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THE PALGRAVE LACAN SERIES
SERIES EDITORS: CALUM NEILL · DEREK HOOK

The Autistic
Subject
On the Threshold
of Language
leon s. brenner
The Palgrave Lacan Series

Series Editors
Calum Neill
Edinburgh Napier University
Edinburgh, UK

Derek Hook
Duquesne University
Pittsburgh, USA
Jacques Lacan is one of the most important and influential thinkers of
the 20th century. The reach of this influence continues to grow as we
settle into the 21st century, the resonance of Lacan’s thought arguably
only beginning now to be properly felt, both in terms of its application
to clinical matters and in its application to a range of human activities
and interests. The Palgrave Lacan Series is a book series for the best new
writing in the Lacanian field, giving voice to the leading writers of a new
generation of Lacanian thought. The series will comprise original mono-
graphs and thematic, multi-authored collections. The books in the series
will explore aspects of Lacan’s theory from new perspectives and with
original insights. There will be books focused on particular areas of or
issues in clinical work. There will be books focused on applying Lacanian
theory to areas and issues beyond the clinic, to matters of society, politics,
the arts and culture. Each book, whatever its particular concern, will
work to expand our understanding of Lacan’s theory and its value in the
21st century.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15116
 Leon S. Brenner

The Autistic Subject

On the Threshold of Language
Leon S. Brenner
Institute for Philosophy
University of Potsdam
Potsdam, Germany

The Palgrave Lacan Series

ISBN 978-3-030-50714-5    ISBN 978-3-030-50715-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50715-2

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2020
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
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The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
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This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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 Translation Note
All texts strictly published in French have been translated to English
by the author.
 Foreword

Abstract The foreword, written by Jean-Claude Maleval, introduces the

reader to the abundant world of the Lacanian psychoanalysis of autism.
Maleval is one of the prominent Lacanian scholars to engage the subject
of autism today. In his introduction he provides a vivid description of
several unique autistic traits elaborated from within the framework of
Lacanian psychoanalysis. Several case studies are presented and provide
an initial introduction to Lacanian notions such as the entry into lan-
guage, the primacy of the sign, and the construction of the rim in autism.
Maleval progresses to deliberate the work presented in the scope of this
book and provides a general description of the content of each of its
chapters.

This book presents a new approach to autism that does not describe it
as a pathology but as a mode of being. It is rooted in the psychoanalytic
elaboration of autism, initially presented by Rosine and Robert Lefort,
who introduced the hypothesis of autism being a singular subjective
structure in the 1990s; that is, a subjective structure that is distinct from
the other subjective structures already elaborated by Sigmund Freud and
Jacques Lacan: neurosis, perversion, and psychosis. Being rooted in this
hypothesis, this book offers an original development of the conceptual
foundations of the contemporary Lacanian clinic of autism.

vii
viii Foreword

It was the treatment of Marie-Françoise, a child exhibiting a severe

form of autism, that led the Leforts (1998) to conclude that in the trans-
ference there is neither a sign for the function of the big Other nor evi-
dence of a proper instatement of drive functionality (pp. 311–320). On
top of that, the Leforts also noted that the poverty in Marie-Françoise’
babbling seems to imply an interference in her alienation in the signifier.1
On the other end of the autism spectrum, the Leforts only made use of
the notion of the “double” in their attempt to explain the creative rich-
ness they identified among high-functioning autistic individuals; a notion
that, in hindsight, appears to be insufficient. In order to determine the
characteristic of the autistic structure, the development of a few more
clinical elements seemed to be necessary. These elements, which the
Leforts did not have at their disposal, have since been elaborated by sev-
eral Lacanian psychoanalysts who contributed greatly to the psychoana-
lytic understanding of autism today. Many of these elements, like the
notion of the autistic rim, the recourse to the sign, and the notion of
autistic foreclosure, take center stage in this book. They are meticulously
developed beyond their original designation and are presented in a com-
prehensive fashion in the English language for the first time.
The hypothesis of an autistic structure corroborates the notion of the
“autism spectrum disorder” that replaced in the DSM-5 the previous des-
ignation of autism under the general category of “pervasive developmen-
tal disorders.” The constant features that distinguish the autistic structure,
despite the plurality of its manifestations, were already accounted for in
the mid-twentieth century by both Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger—the
pioneers of the field of autism research. Asperger (2008) argued that,
from around two years of age, distinct autistic features “remain unmistak-
able and constant throughout the whole life-span. Naturally, intelligence
and personality develop and, in the course of development, certain fea-
tures predominate or recede, so that the problems presented change con-
siderably. Nevertheless, the essential aspects of the problem remain
unchanged” (pp. 67–68). Kanner had noted that out of 96 patients he
diagnosed as being autistic at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, 11 had

1
Babblings are speech sounds that a child produces at an early age and are arranged in nonsensical
combinations, such as “bababa” and “deedeedee.”
 Foreword ix

successfully adjusted themselves to society. Nevertheless, he emphasized

that even they “have not completely shed the fundamental personality
structure of early infantile autism” (Kanner, Rodriguez, & Ashenden,
1972, p. 31). This position is validated by Brigitte Harrison, a high-­
functioning autistic woman, who argues that “even when our autism
becomes almost invisible, our structure remains autistic” (Harrisson &
Saint-Charles, 2010, p. 29).
There are two opposing hypotheses as to the nature of the constant
structural features that distinguish autism from other forms of “develop-
mental disorders.” According to the cognitivist approach, it is a unique
form of intelligence. According to the psychoanalytic approach, it is a
unique mode of subjective functioning. From the vantage point of the
cognitivist approach, both these perspectives seem to be incompatible.
However, by adhering to the psychoanalytic approach, the hypothesis of
the specificity of autistic subjective functioning is able to account for the
original way in which autistic subjects accumulate their knowledge and
implement it in the development of a unique form of intelligence that
characterizes high-functioning autistic individuals.
Today, it is generally agreed upon that two pervasive signs of autism
can be detected at a very early age. The first is the avoidance of the gaze,
which manifests itself at the age of three months. The second is a lack of
joint attention, which starts from about the age of nine months.2 These
two signs are of the same order, as when autistic children avoid the gaze,
they do so in order to refrain from communicating with others. These
phenomena are not anecdotal; they persist even among high-functioning
autistic individuals. However, one must emphasize that it is not only the
gaze—the object of the scopic drive according to Lacan—that is prob-
lematic for the autistic child; all the drive objects that are mobilized in the
first exchanges with the parents are more or less refused or retained by the
autistic child—namely, the voice (invocatory drive), the stool (anal drive),
and breast (oral drive). Why do we see the retention of the gaze in autism?
Some autistic individuals say that it is too disturbing. Why do we see a
2
Joint attention is attention overtly focused by two or more people on the same object, person, or
action at the same time, with each being aware of the other’s interest. For example, infants of
around nine months of age with the capacity for joint attention can follow their parents’ gaze and
begin to imitate what their parents do (VandenBos, 2007).
x Foreword

general avoidance in all matters that have to do with defecation? One

autistic child reports that it is due to a fear that his lungs will explode.
Why do autistic individuals enter a state of mutism? Some say that it is
due to a fear of emptying their brains. All these phenomena strongly sug-
gest that autism is rooted in a fear of interacting with others; a fear that
does not originate in a deficiency in the capacity to understand social
relationships but in an irrational anxiety that the subject does not con-
trol. This anxiety brings autistic children to refuse to bring drive objects
into an exchange. This is what high-functioning autistic individual and
writer Donna Williams claims, when she points out that in her childhood
everything that revolved “around the act of giving and receiving” remained
“totally foreign to her” (Williams & Bartak, 1992, p. 66).
In the Lacanian clinic, we argue that autism originates in a retention of
the drive objects (oral, anal, scopic, and invocatory). Because the yielding
of the drive objects is the basis for entering into a relationship with the
Other, the retention of these objects brings about a disorder of language.
Thus, we see, from a very early age, that the cries of autistic babies are
monotonous and lack modulation; that autistic babies are either surpris-
ingly calm or constantly scream without stopping. In both cases, parents
are not put in a position from where they could interpret these cries as
demands. Therefore, we see that, unlike what the Leforts believed, autis-
tic babbling is not utterly absent but is scarce and lacks social orientation
(Chericoni et al., 2016).
Autistic children are not initiated into language through their bab-
bling. Their entry into language takes place in solitude, independent of
its communicative function, and essentially follows two paths: through
echolalia or through the written word. The first path gives rise to what
some call a “verbose language” (Lacan, 1989, p. 19) and others a “lan-
guage of poets” (Williams & Bartak, 1992, p. 157). This form of lan-
guage is barely utilized in an attempt to communicate with others but is
capable of producing vocalizations or soliloquies that provide autistic
individuals with a solitary form of satisfaction. The second path can be
used in the creation of a “factual language” that, on the one hand, allows
one to communicate with others but, on the other hand, is a language
that is cut off from one’s affects.
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 Foreword xi

Since direct communication is a source of anxiety for autistic individu-

als, they tend to avoid engaging in the reciprocal exchange of invocatory
jouissance. Correspondingly, Williams reports that the material of her
echolalic verbose language hardly comes from messages that are addressed
to her. She prefers to adopt her words from statements that are separated
from their human source: “The development of my own everyday lan-
guage was essentially based on repeating what I heard in recorded stories
and in TV commercials” (p. 300). Thus, we see that anything that
detaches the word from invocatory jouissance, whether it is a phone, a
radio, a television, or a written medium, is instrumental for autistic
learning.
The entry into language through echolalia is not accompanied by its
subjectification. Therefore, it is a very different experience from the entry
into language through babbling. First, “typical” children that communi-
cate through babbling are in touch with their body. Through their bab-
bling they express hunger, suffering, fatigue, well-being, and so on. For
these children, certain vocalizations already appear at around two to three
months of age and are used for communication with selected partners.
This is not the case for autistic children. Their echolalic appropriation of
language is not utilized for expressing their needs to others but for the
imitation and reproduction of “sound-objects” that capture their atten-
tion. For example, Panayotis Kantzas (1987) argues that “Speaking in
ready-made sentences means first and foremost that the use of verbal
material does not involve the representation of the speaking subject. It is
not deconstructed and reconstructed but simply reproduced as it is”
(p. 108). Echolalic speech reflects the outside world without assimilating
it. Therefore, it does not endanger the subject, for it does not insert the
speaker into an exchange of communication. The fact that autistic echo-
lalic speech is not utilized for communication but only for solitary satis-
faction testifies to an interference in the subject’s alienation in the signifier.
This interference prevents the master signifier (S1) from being used in the
subject’s enunciation (Maleval, 2019, p. 218). Therefore, it takes a long
time for some autistic individuals to start to actively use language from a
position of enunciation.
Nevertheless, one must note that autistic children, even those present-
ing the most severe form of autism, are not out of language, nor are they
xii Foreword

unable to communicate. When they are unable to speak, they usually

know how to make themselves understood by using a language composed
of gestures. They do so by mimicking the object at stake or the desired
action using signs that univocally designate a referent.
The spontaneous use of signs by autistic children was already accounted
for a century and a half before Kanner. Already in 1800, French peda-
gogue Jean Marc Gaspard Itard decided to take a mute child he named
Victor de l’Aveyron as a subject in an experiment in which he sought to
initiate him into civilization. Itard (1993a) found that Victor understood
a “pantomime” language. For example, he recounts that Victor could be
sent to fetch water by positioning a vase upside-down, thus demonstrat-
ing to him that it is empty. Itard notes:

