ARAB EXPLORATION--MAKRAN
Between Arabia and India is the strange land of Makran, in the
southern defiles and deserts of which country Alexander lost his way.
Had he by chance separated himself from the coast and abandoned
connection with his fleet he might have passed through Makran by more
northerly routes to Persia, and have made one of those open ways which
Arab occupation opened up to traffic 1000 years later. Makran is not
an attractive country for the modern explorer. It is not yet a popular
field for enterprise in research (though it well may become so), and a
few words of further description are necessary to explain how it was
that the death-trap of Alexander proved to be the road to wealth and
power of the subsequent Arab.
[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF ANCIENT & MEDIÆVAL MAKRAN
TO ILLUSTRATE PAPER BY COL. T. H. HOLDICH.]
From the sun-swept Arabian Sea a long line of white shore, with a
ceaseless surf breaking on it, appears to edge it on the north. This
is backed by other long lines of level-topped hills, seldom rising to
conspicuous peaks or altitudes, but just stretched out in long
grey and purple lines with a prominent feature here and there to serve
as a useful landmark to mariners. Now and then when the shoreline is
indented, the hills actually face the sea and there are clean-cut
scarped cliffs presenting a square face to the waves. At such points
the deep rifted mountains of the interior either extend an arm to the
ocean, as at Malan, or it may be that a narrow band of ancient ridge
leaves jagged sections of its length above sea-level, parallel to the
coast-line, and that between it and the hills of the interior is a
sandy isthmus with sea indentation forming harbours on either side.
This country, for a width of about 100 miles, is called Makran. It is
the southernmost region of Southern Baluchistan, a country
geologically of recent formation, with a coastal uplift from the
sea-bottom of soft white sand strata capped here and there by
laterite. Such a formation lends itself to quaint curiosities in hill
structure. A protecting cap may preserve a pinnacle of soft rock,
whilst all around it the persistence of weather action has cut away
the soil. Gigantic cap-crowned pillars and pedestals are balanced in
fantastic array about the mountain slopes; deep cuttings and gorges
are formed by denudation, and from the gullies so fashioned amongst
these hills there may tower up a scarped cliff edge for thousands of
feet, with successive strata so well defined that it possesses all the
appearance of massive masonry construction.
The sea which beats with unceasing surf on the shores of Makran is
full of the wonders of the deep. From the dead silent flat surface,
such as comes with an autumn calm, monstrous fish suddenly shoot out
for 15 or 20 feet into the air and fall with a resounding slap almost
amounting to a detonation. Whales still disport themselves close
inshore, and frighten no one. It is easy, however, to understand the
terror with which they inspired the Greek sailors of Nearkhos in their
open Indian-built boats as they wormed their way along the coast.
Occasionally a whale becomes involved with the cable of the
Indo-Persian telegraph line and loops himself into it, with fatal
results. There are islands off the shore, cut out from the mainland.
Some of them are in process of disappearance, when they will add their
quota to the bar which makes approach to the Makran shores so
generally difficult; others, more remote, bid fair to last as the
final remnants of a long-ago submerged ridge through ages yet to come;
and one regrets that the day of their enchantment has passed. Of such
is that island of Haftala, Hashtala, Nuhsala (it is difficult to
account for the variety of Persian numerals which are associated with
its name), which is called Nosala by Nearkhos and said by him to be
sacred to the sun. In the days of the Greeks it was enveloped in a
haze of mystery and tradition. The Karaks who made of this island a
base for their depredations, finally drew down upon themselves the
wrath of the Arabs, and this led incidentally to one of the most
successful invasions of India that have ever been conducted by sea and
land.
But it is not only the historical and legendary interest of this
remarkable coast which renders it a fascinating subject for
exploration and romance. The physical conditions of it, the bubbling
mud volcanoes which occasionally fill the sea with yellow silt from
below, and always remain in a perpetual simmer of boiling activity;
the weird and fantastic forms assumed by the mud strata of recent
sea-making, which are the basis of the whole structure of ridge and
furrow which constitute Makran conformation, no less than the
extraordinary prevalence of electric phenomena,--all these offered the
Arabian Sea as a promising gift to the inventive faculty of such Arab
genius as revelled in stories of miraculous enterprise. On a still,
warm night when the stars are all ablaze overhead the sea will, of a
sudden, spread around in a sheet of milky white, and the sky become
black by contrast with the blackness of ink. Then again will there be
a transformation to a bright scintillating floor, with each little
wavelet dropping sparks of light upon it; and from the wake of the
vessel will stretch out to the horizon a shining way, like a silver
path into the great unknown. Meanwhile, the ship herself will be lit
up by the electric genii. Each iron rod or stanchion will gleam with a
weird white light; each spar will carry a little bunch of blue flame
at its point; the mast-head will be aflame, and softly through the
wonders of this strange Eastern sea the ship will stalk on in solemn
silence and most "excellent loneliness." Small wonder that Arab
mariners were stirring storytellers, living as they did amidst the
uncounted wonders of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea.
