The chief products are rice, cotton, sugar, a little silk, and fruits in great variety, including several kinds of the orange, lemon and citron. Some of the slopes are covered with extensive thickets of the pomegranate, and the wild vine climbs to a great height round the trunks of the forest trees. These woodlands are haunted by the tiger, panther, bear, wolf and wild boar in considerable numbers. Of the domestic animals, all remarkable for their small size, the chief are the black, humped cattle somewhat resembling the Indian variety, and sheep and goats. Kinneir, Fraser and other observers speak unfavourably of the Mazandarani people, whom they describe as very ignorant and bigoted, arrogant, rudely inquisitive and almost insolent towards strangers. The peasantry, however, are far from dull, and betray much shrewdness where their interests are concerned. In the healthy districts they are stout and well made, and are considered a warlike race, furnishing some cavalry (800 men) and eight battalions of infantry (5600 men) to government. They speak a marked Persian dialect, but a Turki idiom closely akin to the Turkoman is still current amongst the tribes, although they have mostly already passed from the nomad to the settled state. Of these tribes the most numerous are the Modaunlu, Khojehvand and Abdul Maleki, originally of Lek or Kurd stock, besides branches of the royal Afshar and Kajar tribes of Turki descent. All these are exempt from taxes in consideration of their military service. The export trade is chiefly with Russia from Meshed-i-Sar, the principal port of the province, to Baku, where European goods are taken in exchange for the white and coloured calicoes, caviare, rice, fruits and raw cotton of Mazandaran. Great quantities of rice are also exported to the interior of Persia, principally to Teheran and Kazvin. Owing to the almost impenetrable character of the country there are scarcely any roads accessible to wheeled carriages, and the great causeway of Shah Abbas along the coast has in many places even disappeared under the jungle. Two routes, however, lead to Teheran, one by Firuz Kuh, 180 m. long, the other by Larijan, 144 m. long, both in tolerably good repair. Except where crossed by these routes the Elburz forms an almost impassable barrier to the south.