The most amazing thing in his disposal to this form of communication is

that he needs neither preliminary lessons nor a mutual agreement to be
conveyed to him. I became sure of this one day through an incontestable
experiment. I chose an object that I knew he has no preconceived sign for
from a very long list of objects. This was, for example, the comb that his
maid used to comb him with. In order to get him to bring it to me, I stood
in front of him after ruffling my hair in all directions and presenting my
head to him in such a disorderly manner. He understood me and I soon
had what I asked for in my hands. (p. 309)

The fact that Victor did not need any preliminary lesson or agreement
in order to understand Itard testifies to his capacity to spontaneously
access language. In this case it was a sign language, in which the gesture
remains closely related to the designated object; a sign language that he is
able to mobilize in order to communicate, even when he is unable
to speak.
In order to develop Victor’s language and to surpass the obstacle of his
mutism, Itard offered him a box with different compartments which con-
tained the different letters of the alphabet. Victor managed to conceive
that by assembling these letters together he can construct words that refer
to specific objects. However, Itard’s pedagogical efforts came up against
an unexpected impasse. He (1993b) notes:
 Foreword xiii

It was obvious that my student, far from having conceived a false idea of
the value of signs, was simply applying them too rigorously. He had taken
my lessons literally and, because I had confined myself to naming the
objects in his room, he was convinced that these were the only objects to
which these signs applied. Thus, any book that was not in his room was not
considered to be a “book.” In order to convince Victor to call a book that
existed outside of his room by the same name, a perfect resemblance had to
be established between the two. Therefore, one can see that, in his use
words, Victor was quite different from children who began speaking by
giving generic names to specific objects. He confined himself to under-
standing generic names in the restricted sense of specific objects. (p. 421)

The case of Victor, presented by Itard, underlines a major distinction

between the autistic and non-autistic mode of access to language. Signs
used by the autistic child adhere to the situation and context in which
they were originally learned. In contrast, non-autistic children are ini-
tially inclined to over-generalize or hastily generalize. For example, they
may call mammals and dinosaurs “dog”; they may use the word “chicken”
for all birds and the word “glass” for all containers. This demonstrates
that non-autistic children are initially inclined to separate the sign from
the designated thing; an inclination that reveals the underlying function
of the signifier, which, unlike the sign, enables generalization and abstrac-
tion. The autistic child, on the other hand, petrifies the sign to the desig-
nated thing and retains a concrete link between them. Because autistic
children prefer learning language in solitude, they favor the acquisition of
signs at the expense of the acquisition of signifiers. Signs are memorized
one by one, object by object, situation by situation; while signifiers,
incorporated in the words of the Other, are immediately situated in net-
works of oppositions that determine their meanings and vary according
to context.
Since the acquisition of signs is not dependent on babbling, they do
not possess the properties attributed to the signifier; properties that,
Lacan argues, make the signifier suitable for ciphering jouissance.
Accordingly, the majority of autistic individuals attest to a split between
their intellect and their affects. Correspondingly, Asperger notes, as early as
1944, that “these individuals are intelligent automata. Social adaptation
xiv Foreword

has to proceed via the intellect. In fact, they have to learn everything via
the intellect. One has to explain and enumerate everything… Autistic
children have to learn the simple daily chores just like proper homework,
systematically” (Asperger, 2008, p. 58). Furthermore, Williams argues
that “Autistic children are secretly trapped in a mutilated affectivity …
[they] have feelings and sensations but these have developed in isolation.
They can’t verbalize them in a normal way” (Williams & Bartak, 1992,
p. 301). To this, Harrison adds: “The brain does not receive messages
from the body, even though the brain and the body are doing their work
independently” (Harrisson & Saint-Charles, 2010, p. 311). Finally,
Temple Grandin, an autistic individual and notable autism advocate,
enthusiastically compares her way of thinking to that of a computer
(2006, p. 162).
The early refusal to bring the voice into an exchange leads autistic chil-
dren to a solitary appropriation of language that results in its further
development using the written word. Is it possible to incorporate oneself
in a language that is cut off from invocatory jouissance? According to
Lacan, this is certainly possible. He argues:

The ordinary experience is that everything the subject receives from the
Other in terms of language is received in a vocal form … [However] The
experience of cases that are not so rare, though people always bring up
striking cases like that of Helen Keller, show that there are other pathways
besides the vocal path by which to receive language. Language is not vocal-
ization. Take a look at the deaf. (SX p. 274; brackets added)

While being deaf, mute, and blind, Helen Keller managed to obtain a
university degree in 1904 and subsequently wrote a dozen books. Initially,
she gained access to language through tactile sensations. This is how,
according to her testimony, the mystery of language was revealed to her:

Someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the
spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand, she spelled into the other
the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still; my whole attention
fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness
as of something forgotten—a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the
 Foreword xv

mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that “w-a-t-e-r” meant
the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. (Keller &
Sullivan, 1905, p. 11)

Such an apprehension of language can be described as “pointillistic”

and “intellectual.” It is distinguished from the entry into language
through babbling. The latter form of language is rich in structured oppo-
sitions that already embody the properties of a mother tongue.
Accordingly, the babbling of a Japanese baby is different from that of an
English or a French baby. Moreover, the babbling of a baby conveys its
emotions: joy, suffering, and the call to be heard. Therefore, we see that
there is a clear distinction between assuming a language that is already
structured and in touch with affects through babbling and assuming lan-
guage in a pointillistic and intellectual way.
It should be noted that despite her extreme cognitive deficits, Helen
Keller was not autistic. She felt the need to communicate and for this she
invented a language of gestures. There was no evidence of her ever having
eating disorders, or problems with defecation and, above all, she had a
strong will to communicate which eventually led her to articulate herself
in writting. Accordingly, one must note that, no matter how severe cogni-
tive deficits may be, this does not necessarily mean that a child is autistic.
If the child does not refuse entering social exchange and does not retain
the objects of the drive, we are most likely not dealing with autism.
Correspondingly, we see that, unlike autistic individuals who acquire lan-
guage in solitude and through imitation, Helen Keller gained access to
language through her interactive relationship with her teacher—Miss
Sullivan.
Do autistic individuals learn language like the deaf? Laurent Mottron
(2004) points out a crucial difference: “the deaf achieve socialization
through gestures, while autistic individuals achieve socialization through
writing” (p. 149). Many case studies demonstrate that autistic individuals
prefer to access language in a way other than through social interactions.
Moreover, while definitely preferring a language that is composed of ges-
tures, autistic individuals do not use signs like the deaf-mute do. The
former use a language that is composed of sound-forms that are closely
linked to images of referents of visual or tactile origin. Thus, a
xvi Foreword

sound-form can be a word, a sentence, a piece of language, a phoneme, a

number, and so on. The signs used by autistic individuals oscillate
between the iconization of sound-forms—when the subject translates
them into images—and the naming of icons—when the sound-form cor-
responds to an image. Harrison’s testimony corraborates this notion:
“You take the ‘visual’ and convert it to a verbal language thus coordinat-
ing between the two” (Harrisson & Saint-Charles, 2010, p. 46). This use
of signs corresponds with Lacan’s definition of the sign provided in 1961:
“a sign represents something for someone” (SXI, p. 207).3 Unlike the
signifier, the sign does not erase the trace of the thing, since its image
remains; moreover, it does not cipher jouissance and it hardly can be used
to signify any form of equivocation.
The signs used by autistic individuals are fundamentally distinct from
signifiers on two levels: first—and this is essentially what Grandin
describes in her book Thinking in Pictures (2006)—they remain attached
to their referent—not erasing the trace of the thing represented. Second,
they do not function as deposits of jouissance: a phenomenon that autis-
tic individuals testify to by noting the disconnection between language
and their affective life. The Leforts (2003) emphasized this point when
they argued that “in the autistic structure the signifier fails to be embod-
ied and thus fails to create an affect” (p. 87).
While thinking with signs is not all bad, they do not possess the capac-
ity of signifiers to interchangeably combine together into different forma-
tions. Accordingly, their ability to convey abstraction is practically
diminished, as they impose a rigid and continuous relationship between
unrelated elements. This can result in the stimulation of a child’s memory
up to a point where the autistic child becomes a mnemonic genius that
can sometimes acquire outstanding intellectual and linguistic skills, and
even gain access to affects. That is while a typical child becomes a “gram-
matical genius,” around the age of three years, when he or she learns the
complexities of grammar without being taught anything about them.

3
In Television (Lacan, 1990), Lacan introduced a new definition of the sign. According to Jacques-­
Alain Miller, this definition was introduced in order to complement the signifier in terms of jouis-
sance. It is not this later definition of the sign that is referred to here.
 Foreword xvii

Signifiers are adopted from a predetermined system that organizes

them; whereas signs are initially apprehended by the autistic child one by
one. However, they do not remain isolated units, they are not just labels,
the subject gradually organizes them in memory in a particular way which
allows him or her to compose them into a set of oppositional relation-
ships. When Grandin (2006) uses the icons of “a dove or a pipe” to rep-
resent the abstract notion of “peace,” she does not only attach these words
to an image of a referent; she inserts the image of the dove into an oppo-
sitional relationship with other birds, and the image of the pipe with
other objects that emit smoke (p. 17).
Not being able to spontaneously learn the grammar of language due to
their isolated appropriation of signs, autistic individuals search for rules
that organize the relationships between signs. They mainly find these
rules in the order they discover in the world. This is why they find the
immutability of these rules to be so important. Breaking the immutabil-
ity of the order of the world damages the fragile organization of signs.
The immutable circuits actualize the rules they invent for themselves and
the regularities they observe in the world. Accordingly, Williams argues,
that she was always “under the rule of a lot of very strict principles.” She
adds that she is aware that these were “her own rules” and that they were
“not compatible with the carefree life of well-adjusted people” (Williams
& Bartak, 1992, p. 139).
There is no doubt that high-functioning autistic individuals are capa-
ble of learning grammar intellectually. Moreover, they are able to elevate
the sign to the level of a concept. They do so by detaching the sign from
the situation in which it was originally acquired through the memoriza-
tion of multiple references. Correspondingly, Grandin (2006) explains
that she can attach a multiplicity of particular images to the same sign:

My concept of dogs is inextricably linked to every dog I’ve ever known. It’s
as if I have a card catalogue of dogs I have seen, complete with pictures,
which continually grows as I add more examples to my video library. If I
think about Great Danes, the first memory that pops into my head is
Dansk, the Great Dane owned by the headmaster at my high school. The
next Great Dane I visualize is Helga, who was Dansk’s replacement. The
next is my aunt’s dog in Arizona, and my final image comes from an adver-
tisement for Fitwell seat covers that featured that kind of dog. (p. 12)
xviii Foreword