Hardly less strange is the land formation of this southern edge of
Baluchistan. It is an old, old country, replete with the evidences of
unwritten history, the ultimate bourne of much of the flotsam and
jetsam of Asiatic humanity; a cul-de-sac where northern intruders meet
and get no farther. Yet geologically it is very new--so new that one
might think that the piles of sea-born shells which are to be found
here and there drifted into heaps on the soft mud flats amongst the
bristling ridges, were things of yesterday; so new, in fact, that it
has not yet done changing its outline. There is little difficulty in
marking the changes in the coast-line which must have occurred since
the third century B.C. One may even count up the island formations and
disappearances which have occurred within a generation; so incomplete
that the changing conditions of its water-supply have left their marks
everywhere over it. Desiccated forests are to be found with the trees
still standing, as they will continue to stand in this dry climate for
centuries. Huge masonry constructions, built as dams for the retention
of water in the inland hills, testify to the existence of an abundant
water-supply within historic periods; as also do the terraced slopes
which reach down in orderly steps to the foot of the ridges, each step
representing a formerly irrigated field. The water has failed;
whether, as is most probable, from the same desiccating processes
which are drying up lakes and dwindling glaciers in both northern and
southern hemispheres, or whether there has been special interference
with the routine of Nature and man has contributed to his own undoing,
it is impossible at present to say, but the result is that Makran is
now, and has been for centuries, a forgotten and almost a forsaken
country. In order to understand the remarkable peculiarity of its
geographical formation one requires a good map. Ridges, rather than
ranges, are the predominant feature of its orography. Ridges of all
degrees of altitude, extension, and rockiness, running in long lines
of parallel flexure on a system of curves which sweeps them round
gradually from the run of Indus frontier hills to an east and west
strike through Makran, and a final trend to the north-west, where they
guard the Persian coasts of the Gulf. As a rule they throw off no
spurs, standing stiff, jagged, naked, and uncompromising, like the
parallel walls of some gigantic system of defences, and varying in
height above the plain from 5000 feet to 50. The higher ranges have
been scored by weather and wet, with deep gorges and drainage lines,
and their scarred sides present various degrees of angle and
declivity, according to the dip of the strata that forms them. Some of
the smaller ridges have their rocky backbone set up straight, forming
a knife-like edge along which nothing but a squirrel could run. Across
them, breaking through the axis almost at right angles run some of the
main arteries of the general drainage system; but the most important
features of the country are the long lateral valleys between the
ridges, the streams of which feed the main rivers. These are often 8
or 10 miles in width, with a flat alluvial bottom, and one may ride
for mile after mile along the open plain with clay or sand spread out
on either hand, and nothing but the distant wall of the hills flanking
the long and endless route. Some of these valleys are filled with a
luxuriance of palm growth (the dates of Panjgur, for instance, being
famous), and it is this remarkable feature of long, lateral valleys
which, through all the ages, has made of Makran an avenue of approach
to India from the west. The more important ranges lie to the north,
facing the deserts of Central Baluchistan. It is in the solid phalanx
of the coastal band of hills that the most marked adherence to the
gridiron, or ridge and furrow formation, is to be found.
Exceptionally, out of this banded system arises some great mountain
block forming a separate feature, such as is the massive crag-crowned
cliff-lined block of Malan, west of one of the most important rivers
of Makran (the Hingol), to which reference has already been made. From
it an arm stretches southwards to the sea, and forms a square-headed
obstruction to traffic along the coast, which almost defeated the
efforts of the Indo-Persian telegraph constructors when they essayed
to carry a line across it, and did entirely defeat the intentions of
Alexander the Great to conduct his army within sight of his
Indus-built fleet. It is within the folds of this mountain group that
lies hidden that most ancient shrine of Indo-Persian worship, to which
we have already referred in the story of Alexander's retreat.
