and crumbling bricks, and also broken here and there by earthen mounds and ruined walls, the debris of palatial structures which at one time were the glory and wonder of the East. Of these struc tures indeed some have survived to the present day in a sufficiently perfect state to bear witness to the grandeur and beauty of the old architecture of Herat. Scarcely inferior to the mosque of the Mosalla though of more moderate dimensions, is the tomb of the saint Abdullah Ansari, in the same neighbourhood. This building, erected by Shah Rukh Mirza, grandson of Timur, over soo years ago, contains exquisite Oriental sculpture. Adjoining the tomb also are marble sepulchres of princes of the house of Timur; and especially deserving of notice is a royal building tastefully decor ated by an Italian artist named Geraldi, in the service of Shah Abbas the Great. It is held in high veneration by all classes, and the famous Dost Mohammed Khan is himself buried at the foot of the tomb of the saint. Two other royal palaces named respec tively Bagh-i-Shah and Takht-i-Se f er, are on the same rising ground somewhat farther to the west.
The original inhabitants of Ari ana were no doubt of the Aryan family, cognate with the Persian race, but they probably intermixed at a very early period with the Sacae and Massagetae, who seem to have held the mountains from Kabul to Herat and to whom must be ascribed—rather than to an infusion of Turco-Tartaric blood introduced by the armies of Jenghiz and Timur—the peculiar broad features and flattish countenance of the inhabitants of Herat, Seistan and the eastern provinces of Persia. Under Herat, however, there are a very large number of tribes, ruled over by separate and semi-independent chiefs, and belonging probably to different nationalities. The prin cipal group of tribes is called the Chahar-Aimak, or "four races," the constituent parts of which, however, are variously stated by different authorities both as to strength and nomenclature. The Heratis are agricultural and not nearly so warlike as the Pathans from the neighbourhood of Kabul or Kandahar.
The long narrow valley of the Hari Rud, starting from the western slopes of the Koh-i-Baba, extends almost due west for 30o m. before it takes its great northern bend at Kuhsan, and passes northwards through the broken ridges of the Siah Bubuk (the western extremity of the range which we now call Paropamisus) towards Sarakhs. For the greater part of its length it drains the southern slopes only of the Paropamisus and the northern slopes of a parallel range called Koh-i-Safed. The Paro pamisus forms the southern face of the Turkistan plateau, which contains the sources of the Murghab river; the northern face of the same plateau is defined by the Band-i-Turkistan. On the south of the plateau we find a similar succession of narrow val leys dividing parallel flexures, or anticlinals, formed under similar geological conditions to those which appear to be universally ap plicable to the Himalaya, the Hindu Kush, and the Indus frontier mountain systems. From one of these long lateral valleys the Hari Rud receives its principal tributary, which joins the main river below Obeh, i 8o m. from its source; and it is this tributary (separated from the Hari Rud by the narrow ridges of the Koh i-Safed and Band-i-Baian) that offers the high road from Herat to Kabul, and not the Hari Rud itself. From its source to Obeh the Hari Rud is a valley of sandy desolation. Masses of melting snow annually give rise to floods, frequently rendering the river impassable and cutting off the crazy brick bridges at Herat and Tirpul. It is impossible, whilst watching the rolling, seething vol ume of flood-water which swirls westwards in April, to imagine the waste stretches of dry river-bed which in a few months' time (when every available drop of water is carried off for irrigation) will represent the Hari Rud. The soft shales or clays of the hills bounding the valley render these hills especially subject to the action of denudation, and the result, in rounded slopes and easily accessible crests, determines the nature of the easy tracks and passes which intersect them. At the same time, any excessive local rainfall is productive of difficulty and danger from the floods of liquid mud and loose boulders which sweep like an avalanche down the hill sides. The intense cold which usually accompanies these sudden northern blizzards of Herat and Turkistan is a fur ther source of danger.
From Obeh, 5o m. east of Herat, the culti vated portion of the valley commences, and it extends, with a width which varies from 8 to 16 m., in Kuhsan, 6o m. west of the city, presenting a remarkable scene of luxurious fertility. The system of irrigation by which these agricultural results are at tained is most elaborate. The Herati Tajik, adopts the karez (or, Persian, kanat) system of underground irrigation and brings every drop of water that he can find to the surface. The valley about Herat includes a flat alluvial plain. Three miles to the south of the city the river flows from east to west, spanned by the Pal-i-Malun. East and west stretches the long vista of the Hari Rud. Due north lie the hills called the Koh-i-Mulla Khwaja about 3 m. distant from the city. This northern line of barren, broken sandstone hills is geographically no part of the Paro pamisus range, from which it is separated by a stretch of sandy upland about 20 m. in width, called the Dasht-i-Hamdamao, or Dasht-i-Ardewan, formed by the talus or drift of the higher mountains. Through this stretch of dasht the drainage from the main water-divide breaks downwards to the plains of Herat, where it is arrested and utilized for irrigation purposes.