In addition to learning grammar and constructing concepts, some

autistic individuals can also gain access to affects through memorization.
For instance, Williams (2015) asks some of her peers to show her how
emotions look like in order to memorize them by heart (p. 161). Harrison
adds to this that autistic individuals “must first ‘import’ the meaning of
emotions in order to conceptualize them” (Harrisson & Saint-Charles,
2010, p. 333).
The combination of learning grammar, constructing concepts, and
memorizing affects leads some high-functioning autistic individuals to
engage their bodies in their enunciation as well as to gain access to humor.
They develop these capacities up to a level where it is difficult to distin-
guish their behavior from that of non-autistic people. Nevertheless, they
might be distinguished on the basis of the difficulties they have in acquir-
ing these capacities and through the subsistence of the traces of their sign
language. On the high-functioning pole of the autism spectrum, the use
of signs can develop up to a point where it can be referred to as a language
composed of signifiers. That is, a verbose language that seems to allow
subjects to express their affects, leading to a transmutation of the linguis-
tic signifier into a psychoanalytic signifier—a sensor of jouissance.
However, only few high-functioning autistic individuals reach this level,
as even Grandin points out that a clear split persists between her intellect
and her affects. On the other hand, this split is less prominent for Daniel
Tammet and for Williams. Both have achieved a better apprehension of
their emotions and feelings, as their inability to recognize and express
them has greatly diminished and they attest to a new feeling of inhabiting
their bodies. This feeling is manifest in what Williams (2015) calls the
language of “simply being” (p. 285).
Frances Tustin’s account of the “protective shell” had led Éric Laurent
(1992) to suggest that one of the major characteristics of autistic func-
tioning is the return of jouissance on the rim (p. 156). Three elements
usually compose the autistic rim: the autistic object, the double, and spe-
cific interests. These will be thoroughly elaborated in this book. Joey’s
machine, for example, is composed of both an autistic object and a dou-
ble. Joey cannot separate himself from his machine, which is supposed to
provide him with the electricity that animates him. Later on, it becomes
 Foreword xix

the source of his specific interest when he chooses to become an electri-

cian (Bettelheim, 1967, pp. 250–260).
Laurent argues that the return of jouissance on the rim consists in a
diversion of an excess of jouissance to the autistic object, which in turn
animates the subject. For example, when Joey was plugged into his
machine at the Chicago Orthopedic School, he became dependent on its
ability to provide him with electricity. With the help of this machine Joey
managed to harness the jouissance of the drive, enabling him, for exam-
ple, to defecate by heating his stools and to regulate his diet when it
accompanied him to the toilet. It had a speaker that helped him process
his voice and many eye-catching light bulbs with other functions.
By plugging into a machine, or a double, the autistic child treats the
feeling of lifelessness, of not having any vital energy, and relieves himself
of having to make decisions. Without the elements of the rim, autistic
individuals are not capable of interpreting their affects using signs and
experience them as surges of anxiety. By plugging into a puppet, for
instance, they attempt to regulate their jouissance on the rim. That is why
many autistic individuals say that they want to be a machine or a robot—
so that they will not feel any affects.
Operating on the basis of the rim, respecting and developing its pro-
tective function as well as its capacity to subdue anxiety, to regulate
affects, and to provide a point of access to the social bond: these are the
principles that guide the Lacanian psychoanalytic approach to
autism today.
However, in a recent publication presented by the American Academy
of Pediatrics, which concerns the identification, evaluation, and manage-
ment of autism, psychoanalysis is not mentioned at all, seemingly sealing
its fate in all matters that have to do with the clinical work done with
autistic children (Hyman, Levy, & Myers, 2020). Admittedly, in the field
of autism research, the most fundamental Freudian principles seem to be
irrelevant. Nevertheless, the Lacanian approach to autism is not limited
to these fundamental principles, as it entails neither the recollection of
one’s history nor the interpretations of the unconscious. Accordingly, one
might even wonder in what way does the Lacanian approach to autism
still refer to psychoanalysis. The Lacanian approach to autism is based on
xx Foreword

the inventions and passions of the child and not on the knowledge of the
educator. Accordingly, it can definitely be described as a psychodynamic
method. However, the Lacanian approach to autism does owe a lot to the
Freudian discovery. We must acknowledge the fact that it was a psycho-
analyst, Frances Tustin, who introduced the notion of autistic object.
Moreover, the field of study of psychoanalysis begins when one realizes
that some of our own actions lie beyond our control. Sometimes we even
disapprove of them but cannot help repeating them. Correspondingly,
the use of autistic objects, the double and specific interests are part and
parcel of the autistic mode of functioning, but they exceed the individu-
al’s choice, even if each individual embodies them in his or her own way.
Similarly, most autistic individuals have immutable behaviors that aim to
create a local coherence in the world and are precursors for their specific
interests. They serve the same purpose as the former. All these phenom-
ena are the result of a unique mode of unconscious functioning that is
specific to autistic subjects. They appropriate these behaviors in their own
way, but their dynamic qualities originate from a source they do not con-
trol. This source is unknown to them but determines them much more
than they can imagine.
What Lacanian psychoanalysis advocates today with regard to the
treatment of autism (when it is necessary and desired) could more or less
be described as “nondirective interactive strategies to foster interaction
and development of communication in the context of play” (Hyman
et al., p. 23). For American pediatricians, such an approach is consistent
with methods based on developmental theories. According to these theo-
ries, interventions that treat autistic symptoms can fall into two main
categories: interventions that are based on the Applied Behavior Analysis
(ABA) approach—which seek to change behavior—and interventions
that concern a child’s development and focus on stimulating interaction
dynamics. The Lacanian clinic of autism is similar to the latter, yet it is
not based on a developmental framework but on a framework that devel-
ops a theory of the subject. It does not trace the steps to be taken in treat-
ing autistic subjects; it aims at a finer understanding—that of the autistic
modes of defense against anxiety and of strategies aimed to protect one-
self from the Other’s desire. The latter are consistent: immutable behav-
iors and the election of the various incarnations of the rim. However, this
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 Foreword xxi

approach takes into account that the inventions of each autistic subject
are different, unavoidably dictating the assumption of a case-by-case
approach. This is an approach that psychoanalysis has never ceased to
advocate in order to detach itself from the universalizing reductive psy-
chiatric discourses. The psychoanalytic treatment of autistic individuals
does not aim at elucidating the past but at the construction of the sub-
ject. In it, the interpretations the psychoanalyst provides do not aim to
contribute meaning but aim at a lack, as Rosine Lefort argued, in order
to temper the excess of jouissance initially attached to the rim (1994,
p. 281).
The Lacanian approach is not genealogical in the strict sense of the
term. It does not search for the underlying biological cause of a certain
mode of subjective structuring. Nevertheless, it does provide an insight
into the functional causation of the psyche. Accordingly, it is fundamen-
tally based on a conception of an autistic structure that is determined by
three pivots: an initial retention of the objects of the drive, a restricted
alienation in language, and an apparatus of jouissance that returns on the
rim. In this book, these fundamental pivots of the autistic structure are
elaborated in relation to a singular psychic constitutive mechanism the
writer terms autistic foreclosure. This book comes to elaborate the causal
properties of this mechanism on the basis of published clinical case stud-
ies but mostly entails meticulous conceptual work that is well versed in
both the Freudian and Lacanian edifice. Accordingly, the functioning of
autistic foreclosure is elaborated in comparison to other constitutive psy-
chic mechanisms such as repression in neurosis and foreclosure in psy-
chosis. Moreover, the functioning of autistic foreclosure is explicated in
terms of its effect on the subject’s mode of access to language and the
functioning of the drive. By demonstrating that autistic foreclosure is
indeed singular and not reducible to the functioning of neurotic repres-
sion or psychotic foreclosure, this book emphasizes the singularity of the
autistic subjective structure. By doing so, it dictates the adaptation of a
singular clinic for autism and progresses an ethical perspective that desig-
nates autism as a legitimate mode of being rather than a pathology. In the
contemporary discourse of autism research, where clinical frameworks
that disregard the notion of the subject predominate, this book comes to
fill a crucial gap. It introduces—implementing the heuristic richness of
xxii Foreword

the Lacanian approach to autism—a new notion of autistic subjectivity

and the clinic of autism that has not yet become very accessible to the
English-speaking reader.

* * *

This book will be divided into three major parts composed of eight chap-
ters. Part I of this book will establish the perspective through which
autism will be elaborated in this book. Chapter 1 will provide a glimpse
into the world of autism research. It will begin by presenting a general
description of autism in terms borrowed from its elaboration as an object
of scientific research. This description will be contrasted with the desig-
nation of autism as a mode of being progressed by many high-functioning
autistic individuals and autism advocates. The perspective through which
autism will be designated in this book will then be situated in the inter-
section between the realist scientific approach and normative approach.
This perspective, rooted in the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud and
Jacques Lacan, will designate autism as a singular subjective structure that
is not reducible to the major structures of subjectivity elaborated in psy-
choanalysis so far: neurosis, perversion, and psychosis. Chapter 2 will
provide conceptual support for the general methodology adopted in this
book. It will explicate the conceptual roots of the notion of constitutive
exclusion developed in relation to neurosis, psychosis, and autism. In this
chapter, Freud’s account of negation will be associated with the constitu-
tive function of repression and the structure of the subject in psycho-
analysis. Relying on Freud’s paper “Negation” (1925), this chapter will
demonstrate how a psychic mechanism of constitutive exclusion is neces-
sarily situated at the origin of all subjective structures accounted for in
psychoanalysis. By doing so it will pave the way for the elaboration of a
singular autistic mechanism of constitutive exclusion—autistic foreclosure.
Part II of this book will go on to elaborate the structure and internal
functioning of two major psychic mechanisms of constitutive exclusion
accounted for by Freud and Lacan—neurotic repression and psychotic fore-
closure. It will do so due to the fact that the elaboration of the mechanism
of autistic foreclosure is rooted in the specification of both these
 Foreword xxiii

mechanisms. This part will be divided into two chapters. Chapter 3 will
be devoted to the elaboration of the mechanism of repression according
to Freud and Lacan and its role in the constitution of the neurotic subjec-
tive structure. It will mostly aim to provide a clear structural distinction
between two mechanisms of repression: a primal constitutive repression
and a secondary repression; that is, repression as defense. This distinction
will be crucial for the further elaboration of psychotic foreclosure in rela-
tion to primal repression in the following chapter. Chapter 4 will be devoted
to the elaboration of the mechanism of psychotic foreclosure according to
Freud and Lacan and its role in the constitution of the psychotic subjective
structure. The similarities and differences in the functioning of neurotic
repression and psychotic foreclosure will set the ground for the elaboration
of autistic foreclosure in the following chapters.
Part III of this book will present an explicit and thorough account of
the structure and internal functioning of autistic foreclosure. This part
will be divided into three major chapters. Chapter 5 will account for the
functioning of autistic foreclosure on the basis of the model of repression
provided by Freud and Lacan. It is through the explication of the differ-
ent levels internal to the functioning of primal repression that autistic
foreclosure will be situated on a level preceding that of the functioning of
psychotic foreclosure: in comparison to psychotic foreclosure that is situ-
ated in opposition to Bejahung, autistic foreclosure will be situated in
opposition to Ausstoßung. Chapter 6 will present three different frame-
works through which the psychic object that is radically excluded in
autistic foreclosure can be accounted for. These will include an account of
the object of autistic foreclosure as the unary trait, as the hole in the topo-
logical figure of the torus, and as the voice—the object of the invocatory
drive. In these three sections, an exclusive interpretation as to the nature
of the object of autistic foreclosure will be presented as well as provided
with further conceptual support, interpretation, and critique. The con-
clusions reached in Chaps. 5 and 6 will provide the conceptual founda-
tion for the elaboration of the unique mode of linguistic functionality
enabled by autistic foreclosure in the next chapter. Chapter 7 will account
for the consequences of the functioning of autistic foreclosure on the
structuring of autistic linguistic functionality. Firstly, it will account for
xxiv Foreword

the lack of access to the symbolic order in autism, described by many

contemporary psychoanalysts in terms of the “lack of the Other.”
Following this section, the chapter will go on to contend that autistic
subjects are still considered to be subjects of language but base their lin-
guistic functionality on the logic and laws of the “sign” and not of the
“signifier.” This exact mode of linguistic functionality will be elaborated
and will form the basis for the articulation of a model explicating the
varying modalities in the construction of the supplementary rim in
autism. This model will be posed as an alternative framework for the
development of the clinic of autism. The conclusions reached in this
chapter, alongside the conclusions reached in previous chapters, will pro-
vide strong support for the designation of autism as a singular subjective
structure in Chap. 8. This chapter will summarize all the conclusions
reached in the previous chapters and substantiate the hypothesis that
autism is a singular subjective structure. It will include a section that
highlights the significance of these conclusions in the field of autism
research. Finally, it will disclose several prospects for further research in
the fields of psychoanalysis as well as empirical psychology.