It is the possibilities of Makran as an intervening link in the route
from Europe to India which renders that country interesting at the
present time, and it is therefore with a practical as well as
historical interest that we take up the story of frontier exploration
from the time when we first recognize the great commercial movements
of the Arab races, centuries after the disappearance of the last
remnants of ancient explorations by Assyrians, Persians, and Greeks.
It is extraordinary how deep a veil of forgetfulness was drawn over
Southern Baluchistan during this unrecorded interval. For a thousand
years, from the withdrawal of Alexander's attenuated force to the rise
and spread of Islam, we hear nothing of Makran, and we are left to the
traditions of the Baluch tribes to fill up the gap in history. What
the Arabs made of mediæval Makran as a gate of India may be briefly
told. Recent surveys have revealed their tracks, although we have no
clear record of their earliest movements. We know, however, that there
was an Arab governor of Makran long previous to the historical
invasion of India in A.D. 712, and that there must have been strong
commercial interest and considerable traffic before his time. Arabia,
indeed, had always been interested in Makran, and amongst other relics
of a long dead past are those huge stone constructions for
water-storage purposes to which we have referred, and which must have
been of very early Arab (possibly Himyaritic) building, as well as a
host of legends and traditions, all pointing to successive waves of
early tribal emigration, extending from the Persian frontier to the
lower Arabius--the Purali of our time.
Hajjaj, the governor of Irak, under the Kalif Walid I., projected
three simultaneous expeditions into Asia for the advancement of the
true faith. One was directed towards Samarkand, one against the King
of Kabul, and the third was to operate directly on India through the
heart of Makran. The Makran field force was organised in the first
instance for the purpose of punishing certain Karak and Med pirates,
who had plundered a valuable convoy sent by the ruler of Ceylon to
Hajjaj and to the Kalif. These Karaks probably gave their names to the
Krokala of Nearkhos, and the Karachi of to-day, and have disappeared.
The Meds still exist. The expedition, which was placed under the
command of an enterprising young general aged seventeen, named Mahomed
Kasim, not only swept through Makran easily and successfully, but
ended by establishing Mahomedan supremacy in the Indus valley, and
originated a form of government which, under various phases, lasted
till Mahmud of Ghazni put an end to a degenerated form of it by
ousting the Karmatian rulers of Multan in A.D. 1005. The original
force which invaded Sind under Mahomed Kasim, and which was drawn
chiefly from Syria and Irak, consisted of 6000 camel-riders and 3000
infantry. In Makran the Arab governor (it is important to note that
there was an Arab governor of Makran before that country became the
high-road to India) added further reinforcements, and there was also a
naval squadron, which conveyed catapults and ammunition by sea to the
Indus valley port of Debal. It was with this small force that one of
the most surprising invasions of India ever attempted was successfully
carried through Makran--a country hitherto deemed impracticable, and
associated in previous history with nothing but tales of disaster. For
long, however, we find that Mahomed Kasim had both the piratical Meds,
and the hardly less tractable Jats (a Skythic people still existing in
the Indus valley) in his train, and the news of his successes carried
to Damascus brought crowds of Arab adventurers to follow his fortunes.
When he left Multan for the north, he is said to have had 50,000 men
under his command. His subsequent career and tragic end are all
matters of history.
The points chiefly to note in this remarkable invasion are that the
Arab soldiers first engaged were chiefly recruited from Syria; that,
contrary to their usual custom, they brought none of their women with
them; and that none of them probably ever returned to their country
again. Elliott tells us of the message sent them by the savage Kalif
Suliman: "Sow and sweat, for none of you will ever see Syria again."
What, then, became of all these first Arab conquerors of Western
India? They must have taken Persian-speaking wives of the stock of
Makran and Baluchistan, and their children, speaking their
mother-tongue, lost all knowledge of their fathers' language in the
course of a few generations. There are many such instances of the
rapid disappearance of a language in the East. For three centuries,
then, whilst a people of Arab descent ruled in Sind, there existed
through Makran one of the great highways of the world, a link between
West and East such as has never existed elsewhere on the Indian
border, save, perhaps, through the valley of the Kabul River and its
affluents. Along this highway flowed the greater part of the mighty
trade of India, a trade which has never failed to give commercial
predominance to that country which held the golden key to it, whether
that key has been in the hands of Arab, Turk, Venetian, Portuguese,
or Englishman. And though there are traces of a rapid decline in the
mediæval prosperity of Makran after the commencement of the eleventh
century, yet its comparative remoteness in geographical position saved
it subsequently from the ruthless destruction inflicted by Turk and
Tartar in more accessible regions, and left to it cities worth
despoiling even in the days of Portuguese supremacy.
