B A L U C H hammer - shaped headlands of Unnara and Gwadur, and the precipitous cliffs of Jebel Zarain, near Pasni, lies the usual frontier band of parallel ridges, alternating with narrow furrows or valleys. Amongst them the ranges called Talana and Talur are conspicuous by their height and regular configuration. The normal conformation of the frontier is somewhat emphasized in Makran. Here the volcanic action which preceded the general upheaval of recent strata and the folding of the edges of the interior highlands, is still in evidence in occasional boiling-mud volcanoes on the coast-line. It is repeated in the blazing summit of the Koh-i-taftan (the burning mountain of the Persian frontier), which is the highest active volcano in Asia (13,000 feet), and probably the farthest inland. Evidence of extinct mud volcanoes exists through a very wide area in Baluchistan and Sistan. Probably the Miri, or fort, at Quetta represents one of them. The coast is indented by several considerable harbours. Urmara, Khor Khalmat, Pasni, and Gwadur are all somewhat difficult of approach by reason of a sand-bar which seems to extend along the whole coast-line, and which is very possibly the last evidence of a submerged ridge ; and they are all subject to a very lively surf under certain conditions of wind. Of these the port of Gwadar (which belongs to Muscat and is therefore foreign territory) is the most important. They all are (or were) stations of the IndoPersian telegraph system which unites Karachi with Bushire. With the exception of the Kej valley, and that of the Bolida, which is an affluent of the Kej, there are no considerable spaces of cultivation in Makran. These two valleys seem to concentrate the whole agricultural wealth of the country. They are picturesque, with thick groves of date palms at intervals, and are filled with crops and orchards. They are indeed exceedingly beautiful; and yet the surrounding waste of hills is chiefly a barren repetition of sun-cracked crags and ridges with parched and withered valleys intersecting them, where a trickle of salt Water leaves a white and leprous streak amongst the faded tamarisk or the yellow stalks of last season s grass. Makran is the home of remnants of an innumerable company of mixed people gathered from the four corners of Asia and Eastern Africa. The ancient Dravidians, of whom the Brahui is typical, still exist in many of the districts which are assigned to them in the works of Herodotus. Amongst them there is always a prominent Arab element, for the Arabs held Makran even before they conquered Sind and made the Kej valley their trade highway to India. There are negroes on the coast, bred from imported slaves. The Mods of the Indus valley still form the greater part of the fishing population, representing the Ichthyophagi of Arrian’s history. The old Tajak element of Persia is not so evident in Makran as it is farther north ; and the Karak pirates, who gave their name to Karachi, and whose depredations led to the invasion of India and the conquest of Sind, seem to have disappeared altogether. The fourth section includes the valleys formed by the Rakshan and Mashkel, which, sweeping downwards from the Kalat highlands and the Persian border east and west, unite to break through the intervening chain of hills northward to form the Mashkel swamps, and define the northern limits of Makran. In these valleys are narrow strips of very advanced cultivation, the dates of Panjgur being famous and generally reckoned superior even to those of the Euphrates. The great Mashkel swamp, and the Kharan desert to the east of it, mark the flat phase of Southern Baluchistan topography. It is geologically part of an ancient inland lake or sea which included the present swamp regions of the Helmund, but not the central depression of the Lora. The latter is buttressed against hills at a much higher elevation than the Kharan desert, which is separated from the great expanse of the Helmund desert within the borders of Afghanistan by a transverse band of serrated hills forming a distinct watershed from Nushki to Sistan. Here and there these jagged peaks appear as if half overwhelmed by an advancing sea of sand. They are treeless and barren, and water is but rarely found under the edges of their foot-hills. The Koh - i - Sultan, at the western extremity of the northern group of these irregular hills, is over 6000 feet above sea-level, but the general level of the surrounding deserts is only about 2000 feet, sinking to 1500 feet in the Mashkel Hamun and the Gaod-i-Zirreh. The boundary between Baluchistan and Afghanistan, starting from Nushki, cuts across the Lora Hamiin, leaving the frontier Races. I'os^Malik Chagai fromonthis to the Siah to KohBaluchistan, it is basedand partly thepoint central mountainous water-divide already referred to, and partly runs in straight lines through the desert south of the salt swamps of the Uiod-i-Zirreh. It thus passes 50 miles to the south of the Helmund, entirely shutting off that valley, and the approach to bistan between the Helmund and the Gaod-i-Zirreh (the only approach from the east in seasons of flood) from Baluchistan. But it leaves a connected line of desert route between Nushki and histan, which is open in all ordinary seasons, to the south, and this route has .been largely developed, posts or serais having been established at intervals, and wells having been dug. There is already a promising Khafila traffic along it. Within the Baluchistan ball of the desert are to be found scattered tribes of nomads, called