Rennes, France Jean-Claude Maleval

* Translated from French by Leon S. Brenner.

Works Cited
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(Ed.), Autism and Asperger Syndrome (pp. 37–92). Cambridge, UK:
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Bettelheim, B. (1967). The Empty Fortress. New York: The Free Press.
Chericoni, N., de Brito Wanderley, D., Costanzo, V., Diniz-Gonçalves,
A., Leitgel Gille, M., Parlato, E., et al. (2016). Pre-linguistic Vocal
Trajectories at 6–18 Months of Age as Early Markers of Autism.
Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1595.
Grandin, T. (2006). Thinking in Pictures, Expanded Edition: My Life with
Autism. New York: Vintage.
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Harrisson, B., & Saint-Charles, L. (2010). L’autisme, au-delà des appar-

ences: le fonctionnement interne de la structure de pensée autistique.
Rivière-du-Loup/Québec: Edition Concept Consulted.
Hyman, S. L., Levy, S. E., & Myers, S. M. (2020). Identification,
Evaluation, and Management of Children with Autism Spectrum
Disorder. Pediatrics, 145(1).
Itard, J. M. G. (1993a). De l’éducation d’un homme sauvage et des pre-
miers développements physiques et moraux du jeune sauvage de
l’Aveyron. In T. Gineste (Ed.), Victor de l’Aveyron. Dernier enfant sau-
vage, premier enfant fou. Paris: Hachette.
Itard, J. M. G. (1993b). Rapport fait à son Excellence le Ministre de
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Lacan, J. (1990). Television. New York: Norton & Company.
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Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis (1964). New York: Norton
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France: Presses Universitaires du Mirail.
Lefort, R., & Lefort, R. (1994). Birth of the Other. Oxfort, UK: University
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charlatan (pp. 311–320). Paris: Threshold.
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 The other tribes included under the term Ajam are mostly
Persians, with a few scattered families of Turks, Kurds, Mughals and
Balochs. They constitute the rural population, and are employed in
agriculture and the tending of cattle. Physically they are a fine
people, with light complexions and hardy features.
 CHAPTER X.
2d April.—Marched from Birjand to Ghíbk or Ghínk, eighteen miles.
The weather, which during our stay at Birjand had been delightfully
mild and balmy, now changed and became bleak and stormy. During
the night, a strong east wind blew in eddying gusts that threatened
the stability of our tents. In the forenoon it changed to the west,
and towards sunset veered round to the north, and closed the
evening with a storm and heavy rain.
We had been promised a relay of camels at this place, and up to
the last were deceived by false assurances of their being ready at
the time appointed for our departure. But as they were not produced
at the time agreed, and we had seen enough to shake our faith in
the ready promises of their immediate arrival, it was decided that we
should leave our large tents and heavy baggage here, to be brought
on after us so soon as the promised camels should be provided, and
proceed ourselves with the small tents and mule carriage, according
to the original intention.
At noon, therefore, we set out in light marching order, and after
passing clear of the town, crossed a wide ravine that courses
through it towards the west, and entered on a wide plateau that
gently slopes up towards the east, in which direction it is continuous
with the Sarbesha valley. Our route across this was in a north-
easterly direction by a beaten track skirting the base of a high ridge
of mountains that close the plateau towards the west. At about eight
miles we rose over some low mounds of fissile slate covered with
red marl that project on to the plateau, and beyond them, crossing
the deep boulder-strewn ravine of Ishkambár, followed the highroad
between the villages of Bújdí on the right and Ishkambár on the left,
and passing a roadside ábambár, at a couple of miles farther on
reached the hamlet of Mahiabad, near the entrance of a deep gorge
in the hills, and halted awhile to let the baggage get on ahead.
The rise from Birjand to this, though gradual, is considerable—850
feet as indicated by the aneroid—and from its elevation we got a
good view of the Bagrán range of hills to the south, and the great
tableland that forms the prospect on its north, in which direction it is
bounded by the Múminabad range of hills, that separate it from the
Sunnikhána and Alghór districts. This extensive tableland descends
considerably towards the west, and is divided unequally into the
valley of Múd and plateau of Sarbesha by a low ridge of rocks that
run from east to west. The drainage of the whole surface is
conveyed by the Fakhrábád ravine through the town of Birjand down
to the Khusp river, which is lost in the great desert of the west. We
crossed this ravine on leaving camp, and saw that it received the
Múd and Ishkambár ravines as tributaries.
The general aspect of this tableland, bounded on all sides by hills,
is singularly wild, and at this season its climate is bleak and
inhospitable. A cold north wind swept down from the hills in
numbing blasts, and howled over the wide waste dismally. Beyond
the three little castellated hamlets in our vicinity, not a vestige of
habitation or cultivation was anywhere to be seen. Yet in summer,
we were assured, the now deserted pastures are covered with
nomad tents, and swarm with teeming flocks of goats and sheep
and camels.
Mahiabad, like Bújdí and Ishkambár, is a collection of eighteen or
twenty miserable huts, protected by a small castle. Like them, too, it
is almost depopulated by the effects of the famine, which still
presses sorely, notwithstanding the imports of grain from Sistan. In
Mahiabad, only four families are left out of its original population of
fifteen families. The rest have either died of starvation, or emigrated
in search of food. The remnant who still cling to the village are
miserably poor, and carry starvation depicted on their features. Their
lot now is undoubtedly a cruelly hard one, and in the best of times,
could not have been a very favourable one, for the soil is sterile, and
composed for the most part of the débris of trap and granite rocks,
that strew the surface with sharp angular stones; whilst the water
supply, which is from a pool fed by a kárez, is so bitter and saline
that it is barely drinkable. We tried some tea prepared with it, and
that was all, for it was impossible to drink it even thus disguised.
On the plain opposite Mahiabad, and a little distance from Bújdí, is
a singular conical hill called márkoh, or “serpent hill.” It looks like a
volcanic crater, and stands out alone by itself. We could not learn
that the name had any reference to the existence or not of snakes
upon it. Beyond Mahiabad our path entered the hills, and followed
the windings of a wildly picturesque defile, the general direction of
which is northerly. On our way up the gorge, which widens and
narrows alternately, we passed the castellated hamlets of Pisukh and
Piranj, each occupying an eminence overlooking the road, and at
about the fifth mile reached the watershed, at a narrow pass called
Gudar Saman Shahí. Its elevation is about 7020 feet above the sea,
and 2140 feet above Birjand. The ascent is considerable all the way,
and the road very rough, with sharp angular blocks of trap strewing
the surface. Here and there the hard rugged rocks approach and
narrow the path, so as to render it difficult for the passage of laden
cattle. In the pass we overtook our baggage, which had left camp at
Birjand at ten a.m., and it did not all arrive in our camp at Ghíbk till
past nine p.m., the cattle being much exhausted by the march.
Beyond the watershed, the road slopes gently to a little dell full of
vineyards, orchards, and fruit gardens; and farther on, crossing a
deep boulder-strewn ravine, passes over a flat ridge of slaty rock
down to the glen of Ghíbk, in which we camped at a few hundred
yards below the village, a strip of terraced corn-fields intervening.
This is the roughest and most difficult pass we have seen in all our
journey so far; and it was the more trying both to man and beast by
the inclemency of the weather. A cold north wind blew down the
pass in chilling gusts, and at six o’clock, just as we had alighted on
our camping-ground, a heavy storm of rain broke over us and
drenched everything, so that it was with difficulty we got a fire
lighted to warm ourselves till the arrival of our baggage, which did
not all come up till three hours later, owing to the men having lost
the path in the dark.
We halted here the next day to rest our cattle, and were so
fortunate as to have fine weather, with a delightfully clear and fresh
atmosphere, which enabled us thoroughly to enjoy and appreciate
the climate and scenery of this really charming little eyrie in the hills,
of which our first experience was so unfavourable. Our camp is
pitched at the bottom of a narrow dell half a mile due west of Ghíbk,
which is a romantic little village picturesquely perched on the summit
and slopes of a mound at its top. From the midst of the huts, rising
tier above tier, stands out their protecting castle, now in a sad state
of decay, as indeed is the whole village. Around it are crowded
together vineyards and fruit gardens on the terraced slopes of the
hills, whilst the dell itself is laid out in a succession of terraced corn-
fields, freely watered by sprightly little streams.
The situation is a charming one in this wild region of barren hills
and rugged rocks, and in summer must be as agreeable and
salubrious a residence as in winter it is bleak and inhospitable. The
elevation of our camp at the bottom of the dell is estimated at 6650
feet above the sea, and that of the village itself about a couple of
hundred feet higher. In winter, snow falls here very heavily, and the
people are shut up in their houses for fully two months. The main
range of mountains rises several hundred feet above the elevation of
Ghíbk, and runs from north-west to south-east, throwing out spurs
on either side, that enclose a succession of glens or narrow valleys
draining east and west. The Ghíbk valley is one of these, and is
continuous towards the west, through the gully of the ravine we
crossed on approaching it, with the glens of Arwí and Zarwí, the
drainage of which ultimately reaches the Khusp river, to be lost on
the sandy desert of Yazd. The main range has different names to
distinguish its several portions; thus at Ghíbk it is called Alghór or
Arghol, to the north of this it is called Sághí, and to the south Saman
Shahí. The Alghór range gives its name to one of the principal
divisions or bulúk of the Gháyn district.
 The Alghór bulúk is said to contain upwards of three hundred
villages and hamlets and farmsteads (mazrá), scattered about in
nooks and dells amongst the hills. Arwí and Zarwí are amongst the
largest of the villages. We visited these during our halt here. They
are very picturesquely situated in adjoining dells only two or three
miles off, and each contains about two hundred houses. They have a
neat and prosperous look, and are surrounded by vineyards and
orchards and small patches of corn cultivation. Ghíbk is a smaller
village, and contains about seventy or eighty houses. Alghór is the
chief town of the bulúk, and is said to contain three hundred houses.
It is the residence of the agent of the governor of the district, Mír
’Alam Khán. All these villages have suffered more or less severely
during the famine, and some have become entirely depopulated.
The population of Ghíbk was formerly nearly four hundred souls. It
now only contains about two hundred and fifty. During last year fifty-
three persons, we were told, had died of starvation, and the village
has further lost thirty families who have emigrated to Sistan.
From Ghíbk we marched eighteen miles, and camped at Sihdih.
Our route was generally north by west, up the course of a drainage
gully, winding amongst hills, and passing from dell to dell up to a
watershed formed by a spur from the Sághí range on our right. It
runs east and west, and is about 6750 feet above the sea. The hills
are of disintegrated trap overlaid by a soft friable slate, the surface
of which has crumbled into a marly soil. Vegetation, though there
are no trees nor large bushes, except in the gardens, is more
abundant than the wild and rugged look of the hills would lead one
to expect. We noticed camel-thorn, ephedra, asafœtida, rhubarb,
wormwood, tulip, crocus, bluebell, and other similar plants and
grasses, along the line of march.
Beyond the watershed the road slopes gently along the course of
a long drainage gully, which winds through a gradually widening
country with hills on either side, and at about twelve miles enters
the Sihdih valley, an open plateau extending east and west for thirty
miles or so. In the first few miles from the watershed we passed in
succession the villages of Nokhán, Cháhikan, and Pistakhan on the
