SEISTAN, Sejistan, or Ninhroz, between lat. 30° 30' and 32° N., and long. 60° 30' to 64° E., is the country on the S.W. corner of Afghanistan, between Bast and Girishk. Seistan proper is the basin of the Helmand. It is a flat country, with low hills here and there, and is surrounded, except on the north, by wide deserts. One-third of its surface is movin,g sand, and the other two-thirds are composed of compact sand and clay, covered with thickets of tamarisk and abundant pasture. The Helmand, which is by far the finest river between the Tigris and the Indus, flows through Seistan, and runs into the lake of Zurrah. The river banks are clothed with luxuriant vegetation, and the lake, which is about 90 miles long by 60 miles broad, is bordered by forests of reeds, beyond which there are pastures and tamarisk thickets. The country has long been occupied by savage tribes.
Ferrier (p. 425) says the population of Latish, a district forming the extreme eastern and northern limit of Seistan, are of mixed Baluch, Afghan, Arab, Turk, Kakar, and Kurd descent, from families thrown there by the waves of revolution and intestine feuds; and the Zarangx or Draughes, the Agriaspes or the Arrachoti of the time of Alexander, cannot now be traced. In recent times, it has repeatedly changed Mulch between Persia and Afghanistan.
The only parts which still retain their fertility are those on the banks of the Helmand and Farrah Rud, and of the lake which is formed by those rivers. This celebrated lake is termed by geo graphers the Sea or Darya of Zereng. In Persian books, it is said sometimes to be called the Sea of Loukh, and by the people of the country the Sea of Zoor or of Khaujek ; in the neighbourhood, it is merely called the lake or the sea, and it is at least 150 miles round. The water is brackish and hardly drinkable. The edges of the lake, for a considerable breadth, are choked with long rushes and reeds ; the shores also are overgrown with the same sort of vegetation, and, being liable to inundation, are full of miry places and pools of standing water. These marshes and thickets are frequented by herds of oxen, whose owners are men distinct from the other inhabitants of Seistan; they are said to be tall and stout, but black and ugly, with long faces and large black eyes ; they go almost naked, and live in hovels of reeds. Besides their occupation of herdsmen, they fish and fowl on rafts among the rushes of the lake.— 562