I S T A N 103 Rekis (or desert people), of which the Mohamadani are the most numerous. They are probably of Arab origin. This central desert is the Kir, Kej, Katz, or Kash Kaian of Arabic mediseval geography and a part of the ancient Kaiani kingdom ; the prefix Kej or Kach always denoting low-level flats or valleys, in contradistinction to mountains or hills. The Mohamadani nomads occupy the central mountain region, to the south of which lie the Mashkel and Kharan deserts, inhabited by a people of quite different origin, who possess something approaching to historical records. These are the Naoshirwanis, a purely Persian race, who passed into Baluchistan within historic times, although the exact date is uncertain. The Naoshirwanis appear to be identical with the Tahuki or Tahukani, who are to be found in Perso-Baluchistan. Tahuki is mentioned by Nearkos, by Strabo, and by Ptolemy. They are a fine manly race of people, in many respects superior to their modern compatriots of Iran. If left to themselves it is probable that the Naoshirwanis would displace the Brahuis as the dominant race in Baluchistan. Between the Naoshirwanis of the Kharan desert and Mashkel, and the fish-eating population of the coast, enclosed in the narrow valleys of the Rakshan and Kej tributaries, or about the sources of the Hingol, are tribes innumerable, remnants of races which may be recognized in the works of Herodotus, or may be traced in the records of recent immigration. Equally scattered through the whole country, and almost everywhere recognizable, is the underlying Persian population (Tajak), which is sometimes represented by a locally dominant tribe, but more frequently by the agricultural slave and bondsman of the general community. Such are the Dehwars or Dehkans, and the Durzadas (Derusice of Herodotus), who extend all through Makran, and, as slaves, are called Nakibs. The Arabs have naturally left their mark most strongly impressed on the ethnography of Baluchistan. All Rind tribes claim to be of Arab origin and of Khoreish extraction. As the Arabs occupied all Southern Baluchistan and Sistan from a very early date, and finally spread through the Sind valley, where they remained till the 12th century, their genealogical records have become much obscured, and it is probable that there is not now a pure Arab in the country. It is as builders or engineers that they have established their most permanent records, Makran being full of the relics of their irrigation works constructed in times when the climatic conditions of Baluchistan must have been very different from what they are now. Lower Sind also contains a great wealth of architectural remains, which may be found to the west of the Indus as well as in the delta. One particular tribe (the Kalmats), who left their name on the Makran coast and subsequently dominated Bela and Sind, west of the Indus, for a considerable period, exhibit great power of artistic design in their sepulchral monuments. The Dravidian races (Brahuis), who are chiefly represented by the Kambaranis and Mingals, or Mongals (the latter are doubtless of Tartar origin), spread through Southern Baluchistan as well as the eastern hills, and are scattered irregularly through the mountain tracts south of Kharan. The ancient Oriete mentioned by Arrian are probably represented by the tribe of Hot, who, as original masters of the soil, are exempt from taxation. The name Brahui is (according to Bellew) but a corruption of Ba-rohi, (or “ hillmen ”) in a language derived from Sanscrit which would represent the same term by Parva-ka. So that the “ Parkanai ” of Arrian may be recognized as surviving in the Brahui, and in the name (Parkan) of a mountain-bred stream which is a tributary of the Hingol. Amongst other aboriginal tribes to whom reference is made by very early writers are the Boledi, who give their name to the Bolida valley, a tributary of the Kej. The Boledi were once the ruling race of Southern Baluchistan, which was originally called Boledistan, and it seems possible that this may be the real origin of the much-disputed name of the country generally. Bola was an Assyrian term for Bael or Bel, the god of the Phoenicians and Druids. The Boledi ruling family are at present represented by but one living member, a lady, who is a Government pensioner. The fast-diminishing Sajidis (Sajittse) and Saka (Sacae) are others of the more ancient races of Baluchistan easily recognizable in classical geography. Most recent of all are the Gichkis. The Gichkis derive from a Rajput adventurer who flourished in the early part of the 17th century. They are now the dominant race in Panjgur and Kej, from whence they ousted the Boledis. For three generations they remained Hindus ; since then there has arisen amongst them a strange new sect called Zikari, with exceedingly loose notions of morality. The sect, however, appears to be fast merging into orthodox Mahommedanism. A Baluch (or rather Makran) race which deserves attention is that of the Gadaras, who once gave the name Gadrosia to Southern Baluchistan. According to Tate, the Gadaras are now represented by Sidi half-castes—those Makrani “ boys ” who are so well known in the mercantile marine as stokers and firemen. It seems unlikely that this modern admixture of Asiatic and African blood represents the “Asiatic Ethiopian” of Herodotus, which was more probably a direct connexion of the Himyaritic Arab builders of ‘ ‘ bunds ” and revetments who spread eastwards from Arabia (see Arabia). Bellew finds in the Gadara the Garuda (eagles) of Sanskrit, who were ever in opposition to the