left, and Sághí and Husenabad on the right. The country between
the hills is much broken by low mounds, all more or less ploughed
up and sown with corn. The extent of this cultivation indicates the
existence of a much larger population than we see in our passage
through the country. The fact is, they are concealed from view in the
secluded nooks and glens of the hills around, each of which has its
own farmsteads and hamlets, with their vineyards and fruit gardens.
The fruits produced here are the plum, apricot, jujube, apple, peach,
quince, almond, mulberry, &c. The chief crops are wheat and barley,
and the common vegetables are the carrot, turnip, onion, cabbage,
beet, &c. In summer the hill pastures are resorted to by nomads
with their flocks of goats and sheep and herds of camels. Snow still
lies on the higher ranges, and patches are found in the sheltered
hollows lower down. The hills abound in game, such as the márkhor
and ibix (both species of wild goat), and the wild sheep. The
leopard, hyæna, and wolf are also found on them, but not the bear.
The country generally is devoid of trees, but supports an abundant
growth of pasture plants and bushes suitable for fuel. We here found
the surface covered with the wormwood, and a dwarf yellow rose
with a dark purple centre. It is called khalora, and affords a good
pasture for cattle. I observed it all over the country as far west as
Kirmánshah, and generally in company with the wild liquorice.
Sihdih, as the name implies, is a collection of three villages on the
plain to which they give their name. Only one of them is now
inhabited, the other two being in ruins. Very superior carpets are
manufactured here, and they seem to fetch also very superior prices,
to judge from those asked of us for some specimens we had
selected. The fact is, the natural propensity of the merchants to
overcharge the stranger, particularly the Britisher, who is always
supposed to travel about with untold wealth, had been stimulated by
the very liberal ideas of our Persian servants as to their own rights of
perquisite or mudákhil, as it is termed; and prices were at once
doubled or trebled, to the detriment of all parties, for we refrained
from purchasing as freely as we would with fair dealing, the
merchants lost an opportunity of ready profit, and our servants, the
cause of the whole mischief, received but diminished returns, as the
fruit of their greed and chicanery.
Our Afghan companions, who well knew the market price of these
carpets, and had come prepared to lay in a stock of them for
transport to Kandahar, were so disgusted at the be-ímáni, or want of
conscience, on the part of the Persians, that they altogether refused
to treat with them on the terms, and contented themselves by
leaving an agent to purchase what they required after our departure,
when prices would return to their normal rates. The evils of dastúrí
in India are bad enough so far as they affect the foreigner, but here,
under the name mudákhil, they are ten times worse. The dastúrí or
customary perquisite taken by servants on all purchases made by
their master through or with their cognisance, is usually limited to an
anna in the rupee, or six and a quarter per cent., but the mudákhil,
which may be rendered, “all that comes within grasp,” has no
recognised limit, and ranges high or low, according to the conscience
of the exactor and the weakness of his victim. With us, as our
subsequent experience proved, it ranged from ten to three hundred
per cent., and was an imposition from which, under the
circumstances of the case, we could not escape.
The Sihdih júlagah or plain is a fertile valley running east and
west, and presents a number of castellated villages along the hill
skirts on either side. Its soil is light and gravelly, and in the vicinity of
the villages the surface is covered with long strips of corn cultivation.
The general slope of the land is to the west, in which direction it
drains by a wide ravine that ultimately joins the Khusp river. The
water of the kárez on which our camp was pitched proved too
brackish to drink, and we were obliged to send to another kárez
beyond the village for a fresh supply. The weather here was very
changeable. North-westerly gusts of wind raised clouds of dust, and
drove it in eddying drifts across the plain, till a thunderstorm with a
smart fall of rain cleared the atmosphere, and allowed the sun to
shine out a while before setting for the day.
 We heard different accounts here of recent raids by the Turkmans,
but the accounts were so conflicting that we could make nothing of
them, more than that these slave-hunting freebooters were really on
the road and somewhere in the vicinity. The people have such a
terror of them that they cannot speak of them without evincing fear,
and running off into extravagances as to their ferocity and irresistible
prowess.
From Sihdih we marched ten miles to Rúm, and camped on the
sloping bank of a brisk little hill stream draining westward, at a short
distance from the village. Our route was mostly northward across
the plain, but for the last two miles, on entering the hills, was north-
eastward. Rúm is a miserable little village of seventy or eighty huts,
clustered around a crumbling castle on the very brink of a hill torrent
of no depth or width. It now only contains thirty families of
wretchedly poor people, who have so far struggled through the
great pressure of the famine. Last year, we were told, forty of the
people died of starvation, and between twenty-five and thirty
families emigrated in search of food. The remnant were so reduced
and broken-hearted that they were unable to bury their dead
decently, and merely deposited the bodies in shallow pits covered
over with loose soil. I observed some broken skulls and human
bones in the little stream washing the walls of the village, and
noticed that the whole air of the locality was tainted with putrid
odours from the insufficiently covered graves. From Rúm we
marched twenty-two miles to Gháyn, and halted there two days. Our
route for the first few miles was north-easterly up the course of the
Rúm rivulet, and then northerly over a hilly tract, gradually rising up
to a watershed at seven miles. The ridge runs east and west, and is
about 6550 feet above the sea, and 964 feet above Sihdih. The rock
is of friable brown slate, here and there crumbled into clay. The
ascent up to the pass is very gradual, over a hillocky hollow between
high hills. The surface is everywhere ploughed and sown with corn,
and abounds in a variety of weeds, crocus, tulip, anemone, and
other plants. We saw no villages, but the cultivation indicates their
existence in the secluded nooks and dells around. The morning air
was delightfully fresh, a hoar-frost whitened the ground, and our
march was enlivened by the clear song of the nightingale and the
familiar notes of the cuckoo.
The view from the watershed is very picturesque, and looks down
in the distance upon the valley of Gháyn, which stretches east and
west beyond a long vista of irregular hills of bare rock, flanked on
either side by a high range streaked with snow at the summit.
The descent from the watershed is by a narrow stony path on the
steep slope of the hill, down to a winding ravine at its foot. We
followed this for some distance, passing three little hamlets with
their orchards, saffron gardens, and mulberry plantations in
successive little glens, and at about five miles from the watershed
came to Kharwaj, a flourishing village of eighty or ninety houses, on
the terminal slopes of a spur that causes the gully draining this
hollow to make a considerable sweep. The people of this village are
Saggids, and appear very comfortably off. They are well clad, and
present no signs of suffering from the famine. Both the men and
women have remarkably fair complexions and ruddy cheeks, and
what surprised me more was the decidedly Tátár cast of their
features.
From this we went on down a narrow glen, that, widening
gradually, at last expands on to the valley of Gháyn by a long and
gentle slope, half-way on which is a roadside ábambár fed by a
kárez stream. Before us lay a crowded mass of fruit gardens and
mulberry plantations, all in full foliage, and above them rose aloft
the high-domed mosque of Gháyn. We passed amongst these walled
gardens, and skirting the fortifications of the town, camped on a
small rivulet a little way to its west. As we cleared the gardens we
came upon a crowd of the townspeople, collected on the roadside to
see us pass. They were remarkably well dressed, and conducted
themselves with commendable propriety and decorum. Most of them
bowed civilly as we rode past, and many raised the hand to the head
in military style, whilst a venerable old priest with a flowing beard as
white as the turban under the weight of whose capacious folds he
was buried, standing apart on a slight eminence with half a dozen
acolytes clad in white, offered up a prayer to avert any evil that this
first visit of Europeans to their town might entail. The plaintive
trembling voice of the old man, echoed by the shrill tones of his
young disciples, struck me as peculiarly impressive, but they were
unheeded by the crowd, who were much too deeply absorbed in the
novel spectacle presented by our party to their eyes for the first
time. We were assured that we were the first Europeans who are
known to have visited this town, and the statement is supported by
the fact that all our maps of the country were wrong as to its proper
location, Gháyn being placed to the south of Birjand, whereas the
reverse is the case.
Gháyn has a very decayed look, and quite disappoints the
expectations raised by the first sight of its gardens and lofty
mosque. The town covers a considerable extent of ground enclosed
within fortified walls, now everywhere in a state of decay. The area
within the walls is capable of containing from eight to ten thousand
houses, it is said, though at this time only about fifteen hundred are
occupied, corn-fields and gardens occupying the intervals between
the ruins of its former mansions. A prominent object of attraction in
the town is its lofty domed mosque, which in outward appearance is
in keeping with the general look of decay pervading the locality. Its
walls, which are supported in their perpendicular by buttress arches
built against them laterally, are dangerously cracked from top to
bottom, either from original defect of architecture or from the effects
of earthquakes. The population is estimated at about eight
thousand, amongst whom are many Saggid families, and others of
Arab origin. The mass of the people, however, appear to be of Tátár
origin, as indicated by the very marked traces of that typical race in
their features.
Silk and saffron are produced here in considerable quantity, and a
variety of fruits. The asafœtida grows wild in great abundance all
over the plain, and rhubarb on the surrounding hills. The asafœtida
is of two kinds—one called kamá-i-gawí, which is grazed by cattle
and used as a potherb, and the other kamá-i-angúza, which yields
the gum-resin of commerce. The silk is mostly sent to Kirmán in the
raw state, but a good deal is consumed at home in the manufacture
of some inferior fabrics for the local markets. The carpets known by
the name of this town are not made here, but in the villages of the
southern divisions of the district.
Gháyn is the name of a very ancient city, supposed to have been
founded by a son of the blacksmith Káwáh of Ispahán, the hero of
the Peshdádí kings, who slew the tyrant Záhák, and whose leather
apron—afterwards captured by the Arab Sád bin Wacáss—became
the standard of Persia, under the name of darafshi Káwání, or the
“Káwání standard.” It was studded with the most costly jewels by
successive kings, to the last of the Pahlavi race, from whom it was
wrested by the Arab conqueror, and sent as a trophy to the Khálif
’Umar.
The son of Káwáh was named Kárin. His city, the ruins of which
are here known as Shahri Gabri, or “the Gabr (Guebrc) city,” was
built on the slope and crest of a hill ridge overlooking the present
town from the south-east. The hill is called “Koh Imám Jáfar,” and is
covered with the remains of ancient buildings, and large reservoirs
excavated in the solid rock. The city, according to local tradition, was
sacked and destroyed by Halákú Khán, the son of Changhiz, and the
present town afterwards rose on the plain at the foot of the hill in its
stead. In the days of its prosperity this new city must have been a
very flourishing and populous centre of life. The environs for a
considerable distance are covered with extensive graveyards, in
which are some handsome tombs of glazed tiles and slabs of white
marble, elaborately carved and inscribed. The valley of Gháyn is a
wide plain extending east and west between high mountains, the
summits of which are still covered with snow. A high snow-streaked
range closes the valley towards the west. It is called Koh Báras, and
trending in a north-westerly direction, connects the elevated
tablelands of Sarbesha and Alghór with those of Bijistan of the Tún