It is only lately that Makran has lapsed again into a mere
geographical expression. Twenty years ago our maps told us nothing
about it. It might have been, and was, for all practical purposes, as
unexplored and unknown as the forests of Africa. Now, however, we have
found that Makran is a country of great topographical interest as well
as of stirring history. And when we come to the days of Arab
ascendency, when Arab merchants settled in the country; when good
roads with well-marked stages were established; when, fortunately for
geography, certain Western commercial travellers, following, _longo
intervallo_, the example of the Chinese pilgrims--men such as Ibn
Haukal of Baghdad, or Istakhri of Persepolis--first set to work to
reduce geographical discovery to systematic compilation, we can take
their books and maps in our hands, and verify their statements as we
read. It is true that they copied a good deal from each other, and
that their manner of writing geographical names was obscure, and
leaves a good deal to be desired--a fault, by the way, from which the
maps of to-day are not entirely free--yet they are on the whole as
much more accurate than the early Greek geographers as the area of
their observations is more restricted. We may say that Makran and Sind
are perhaps more fully treated of by Arab geographers than any other
portion of the globe by the geographers who preceded them; and as
their details are more perfect, so, for the most part, is the
identification of those details rendered comparatively easy by the
nature of the country and its physical characteristics. With the
exception of the coast-line the topography of Makran to-day is the
topography of Makran in Alexandrian days. This is very different
indeed from the uncertain character of the Indus valley mediæval
geography. There the extraordinary hydrographical changes that have
taken place; the shifting of the great river itself from east to west,
dependent on certain recognized natural laws; the drying up and total
disappearance of ancient channels and river-beds; the formation of a
delta, and the ever-varying alterations in the coast-line (due greatly
to monsoon influences), leave large tracts almost unrecognizable as
described in mediæval literature. Makran is, for the most part, a
country of hills. Its valleys are narrow and sharply defined; its
mountains only passable at certain well-known points, which must have
been as definite before the Christian era as they are to-day; and it
is consequently comparatively easy to follow up a clue to any main
route passing through that country.
Makran is, in short, a country full of long narrow valleys running
east and west, the longest and most important being the valley of Kej.
The main drainage of the country reaches the sea by a series of main
channels running south, which, inasmuch as they are driven almost at
right angles across the general run of the watersheds, necessarily
pass through a series of gorges of most magnificent proportions, which
are far more impressive as spectacles than they are convenient for
practical road-making. Thus Makran is very much easier to traverse
from east to west than it is from north to south.
I have, perhaps, said enough to indicate that the old highways through
Makran, however much they may have assisted trade and traffic between
East and West, could only have been confined to very narrow limits
indeed. It is, in fact, almost a one-road country. Given the key,
then, to open the gates of such channels of communication as exist,
there is no difficulty in following them up, and the identification of
successive stages becomes merely a matter of local search. We know
where the old Arab cities _must_ have been, and we have but to look
about to find their ruins. The best key, perhaps, to this mediæval
system is to be found in a map given by the Baghdad traveller, Ibn
Haukal, who wrote his account of Makran early in the tenth century,
and though this map leaves much to be desired in clearness and
accuracy, it is quite sufficient to give us the clue we require at
first starting. In the written geographical accounts of the country,
we labour under the disadvantage of possessing no comparative standard
of distance. The Arab of mediæval days described the distance to be
traversed between one point and another much as the Bedou describes it
now. It is so many days' journey. Occasionally, indeed, we find a
compiler of more than usual precision modifying his description of a
stage as a long day's journey, or a short one. But such instances are
rare, and a day's journey appears to be literally just so much as
could conveniently be included in a day's work, with due regard to the
character of the route traversed. Across an open desert a day's
journey may be as much as 80 miles. Between the cities of a
well-populated district it may be much less. Taking an average from
all known distances, it is between 40 and 50 miles. Nor is it always
explained whether the day's journey is by land or sea, the unit "a
day's journey" being the distance traversed independent of the means
of transit.