To the north-east of the city a very considerable valley has been formed between the Paropamisus and the subsidiary Koh-i-Mulla Khwaja range, called Korokh. Here there are one or two important villages and a well-known shrine marked by a group of pine trees which is unique in this part of Afghanistan. The valley leads to a group of passes across the Paropamisus into Turkistan, of which the Zirmast is perhaps the best known. The main water-divide between Herat and the Turkistan Chol (the loess district) has been called Paropamisus for want of any well-recognized general name. To the north of the Korokh valley it exhibits something of the formation of the Hindu Kush (of which it is apparently a geological extension), but as it passes westwards it becomes broken into fragments by processes of denudation, until it is hardly recognizable as a dis tinct range at all. The direct passes across it from Herat (the Baba and the Ardewan) wind amongst masses of disintegrating sandstone for some miles on each side of the dividing watershed, but farther west the rounded knolls of the rain-washed downs,may be crossed almost at any point without difficulty.
The name of Herat first appears in the list of primitive Zoro astrian settlements contained in the V endidad Sade, where it seems to apply to the river or river-basin, which was the special centre of population. Of the foundation of Herat (or Hen) nothing is known. We can only infer from the colossal character of the earthworks which surround the modern town that, like the similar remains at Bost on the Helmund and at Ulan Robat of Arachosia, they belong to that period of Central-Asian history which pre ceded the rise of Achaemenian power, and which in Grecian romance is illustrated by the names of Bacchus, of Hercules, and of Semiramis. To trace in any detail the fortunes of Herat would be to write the modern history of the East, for there has hardly been a revolution, or war, in Central Asia since the time of the prophet in which Herat has not played a conspicuous part. Under the Tahirids of Khorasan, the Saffarids of Seistan, and the Samanids of Bokhara it flourished for some centuries in peace and progressive prosperity; but during the succeeding rule of the Ghaznevid kings its metropolitan character was for a time ob scured by the celebrity of the neighbouring capital of Ghazni (q.v.) until finally in the reign of Sultan Sanjar of Merv, about "57, the city was entirely destroyed by an irruption of the Ghuzz, the predecessors of the modern Turkomans. Herat grad ually recovered under the enlightened Ghorid kings, so that at the time of Jenghiz Khan's invasion it equalled or even exceeded in populousness and wealth its sister capitals of Balkh, Merv, and Nishapur, the united strength of the four cities being estimated at three millions of inhabitants. But this Mongol visitation was most calamitous: only 4o persons are said to have survived the general massacre of 1232, and a similar catastrophe overtook the city in 1398 on the fall of the Kurt dynasty (see MONGOLS). It is, therefore, astonishing to find that early in the 15th century Herat was again flourishing and populous, and the favoured seat of the art and literature of the East. It was under the princes of the house of Timur that most of the noble buildings were erected, of which the remains still excite our admiration at Herat, while all the great historical works relative to Asia, such as the Rozet es-Se f a, the Habib-es-Seir, Ha fiz A bru's Tarikh, the Matlei a-es Sa'adin, etc., date from the same place and the same age. Four times was Herat sacked by Turkomans and Usbegs during the centuries which intervened between the Timuride princes and the rise of the Afghan power, and it has never in modern times attained to anything like its old importance. Afghan tribes, who had originally dwelt far to the east, were first settled at Herat by Nadir Shah, and from that time they have monopolized the government and formed the dominant element in the popula tion. It is needless to trace the revolutions and counter-revolu tions which have followed each other in quick succession at Herat since Ahmad Shah Durani founded the Afghan monarchy about the middle of the 18th century; it is enough to say that Herat has been throughout the seat of an Afghan Government, some times in subordination to Kabul and sometimes independent. Persia indeed for many years showed a strong disposition to re assert the supremacy over Herat which was exercised by the Safawid kings, but Britain steadily resisted the encroachment; and, indeed, after helping the Heratis to beat off the attack of the Persian army in 1838, the British at length compelled the shah in 1857, at the close of his war with them, to sign a treaty recognizing the further independence of the place, and pledging Persia against any further interference with the Afghans. In 1863 Herat, which for So years previously had been independent of Kabul, was incorporated by Dost Mohammed Khan in the Afghan monarchy.
See C. E. Yate, Northern Afghanistan (1888) ; Holdich, Indian Borderland (1901) ; Angus Hamilton, Afghanistan (1906) .