and Tabbas district. Its eastern slopes drain into the Gháyn valley,
where its several streams form a considerable rivulet (our camp is
pitched on its shore), which flows past the town to the eastward. To
the northward, the Gháyn valley is separated from the plains of
Nímbulúk and Gúnábád by a low range of bare hills over which there
are several easy passes.
The elevation of Gháyn is about 4860 feet above the sea, or much
on the same level as that of Birjand, and a little higher than that of
Bijistan, from both of which it is separated by tablelands of
considerably higher elevation. The climate of Gháyn is described as
temperate and salubrious during spring and summer, but bleak and
rigorous during autumn and winter. During two or three months of
winter the roads over the high land between this and Birjand on the
one hand, and Bijistan on the other, are closed to all traffic by the
depth of snow then covering the hills. Gháyn, like Birjand, appears
to have escaped the horrors of the famine, for we saw no traces of
its effects amongst the people, who appeared a fine healthy and
robust race, of mixed types of physiognomy, in which the Tátár
characters predominated. During our stay here, the weather, though
fine and sunny, was decidedly cold, and a keen north-west wind
swept down from the hills in stormy gusts. The temperature of the
air ranged from 35° Fah. to 75° Fah., and rendered warm clothing
not only agreeable but necessary.
From this place, it had been arranged that we should proceed to
Turbat Hydari by the direct road through Nímbulúk and Gúnábád,
but a very fortunate accident determined us to follow a safer route,
particularly as in our unprotected state—the Persian authorities
having failed to furnish our party with any escort—we were
unprepared to face any unnecessary risk.
On the day after our arrival here, the Afghan Commissioner,
Saggid Núr Muhammad Sháh, sought an interview with General
Pollock, to consult about our onward journey, as he had received
alarming accounts of the dangers on the road it was proposed we
should follow. At the interview the Saggid introduced an old
acquaintance of his, one Hájí Mullah Abdul Wahid, a merchant of
Gizík in the Sunnikhána district. Hearing of our arrival in this country,
he had set out for Birjand to see the Saggid, but finding our camp
had left the place, followed and overtook us here. The Hájí was an
asthmatic old gentleman of nearly seventy years of age, and had
seen more prosperous times than fortune had now allotted to him.
By way of preface he mentioned that he had cashed bills for Colonel
Taylor’s mission at Herat in 1857, and claimed acquaintance with me
on the score of having met me at Kandahar with Major Lumsden’s
mission. He expressed great respect for the British, and assured us it
was only his good-will towards us, and interest in the welfare of his
countryman the Saggid, that had prompted him to dissuade us from
pursuing the route he had heard we proposed taking. “This route,”
said he, “is beset with dangers, and God alone can extricate you
from them. You may escape them in Nímbulúk and Gúnábád, but in
the Reg Amráni beyond, you must fall into the hands of the
Turkmans. They are known to be on the road, and not a week
passes without their raiding one or other of the júlagah between this
and Turbat.” He told us he knew them well, for he had himself been
carried off prisoner by them at the time of Yár Muhammad’s death,
and was ransomed a few months later, together with six or seven
hundred other Afghan subjects, by his son Syd Muhammad. He
described the Turkmans as being very well armed with rifles and
double-barrelled guns, and as never charging in parties less than
fifty, and sometimes with as many as five hundred. They respect no
class, nor sex, nor age, except the Arabs, and sell all they capture in
the markets of Khiva, only killing the very aged and infirm, and
those who offer resistance. They have been in this vicinity for the
last three weeks, and have already carried off from one hundred and
sixty to one hundred and eighty of the peasantry of Gháyn. Their
favourite routes are by the Dashna-i-Gharcáb in Nímbulúk, and the
Reg Amráni to the north of Gúnábád.
He most strongly and repeatedly urged us, as we valued our own
safety, not to trust ourselves on the plains of Gúnábád, and advised
us to follow one of the more western routes, where we should have
the protection of the hills, amongst which the Turkmans fear to
entangle themselves. The good old Hájí’s arguments were so just,
and so clearly and strongly advanced, that, left as we were to our
own resources, there was no hesitation in changing our course, and
adopting a safer route through the hills bordering the dangerous
tract on the west; and our friend was satisfied that his journey from
Gizík, which is sixty miles north-east of Birjand, over an elevated
plateau dotted with villages, was not altogether fruitless, since it
afforded him the happiness of diverting us from a dangerous route,
and the pleasure of experiencing British generosity and gratitude, for
the General did not allow his good service to pass unrewarded. The
old man took leave of us with genuine expressions of good-will and
friendship, and heartily commending us to the protection of God,
warned us to be unceasingly on our guard against the cunning and
treachery of the Persians. “Be very careful,” said he in a mysterious
whisper, “how you drink the tea and coffee they offer you. Many of
our people have died with agonising stomachaches after partaking of
this refreshment at their hands.”
9th April.—Gháyn to Girimunj, twenty-two miles. Our route was
north-westerly, seven miles across the plain, which is covered with
asafœtida in profuse abundance, to the little castellated hamlets of
Shermurgh at the foot of the hills.
We halted here for breakfast near a kárez stream of intensely
brackish water. Here a noisy dispute occurred between our
baggagers and a party of eight or ten armed men, who came after
them from Gháyn in hot haste and tempers to match, with a couple
of Persian officials, whose dignity it was pretended had been
offended by our mirakhor, or “master of the stables,” having hired
some asses for our baggage without a reference to them. They
made a great disturbance immediately in front of where we were
seated, pulled each other about, lavished pidr sokhtas and cabr
káshídas on all sides, and would not be appeased though the
mirakhor uncovered his head to them, kissed the frothy lips of the
irate Persian, and offering his beard as sacrifice, entreated his
forgiveness. Even our mihmandár, Ali Beg, was as useless in this
emergency as he had proved all along the march; and the offended
officials, as heedless of his presence as of ours, defiantly threw off
our loads, and triumphantly marched off with the asses we had
hired.
Had the Persian authorities made the arrangements they were in
duty bound to do for our proper escort and treatment, this insult
could not have occurred. We were even left to provide our own
escort on a road acknowledged to be unsafe for travellers, and
received such scant assistance that it was with difficulty fifty
matchlockmen were collected to escort our party on this march. On
starting from Gháyn it was arranged that we should take the route
by Nogháb and Asadabad, skirting the hills on the western border of
the Nímbulúk plain; but after proceeding a short distance, some
scouts sent out to examine the passes returned, and from their
reports it was deemed advisable to turn off into the more westerly
route through the hills.
From Shermurgh our route continued north-westerly up the course
of a wide drainage gully, bounded on the left by the snow-streaked
Báras range, and on the right separated from the Nímbulúk plain by
a low rocky range bare of vegetation. At eight miles we reached a
watershed called Gudari Gód, and on the way up to it passed a bend
in the hills to our left, in which we saw the villages of Nogirift,
Razdumbal, and Mahanj. The elevation at the watershed is about
6075 feet above the sea. From it the descent is gradual, by a path
that winds amongst ridges skirting the base of Báras and its
continuation, Koh Behud, and crossing the Rúdi Myán Pyáz,
traverses a hill slope stretching down to the Nímbulúk plain up to
Girimunj. The Myán Pyáz rivulet is a brisk stream that drains Behud
to the Nímbulúk plain, and of considerable size. Girimunj contains
about two hundred houses clustered round a central fort, and is
situated at the entrance to a picturesque glen, in which are seen the
villages of Dihushk and Buznábád with their rich orchards and
vineyards. The Nímbulúk plain presents a wide valley, extending
from north-west to south-east some thirty-five miles by twelve wide.
On its surface to the northward are seen the villages of Siláyáni,
Mahyám, and Khidri. It is separated from Gúnábád by a long curving
range of hills, through which are several passes. The hill range is
called Mysúr, and the passes, from south to north, are named Dahna
Gharcáb, Mugri, Rijing, Bálághor, and Dahna Sulemán. The first and
last are the routes commonly taken by the Turkmans.
Shortly after our arrival in camp, a party of matchlockmen arrived
from Dashtí Pyáz to warn Girimunj that Khidri had passed on word to
them to be on the alert, as two hundred and fifty Turkmans had this
morning swept across Gúnábád, and taken the road to Kakhak,
which is our stage beyond Khidri. The news created a considerable
stir in the village, and the people warned us to be on the alert
during the night, and to continue our route by the hills to Munawáj,
and on no account to venture into the open plain. At sunset Sir F.
Goldsmid and General Pollock went round our camp, and posted the
matchlockmen whom we had hired from the village to protect the
approaches during the night, as it was thought we might possibly be
attacked by them. We ourselves looked to our arms, and at a late
hour retired to rest prepared for an alarm. Morning dawned,
however, and no Turkman was seen, and we were inclined to think
they were a myth, but for the lively fear and strict caution of the
peasantry, which warned us of the necessity of vigilance.
From Girimunj we marched fifteen miles to Dashtí Pyáz. Our route
was north-west along the Nímbulúk plain, skirting the Isfyán range
of hills (a continuation of Behud) on our left. Out of deference to the
Turkmans, we marched in a compact column with the baggage, a
party of thirty matchlockmen leading the advance, and a similar
party following in the rear.
At a few miles from camp, we came upon the fresh marks of
horseshoes across our path. They were followed a little way on to
the plain, and unhesitatingly pronounced to be the tracks of
Turkmans who had come to reconnoitre our position during the
night.
Our Afghan companions, who had some practical knowledge of
these people about Herat, were satisfied on this point, and described
to us their mode of attack, and how it behoved us to defend
ourselves; whilst Hájí Abdullah, Shahrki, a venerable old chief of
Sistan, who had joined Sir F. Goldsmid’s party at Kirmán, and used
often to entertain us with selections from his stories of traditional
lore, propounded in most classical language and with the purest
accent, in tones delightful to the ear, and with a captivating manner,
was no less convinced of the necessity for caution, and forthwith
turned his camel a little closer to the hills, and manfully followed the
course of his own selection in solitary dignity, holding his rifle all
ready charged with both hands across his lap, and keeping his sharp
eyes steadily fixed in the direction of the plain.
We passed two roadside ábambár and three or four little hamlets
at the foot of the hills, then crossed a hill torrent, and rising over an
upland, at the twelfth mile came to Khidri, a flourishing village of
two hundred houses, buried in fruit gardens and mulberry
plantations. We halted here for breakfast, whilst the baggage
proceeded to Dashtí Pyáz, four miles farther on, at the top of the
upland rise.
We halted two days at Dashtí Pyáz, in hopes of the heavy baggage
we had left at Birjand here overtaking us. But as it did not arrive,
and our Persian mihmandár told so many and such contradictory lies
about it—his last report, told us with the coolest effrontery only at
Khidri, assured us that we should find all awaiting us at this place,
Dashtí Pyáz—we were fain to proceed, leaving it to overtake us
farther on.
Dashtí Pyáz is a flourishing village of three hundred houses
outside a dilapidated fort, which is also crowded with habitations,
and all around are extensive fruit gardens and vineyards. The town
is situated at the entrance to a wide glen, formed by a bend in the
Isfyán and Koh Syáh hills to the west. It contains several flourishing
villages, of which Munawáj and Buthkabad are the chief, and the
ruins of an ancient city called Jáhul Fars, the capital of Isfandyár.
13th April.—Dashtí Pyáz to Kakhak, sixteen miles. We were to
have marched yesterday morning, but at the last moment the order
was countermanded, as the Persian mihmandár refused to consent
