After short courses they are either absorbed by the sand or end in small salt lakes, from which the superfluous water is evaporated.

Much of the country is absolutely without streams, and would be uninhabitable were it not for the _kanats_, or _karizes_, subterranean channels of spring-water, described at length in a former volume.
The only rivers of the district which deserve any attention are the Tab (or Oroatis), whereof a description has been already given, the Kur or Bendamir (called anciently Araxes), with its tributary, the Pulwar (or Cyrus), and the Khoonazaberni or river of Khisht.
The Bendamir rises in the mountains of the Bakhtiyari chain, in lat.
30 deg.

35', long.

51 deg.

50' nearly, and runs with a course which is generally south-east, past the ruins of Persepolis, to the salt lake of Neyriz or Kheir, which it enters in long.