The Great Desert of Khorasan commences east of Koom, and stretches almost due east to the north of Khoor. From near this it turns to the south, and gradually lessens in width. At its broadest, S. of Damghan, it is about 150 miles broad, but generally where the roads cross it its breadth is from 80 to 100 miles. It is a barrier more difficult than any mountains in N. Persia and Khorasan (MacGregor, Khorasan), a desert plain without one blade of grass, one leaf of any kind, or living thing of any sort. Its dark soil is covered with a thick saline efflorescence, which glitters painfully on the eyes, and is felt crunch ing under the feet. lIere and there are darker moist patches. The Kavir is honeycombed with holes about 9 inches deep, and the size of a man's head.
The Desert of Kizl-Koont (red sand) extends over an area of 35,000 square miles.
The desert called Reg-i-Sistan or Reg-i-Baluch istan, on the S.W. part of Afghanistan, extends from the highlands of Kalat to the boundary or Sarbad mountains south of Seistan. It extends from the Mushti range in the south, to the plain of Kandahar on the north, where it ends in a belt, ten or fifteen inile.s wide, of ,high dmert cliffs, called Choi or dry land. Tho nomades pasture their cattle there in winter, as it produces a rich pasture at that sea.son of the year.
The Great Indian Desert, on the eastern aide of the Indus, lies between Sind and Rajputana. It is a sandy tract, but is covered with shrubs, and in. places small trees grow. The population is thin, but villages aro found throughout ; and immense herds of camels, cattle, sheep, and goats are pastured. It is entirely destitute of streams of water, with but few hills of rock, and a large portion of tho surface consists of sandhills of considerable height, c,alled Thar or Thurr, or T'hul. When rain falls, crops of bajra (Penicillaria) are raised ; and when they fail, tho population live principally on tho milk of cattle and on imported grain. Throughout the sandy tracts of this desert the vegetation consists of the Calli gonum polygonoides (Phog, HIND. ; Tob, /Erna javanica (Bhui, HIND. ; Bahusa, Sim), truabasis multiflora (Lana, Ilitsn.), and Mart, t coarse grass growing in tufts, abounding on the sandhills, and spreading for miles on the plains. Phog and Bhui, also Orthanthera viminea ',Kip, HIND.), are peculiar to the sandhills. Be ween the sandhills, Calotropis procera, Salvadora E'ersica, Acacia rupestris (or Kejri), Capparis tphylla, Zizyphus jujuba, and a few other plants, tre commonly found. After rain, numerous herbs qpring up, and a grass called Brut (? Cenchrus hiflorus), the spiny seeds of which attach them wives to one's clothes like burrs. Divested of their spiny covering, they aro made into a kind of bread. Birds are numerous ; hymnas, wolves, aekals, the desert fox, Vulpes leucopus, V. Ben ;alensis, also Lynx Felis caracal occur ; and the lesert jerhoa rat, Gerbillus hurrianm, in incredible lumbers, perhaps a burrow in every square yard.
A traveller proceeding from the Khachee ' or lats of Sind to the east, sees the line of the desert listinctly marked, with its elevated teeba or sand ridges, under which flows the Sankra, which is ;enerally dry, except at periodical inundations. rhese sandhills are of considerable elevation, and may be considered the limit of the inundation of the Sweet-river,' the Meetha Muran, a Scythic or Tartar name for river, and by which alone the Indus is known from the Punjuud to tho ocean.
teeba or sandhills occupy a large tract in Eastern Sind, extending the whole length of the province along the edge of the Indus alluvium.
They are in ridges which run E. and W. or N.E. and S.W. Sir B. Frere says some of them are 100 or 500 feet high.
The Runn, Ran, or Rinn is a salt marsh, 150 miles broad, into which the Loni or Looni or salt river enters, and then runs on to the sea. The Looni rises in the Aravalli. In Marwar it sep.a rates the fertile land from the desert, afterwards runs through the Chauhan territory, dividing it into the ea.stern part, called Raj-I3ah or Sooi-Bah, and the western part, called Parkar or beyond the Khar or Loom.' The Kaggar rises in the Siwalik Mils, flows under Bhatnair walls, and once emptied itself between Jeysulmir and Rori Bukkur. Tloe rainfall is 18 inches at Nagar Parkftr, 11.8 inches at Omerkot, but much less near Jeysulmir and the centre of the desert.
The Desert of India is known on its borders as Maroost'hali the region of death, from Mri, SANsx., to die, and St'hali, arid or dry land, bnt is also known as the desert of Rajputana.. Maroosehali is bounded on the north by the flat skirting the Gara ; on the south by the Runn, and Koliwara ; on the east by the Aravalli ; and on the west by the valley of Sind. It covers an area of 77,600 square miles. But for the Aravalli, which runs N.E. and S.W., dividing Rajputa.na mto two equal parts, Central India would be submerged in sand ; nay, lofty aud continuous as is this chain, extending almost from the sea to Dehli, wherever there are passages or depressions, there floating sand-clouds are wafted through or over, and form a little t'hul even in the bosom of fertility. Whoever has crossed the Bunas near Tonk, where the sand for some miles resembles waves of the sea, will comprehend this reinark. This desert has small scattered spots of fertility, with great arid portions called thar, thur, or t'hul, denoting tracts particularly sterile, therefore the converse of the oasis of the Greeks, and each Nvith a distinct name, as the fliul of KaNiur, the t'hul of Goga, and others. A tradition exists to the effeCt that in remote ages it was ruled by Powar or Pramara Rajput princes from nine fortresses, viz. Poogul, Mundore, Itilaru, Abu, Kheralu, Parkar, Chotun, Omerkot, Arora, and Lodorva. From Bhalotra on the Looni, throughout the whole of Dhat and Oomra i-Soomra, the western portion of Jeysulmir, and a brbad strip between the southern limits of Daodputra and Bikanir, there is real solitude and desolation. But from the Sutlej to the Rum], a space of 500 miles of longitudinal distance, and varying in breadth from 50 to 100 miles, nume rous oases are found, where the shepherds from the valley of the Indus and the 'Phial pasture their flocks. The springs of water in these places have various appellations, ter, par rar, dur, al] expressive of the element, round which assemblE the Rajur, Soda, Mangulia, and Sahrai, inhabiting the desert. The whole of Bikanir and that part of Shekhavat north of the Aravalli are compre hended in the desert. Jeysuhnir is nearly in thc centre of Nvhat may be termed entire desert, is in fact an oasis, but the largest oasis of the desert, everywhere insulated by immense masses of t'hul, some of which are 40 miles in breadth. ThE rock on which the castle is built has three peakE or tri-cuta. Westward from this, from 400 of 500 miles, with 100 or 200 miles in breadth, are little scattered oases, on which the shepherds of the desert have their huts.