to our moving unless Sir F. Goldsmid gave him a written and sealed
paper exonerating him from all responsibility in case of accident or
injury on the road. He stated that he had received intelligence from
his scouts that from two hundred to four hundred Turkman horse
had been seen last evening on the plain at two farsakhs or
parasangs (about eight miles) from the Bálághor Pass, and that they
may to-day be expected to raid Gúnábád to Kakhak or this valley of
Nímbulúk to-day. The day passed, however, without our seeing
anything of them, and our only consolation in the delay was in the
unfavourable state of the weather, which set in damp and chill with
drenching showers, and the new information we gathered regarding
the so-called Turkmans, of whom we have heard so much and seen
so little.
These would-be Turkmans are in reality Tymúri horsemen, lately in
the service of Ataullah Khán, their tribal chief. This man was one of
the chiefs of the Tátár tribes settled about Herat since the invasion
of Tymúr Lang or Tamerlane, and named after that devastating
conqueror. In 1857, when the prince-governor of Khorassan, Sultán
Murád Mirzá, Hisámussaltanat, of Mashhad, attacked Herat, this
chief, with his following, joined the Persian standard. On the retreat
of the Persian army from Herat territory, Ataullah, by way of reward
for his services, and compensation for the compromise his conduct
had brought about, was transported, with four hundred families of
his tribe, to the Kohi Surkh district of Turshíz, and granted the
villages of Kundar, Khalilábád, Dihnan, Majdí, Sarmujdí, Bijingar, and
Argi, in military fief for their support.
During the famine last year, these men, becoming hard pressed
for food, threw off the restraint of their chief, and took to the more
congenial occupation of plundering the caravans from Herat to
Tehran, and were soon joined by other adventurers and robbers,
who grow in this country like mushrooms on mould. Their
depredations led to such widespread complaint, that the governor of
Mashhad sent the Imami Jumá to inquire into the conduct of the
tribe, redress complaints, and restore the plundered property.
Ataullah, hearing of this, himself fled and joined the robbers, but
was conciliated, and persuaded to tender his submission at
Mashhad. The subsequent conduct of his people, however, who
waylaid and murdered a party of government officials on their way
across Reg Amráni towards Tabbas, has still further compromised
their chief with the Government, and Ataullah is now a close prisoner
at Tehran, and it is supposed will answer with his life for the conduct
of his tribesmen. This history, interesting in itself, is eminently
characteristic of the state of society and weak government on this
frontier.
Our route from Dashtí Pyáz was W.N.W., ascending a long upland
or chol separated from the Gúnábád plain on the right by the Laki
ridge of hills, and from the Munawáj glen on the left by a broken
chain of hillocks. Passing a roadside ábambár about half-way, we
halted at the sixth mile at a willow-fringed tank near the picturesque
little castle of Sihúkri for breakfast. Here we found some fine elm
and walnut trees. The rise is about 900 feet above Dashtí Pyáz, and
affords an extensive view of the Nímbulúk plain and country to the
southward. Our baggage, with the escort of hired matchlockmen,
went on ahead, and we followed an hour and a half later.
Onwards from this, our route was N.N.W., through a narrow
winding gorge bounded by low hills of slate and magnesian
limestone, in which we found some fossil bivalves and oysters. A
gradual ascent of four miles brought us to the Gudari Kakhak, a
narrow watershed pass that marks the boundary between the
districts of Gháyn and Tabbas. Its elevation is about 6838 feet above
the sea, and 1408 feet above Dashtí Pyáz. It is closed for two
months in winter by snow, and in wet weather is difficult for laden
cattle, owing to the loose marly soil becoming a deep slippery mud.
The descent is gradual, through a long drainage gully receiving
branches on either side down to a wide boulder-strewn ravine with
high banks, which opens on to the Gúnábád plain, near Kakhak. At
three miles down the gully we came to an ábambár, where a road
branches off to the left direct to Kakhak over the hills, but it is
difficult for laden cattle. At this spot, too, a branch gully comes down
from the right. In it is said to be a copper-mine, which has been
abandoned for some years, owing to the vein being lost. We noticed
that the surface was strewed with stones of a bright greenish blue
colour, as if coated with acetate of copper.
The hill slopes on each side of the gully are cultivated in terraces,
and irrigated by streams led along their brows; and on our way
down, we passed several black tents of ilyát families occupied in the
preparation of cheese and the peculiar round balls of that substance
known by the name of cúrút. At the lower part of the gully we
turned to the left out of it, beyond the castellated village of
Mullahabad, and at a mile farther on came to our camp, pitched on
an open gravelly surface near some gardens at a short distance from
Kakhak. This is a flourishing town of about four hundred houses,
surrounded by fruit gardens and corn-fields, and protected by a
citadel. A prominent object of attraction is the mausoleum erected to
the memory of Sultán Muhammad, a brother of Imám Razá, the
saint of Mashhad. It stands on a commanding eminence, and has a
handsome dome of glazed tiles, the bright colours of which are set
off to the best advantage by the whitewashed portals of its
groundwork. Ferrier, in his “Caravan Journeys,” mentions this place
as being the site of one of the most bloody battles ever fought
between the Afghans and Persians. It occurred in 1751, when Sháh
Ahmad’s (Durrani) Baloch allies, under their own chief Nasír Khán,
defeated the Persians and slew their leader, ’Ali Murád Khán,
governor of Tabbas, who came here to give them battle. By this
victory Tabbas was annexed to the Durrani kingdom.
A finer sight for a fair fight could not be found. The ground dips
down to the wide plain or júlagah of Junabad in an uninterrupted
slope, and affords a splendid field for the use of cavalry, as is
expressed in the name, applied generally to the succession of valleys
or plains that characterise the physical geography of this country.
Júlagah is evidently the diminutive form of júlangah, which means a
plain suited to military exercises, or any level ground for
horsemanship.
 Kakhak seems to have suffered severely during the famine, but
the accounts we received as to the extent of loss were so
contradictory that it was impossible to get at the truth or an
approximation to it. Numbers of beggars, sickly, pale, and
emaciated, wandered timidly about our camp, craving in piteous
tones a morsel of bread. Poor creatures! nobody cares for them,
even the small coins we give them are snatched away by the
stronger before our eyes. Truly if fellow-feeling makes wondrous
kind, fellow-suffering makes wondrous unkind.
14th April.—Kakhak to Zihbud, sixteen miles; route nearly due
west, hugging the hill range on our left, with the great Gúnábád
valley down to the right. The centre of the valley is occupied by a
succession of considerable villages, with gardens, vineyards, and
corn-fields, watered by numerous kárez streams. To the east it
communicates through a gap in the hills with the great desert of
Kháf, which extends south-east to Ghoryán and Herat. To the
northward it is separated from Bijistan on the one hand and Reg
Amráni on the other by a low range of hilly ridges or tappah, over
which are some easy passes on the direct route through the valley.
At Kakhak we parted from the mihmandár appointed to
accompany us on the part of the governor of Gháyn, and were
joined in the like capacity by Muhammad Ali Beg, the zábit or ruler
of Gúnábád. He is a very ferocious-looking man, with square bull-
dog features, and a heavy coarse mustache, that completely
conceals the mouth, and curls over the short-trimmed wiry whiskers,
all dyed bright orange with henna. His manner, however, is very
quiet and friendly. He welcomed us to the Tabbas district, and
promised we should receive very different treatment from that we
had experienced at the hands of Mír Ali Khán of Gháyn. He had
heard of his conduct; considered he had acted host very
indifferently; reckoned he would be called to account for it by the
Sháh; thought that the prince-governor of Mashhad would profit by
the opportunity to injure him; and, for his own part, hoped he would
come to condign grief.
 Our new host proved an agreeable companion, and spoke very
sensibly, with a remarkable freedom from the bombast and
gesticulation the modern Persian so much delights to display. I
learned from him that he was connected with the Sháh by marriage
with a sister of the Queen-mother, and that he had been on this
frontier for many years. In the time of Kamrán of Herat, he
accompanied Mír Asadullah of Gháyn in his retreat to Sistan, and
spent two years at Chilling and Sihkoha. More recently, four years
ago, he met Yácúb Khán at Mashhad, and subsequently his father,
the present Amir Sher Ali, at Herat. He made some pointed inquiries
regarding Sistan and the boundary question, but on finding they
were not acceptable, adroitly turned the conversation to the more
ephemeral, and perhaps to himself more congenial, topic of wines,
their varieties and qualities; and his familiarity with the names at
least of the common English wines and spirits not a little surprised
me. He expressed concern at finding that we were travelling without
a store of these creature comforts, and very good-naturedly
procured us a small supply of home-distilled arrack from Gúnábád. It
proved very acceptable, for our own supplies had been long since
exhausted; and Mr Rozario, who superintended our mess
arrangements, cleverly converted it into very palatable punch, of
which a little was made to go a great way.
But to return from this digression to our march. We had set out
with the baggage in a closely-packed column, with matchlockmen in
front and rear, and ourselves with a dozen horsemen leading the
advance, for the dread of Turkmans was still upon us. We had
proceeded thus about seven miles, passing the castellated hamlets
of Iddo and Isfyán in picturesque little nooks of the hills on our left,
when we turned a projecting spur and suddenly came upon a wide
ravine, beyond which were the gardens and poppy-fields of Calát.
Leaving the baggage to proceed ahead, we turned off up the course
of the ravine to a clump of trees at its spring-head for breakfast. Our
sudden appearance and martial array, for we were five or six and
twenty horsemen all more or less armed, struck the villagers with a
panic. Five or six of the boldest advanced into the mulberry
plantations and fired their matchlocks at us, but the rest, shouting
“Alaman! alaman!” “Raiders! raiders!” scrambled up the steep slopes
of the slate hill backing the town as fast as their limbs would carry
them. A bullet whistling by our mihmandár with a disagreeably close
“whish,” sent him and his two attendants full gallop towards the
village, vowing all sorts of vengeance on the pidri sokhtas, who
could mistake their own governor and a party of respectable
gentlemen for the marauding Turkmans, on whom be the curse of
’Ali and Muhammad. Ourselves meanwhile proceeded towards the
clump of trees ahead. Here we came upon a watermill. The people
occupied in it, disturbed by the firing, rushed out just in time to be
confronted by us. If the devil himself with all his host had faced
them, they could not have evinced greater fear, nor more activity to
escape his clutches. There were four of them, all dusty and
powdered with flour, and they were up the hillside in a trice, going
on all fours, so steep was the slope, like monkeys. The sight was
absurdly ridiculous, and sent us into fits of laughter. Anon the
fugitives stopped to take breath, and turning their heads, looked
down on us with fear and amazement expressed on their faces. We
beckoned them, called them, and laughed at them. They only
scrambled up higher, and again looked down mistrustfully at us.
Presently our mihmandár rejoined us with two or three of the
villagers, who looked very crestfallen at this exposure of weakness,
and excused themselves as well they might on the grounds of the
frequent raids by the Turkmans they were subjected to. On seeing
us in friendly converse with their fellows, the startled millers slided
down from their retreat, and brought with them as a peace-offering
some rhubarb-stalks, the plants of which covered the hillside. A
general dispensation of kráns and half-kráns soon put us on the
most amicable terms, and restored a thorough confidence.
The scene was altogether too absurd and unexpected to suppress
the momentary merriment it produced, yet it furnishes a subject for
melancholy reflection, as illustrating the state of insecurity in which
these people live. Another fact of a yet more painful nature revealed
by this amusing incident was the frightful state of desolation and
