r HERAULT (anciently Arid or Artacoana), capital of Shah Mahmood's state on the W. frontier of Afghanistan, 2700 feet above the sea level, 3 miles N. of the Hur River, in a beautiful and fertile valley; N. Lat. 34° 22', E. Long. 62° 9'; 360 miles W. of Kabul. It is entirely surrounded by an earthen mound 50 feet high, by two trenches, and a ditch. From the mound rises a wall 25 feet high, and upwards of 100 bastions of unburnt brick. At the N. end of the town is a strong citadel defended by a ditch and massive towers. To the N. of the town are the huge mound raised by Nadir Shah, and a little farther the gorgeous ruins of the Moosallah of Imam Reza. As there is no drainage the town is extremely filthy, although in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was one of the finest cities in the world.

Commercially, the position of Herat is important. It receives shawls, indigo, sugar, spices, chintzes, muslins, brocades, scarfs, leather, and hides from Afghanistan; tea, sugar, porcelain, glass, silk, cotton, cloth, woollens, carpets, and hardware from Persia, Russia, and Turkey. The Herat carpets are famous. The annual revenue of Herat is estimated at perhaps L100,000. It was unsuccessfully besieged by the Persians in 1838. Pop. less than 45,000.