poverty to which this village had been reduced by the combined
effects of famine and rapine. The alarm produced by our sudden
appearance had brought out the whole population on the hillside,
and at a rough guess they did not exceed eighty men and women,
and not a single child was seen amongst them. On resuming our
march we passed through the village. It contains about two hundred
and fifty houses, but most of them are untenanted and falling to
decay. The people were miserably poor and dejected, and looked
very sickly. Yet the village is surrounded by gardens and mulberry
plantations, which, in their spring foliage, give the place an air of
comfort and prosperity by no means in accordance with its real
condition.
Calát, indeed, like many another village our journey brought us to,
in interior condition quite belied its exterior appearance. I may here
state in anticipation, that in all our march from Gháyn to the Persian
capital we hardly anywhere saw infants or very young children. They
had nearly all died in the famine. We nowhere heard the sound of
music nor song nor mirth in all the journey up to Mashhad. We
passed through village after village, each almost concealed from
view in the untrimmed foliage of its gardens, only to see repetitions
of misery, melancholy, and despair. The suffering produced by this
famine baffles description, and exceeds our untutored conceptions.
In this single province of Khorassan the loss of population by this
cause is estimated at 120,000 souls, and over the whole kingdom
cannot be less than a million and a half.
Beyond Calát our path followed the hill skirt in a north-west
direction. The surface is very stony, and covered with wild rhubarb
and the yellow rose in great profusion, to the exclusion of other
vegetation. We passed the villages of Sághí, Kochi, Zaharabad, and
Shirazabad, and then crossing a deep ravine in which flowed a brisk
little stream draining into the central rivulet of Gúnábád, passed over
some undulating ground to Zihbad, where we camped.
15th April.—Zihbad to Bijistan, twenty-eight miles, and halt a day.
Our route was N.N.W., skirting the hill range on our left by a rough
stony path. We passed in succession the villages of Brezú, Kásum,
and Sinoh, each continuous with the other, through a wide stretch of
fruit gardens, mulberry plantations, poppy beds, and corn-fields
watered from a number of brisk little hill streams, and looking the
picture of a prosperity which our experience has taught us is very far
from the reality.
A little farther on, at about the eleventh mile, we came to Patinjo,
and halted for breakfast under the shade of a magnificent plane-tree
in the centre of the village. Proceeding hence, we continued along
the hill skirt, and at about four miles entered amongst the hills that
close the Gúnábád valley to the northward. We gained their shelter
in a somewhat hurried manner, owing to a false alarm of Turkmans
on the plain flanking our right. We had continued to hear all sorts of
fanciful and exaggerated reports of these gentry, founded
undoubtedly on a basis of fact, and were consequently kept alive to
the chance of a possible encounter with them. On the present
occasion a cloud of dust suddenly appeared round a spur projecting
on the plain about two miles to our right. Our mihmandár reined up
a moment, looking intently at the suspicious object, and shook his
head. At this moment the cloud of dust wheeled round in our
direction. “Yá Ali!” he exclaimed. “They are Turkmans. Get on quick
into the hills;” and so saying, he unslung his rifle, and loaded as he
galloped. A few minutes brought us all to the hills, and ascending
some heights overlooking the plain, we levelled our glasses at the
cause of our commotion. After a good deal of spying and
conjecturing, we discovered, to our no small chagrin, that we were
no better than our friends of Calát, for our would-be Turkmans were
no other than a flock of goats and sheep, grazing along the hill skirts
for protection against surprise by those very marauders.
Our road through the hills was by a winding path, over ridges and
through defiles, everywhere rough and stony, and in some parts very
wild and rugged.
After passing the castellated village of Kámih we came to a very
difficult little gorge between bare rocks of trap, and farther on
reached a watershed called Gudari Rúdi, or “the pass of the tamarisk
river.” It runs north and south, and is about 5150 feet above the sea.
The descent is gradual, by a long drainage gully between gradually
diverging hills. At five miles from the watershed we turned to the left
across a wide gravelly waste to Bijistan, where we camped near a
sarae outside the town. As we approached camp, along the eastern
side of this waste, we had the pleasure of seeing a long string of
camels with our heavy baggage from Birjand converging to the sarae
spot on the western side.
Bijistan is one of the principal towns of the Tabbas district, and
contains about two thousand houses surrounded by gardens. It is a
charming spot in this wilderness of barren hills and desert wastes,
and lies at the base of an isolated ridge of hills, beyond which, to
the west, is seen, down in a hollow, portion of the great salt desert
of Yazd and Káshán. It is called Kavír, and its surface is of dazzling
whiteness from saline encrustations.
The people here have suffered dreadfully from the famine, and
have lost nearly all their cattle from the same cause. Our camp is
surrounded by crowds of beggars, famished, gaunt and wizened
creatures, most sorry objects to behold. Boys and girls, of from ten
to twenty years of age, wan, pinched, and wrinkled, whine around
us in piteous tones all day and all night, and vainly call on Ali for aid.
“Ahajo! (for Agha ján) gushna am, yak puli siyah bidih!” (“Dear sir! I
am hungry; give me a supper!”) is the burden of each one’s prayer;
whilst “Yá Alí-í-í-í!” resounds on all sides from those too helpless to
move from the spots doomed to be their deathbeds. These
prolonged plaintive cries in the stillness of night were distressing to
hear, and enough to move the hardest hearts. To us these frequent
evidences of such fearful and widespread suffering were the more
distressing from our utter inability to afford any real relief. Poor
creatures! there is no help for them. Hundreds of those we have
seen must die, for they are past recovery even were relief at hand.
The district of Tabbas comprises the divisions or bulúk of
Gúnábád, Kakhak, Bijistan, Tún, and Tabbas. The last contains the
capital city of that name. The whole district has suffered fearfully
during the famine by death, emigration, and raids. Some of the
smaller hamlets have been entirely depopulated, and many villages
have been decimated. We heard of one village in the Tún bulúk, in
which not a man nor child was left, and only five old women
remained to till the ground, in hopes of some of their people
returning. It is not quite easy to understand the cause of the famine
in these parts, for the villages are mostly well watered and their
fields fertile.
17th April.—Bijistan to Yúnasi, twenty-six miles. The weather
during our halt at Bijistan was close and oppressive, and on the eve
of our departure set in stormy, with violent gusts of wind from the
south. At daylight this morning a sharp thunderstorm with hail and
rain burst over our camp, and continued with violence for nearly
three hours.
Our route was in a N.N.E. direction, down a long sloping steppe,
with interrupted hill ridges on either hand, down to the kavír or “salt-
desert,” which here projects an arm eastward to join that of Herat.
At about the twelfth mile we passed the village of Sihfarsakh, at the
foot of a white marble hill to the right; and at three miles farther on
halted at a roadside ábambár for breakfast. On the way to this we
passed a small camp of Baloch gypsies—a very poor, dirty, black, and
villanous-looking set. The vegetation here differs from what we have
seen in the highlands of Gháyn and Tabbas, and resembles that we
observed on the plains of Calá Koh. The characteristic plants are
ghích, wormwood, wild rue, caroxylon, and other saltworts, the wild
liquorice, and a variety of flowering herbs, such as gentian, prophet
flower, malcomia, and other crucifers, &c.
At four miles farther on, passing amongst some low hills, we left
the fortified village of Márandez a couple of miles to the left, and
entered on the wide waste of the kavír; and at another four miles
reached the village of Yúnasi, where we camped. The sun shone
hotly here, and a strong north wind blowing all day filled the
atmosphere with clouds of saline dust, very trying to the lungs and
eyes. On approaching the town, a number of its people, headed by
an athlete wielding a pair of huge wooden dumb-bells, came out to
meet us, and merrily conducted us to our camp. Yúnasi is a
collection of about two hundred and fifty houses round a central fort,
and possesses a commodious sarae built of baked bricks. It stands
on a small river flowing westward into the desert, and marking the
boundary between the districts of Tabbas and Turbat Hydari. There
are no gardens here, and a singular absence of trees gives the place
a very forlorn look, quite in keeping with the aspect of the desert
around. The place has been almost depopulated by the famine.
Yúnasi is about 2860 feet above the sea.
Our next stage was Abdullahabad, twenty-five miles. After
crossing the river or Rúdi Kavír by a red brick bridge a little below
the town (there are said to be seven similar bridges across the river
in different parts of its course), we went across a wide lacustrine
hollow, the soil of which was light and powdery, and white with
saline efflorescence, and at half-way came to Miandih, “the midway
village,” and halted at its ábambár for breakfast. The village consists
of perhaps a hundred domed huts, ranged outside a square fort fast
falling to decay, and has a vertical windmill similar to those used in
Sistan, only made to work with an east wind. The desert here runs
from east to west between high hill ranges, and is almost bare of
vegetation beyond the wild rue and liquorice, and a coarse grass
growing in tufts, with here and there strips of camel-thorn and
salsolaceæ.
Along the line of march we passed several roadside graves, the
last resting-places of famine-struck travellers hastily buried by their
companions. Wild beasts had pulled out the bodies from three or
four of these shallow pits, and scattered their bones and clothes
upon the road. Thousands upon thousands have been so put away,
or left to rot on the roads where they lay. Their place knows them no
more, and but too often none are left to reck their loss.
From Miandih our route continued in an E.N.E. direction over a
wide plain covered with a scanty pasture, on which we found large
herds of camels, oxen, and asses at graze. They belong to Baloch
nomads of the Mirzá Jahán tribe, and are tended by small unarmed
parties of their herdsmen. We have all along noticed that the
peasantry of Persian Khorassan, unlike those of Afghanistan, are all
unarmed. This is the more surprising as a new feature on the scene
here warns us that we have come into the country which from time
immemorial has been the hunting-ground of the real Turkman. The
whole plain is dotted all over with hundreds of round towers as
places of refuge from these marauders, and they serve also to
convey a very lively idea of the insecurity of the country. These
towers consist of a circular mud wall about twelve feet high,
enclosing an empty roofless space about eighteen feet in diameter,
and are entered by a small opening on one side, only large enough
to admit of entrance on all fours. On the appearance of the raiders
the shepherds or husbandmen desert their flocks and fields, and
rush into these refuges till the enemy has disappeared. The Turkman
has a lively dread of firearms, and a very wholesome respect for all
armed travellers. He always gives these towers a wide berth, and
only attacks the unwary and unarmed. From all we heard of them,
they must be sorry cowards before a worthy foe, and heartless
tyrants over their helpless captives. Those who used formerly to raid
this country, and who do still occasionally as opportunity offers,
belong to the Sarúc and Sálor tribes, whose seat is in the territories
of Sarrakhs and Marv. With the Takka Turkmans of the latter place,
they habitually harry all this country up to the very gates of
Mashhad. In 1860, the Persian Government sent an expedition
against the strongholds of these miscreants. Though the Persian
troops were driven back with disastrous loss, they managed to inflict
considerable damage upon the enemy, and for several years their
inroads upon this frontier were put a stop to; but in the
disorganisation and laxity of authority produced by the famine they
have again commenced their wonted forays, and during the last
three years have, it is said, carried off nearly twenty thousand
Persian subjects from Mashhad district alone, for the slave markets
of Khiva and Bukhára. During the pressure of the famine, we are
told, the citizens of Mashhad used to flock out to the plains on