In Ibn Haukal's map, although we have very little indication of
comparative distance, we have a rough idea of bearings, and the
invaluable datum of a fixed starting-point that can be identified
beyond doubt. The great Arab port on the Makran coast, sometimes even
called the capital of Makran, was Tiz; and Tiz is a well-known coast
village to this day. About 100 miles west of the port of Gwadur there
is a convenient and sheltered harbour for coast shipping, and on the
shores of it there was a telegraph station of the Persian Gulf line
called Charbar. The telegraph station occupied the extremity of the
eastern horn of the bay, and was separated inland by some few miles of
sandy waste from a low band of coarse conglomerate hills, which
conceal amongst them a narrow valley, containing all that is left of
the ancient port of Tiz. If you take a boat from Charbar point, and,
coasting up the bay, land at the mouth of this valley, you will first
of all be confronted by a picturesque little Persian fort perched on
the rocks on either hand, and absolutely blocking the entrance to the
valley. This fort was built, or at least renewed, in the days of
General Sir F. Goldsmid's Seistan mission, to emphasize the fact that
the Persian Government claimed that valley for its own. About a mile
above the fort there exists a squalid little fishing village, the
inhabitants of which spend their spare moments (and they have many of
them) in making those palm mats which enter so largely into the house
architecture of the coast villages, as they sit beneath the shade of
one or two remarkably fine "banian" trees. The valley is narrow and
close, and the ruins of Tiz, extending on both sides the village, are
packed close together in enormous heaps of debris, so covered with
broken pottery as to suggest the idea that the inhabitants of old Tiz
must have once devoted themselves entirely to the production of
ceramic art ware. Every heavy shower of rain washes out fragments of
new curiosities in glass and china. Here may be found large quantities
of an antique form of glass, the secret of the manufacture of which
has (according to Venetian experts) long passed away, only to be
lately rediscovered. It takes the shape of bangles chiefly, and in
this form may be dug up in almost any of the recognized sites of
ancient coast towns along the Makran and Persian coasts. It is
apparently of Egyptian origin, and was brought to the coast in Arab
ships. Here also is to be found much of a special class of pottery, of
very fine texture, and usually finished with a light sage-green glaze,
which appears to me to be peculiarly Arabic, but of which I have yet
to learn the full history. It is well known in Afghanistan, where it
is said to possess the property of detecting poison by cracking under
it, but even there it is no modern importation. This is the celadon to
which reference has already been made. The rocky cliffs on either side
the valley are honey-combed with Mahomedan tombs, and the face of
every flat-spaced eminence is scarred with them. A hundred generations
of Moslems are buried there. The rocky declivities which hedge in this
remarkable site may give some clue to the yet more ancient name of
Talara which this place once bore. Talar in Baluchi bears the
signification of a rocky band of cliffs or hills.
The obvious reason why the port of Tiz was chosen for the point of
debarkation for India is that, in addition to the general convenience
of the harbour, the monsoon winds do not affect the coast so far west.
At seasons when the Indus delta and the port of Debal were rendered
unapproachable, Tiz was an easy port to gain. There must have been a
considerable local trade, too, between the coast and the highly
cultivated, if restricted, valleys of Northern Makran, and it is more
than probable that Tiz was the port for the commerce of Seistan in its
most palmy days.
From Tiz to Kiz (or Kej, which is reckoned as the first big city on
the road to India in mediæval geography) was, according to Istakhri
and Idrisi, a five-days' journey. Kiz is doubtless synonymous with
Kej, but the long straight valley of that name which leads eastwards
towards India has no town now which exactly corresponds to the name of
the valley. The distance between Tiz and the Kej district is from 160
to 170 miles. No actual ruined site can be pointed out as yet marking
the position of Kiz, or (as Idrisi writes it) Kirusi, but it must have
been in the close neighbourhood of Kalatak, where, indeed, there is
ample room for further close investigation amongst surrounding ruins.
About the city, we may note from Idrisi that it was nearly as large as
Multan, and was the largest city in Makran. "Palm trees are
plentiful, and there is a large trade," says our author, who adds that
it is two long days' journey west of the city of Firabuz. From all the
varied forms which Arab geographical names can assume owing to
omission of diacritical marks in writing, this place, Firabuz, has
perhaps suffered most. The most correct reading of it would probably
be Kanazbun, and this is the form adopted by Elliott, who conjectures
that Kanazbun was situated near the modern Panjgur. From Kej to
Panjgur is not less than 110 miles, a very long two-days' journey. Yet
Istakhri supports Idrisi (if, indeed, he is not the original author of
the statement) that it is two days' journey from Kiz to Kanazbun. This
would lead one to place Kanazbun elsewhere than in the Panjgur
district, more especially as that district lies well to the north of
the direct road to India, were it not for local evidence that the
fertile and flourishing Panjgur valley must certainly be included
somehow in the mediæval geographical system, and that the conditions
of khafila traffic in mediæval times were such as to preclude the
possibility of the more direct route being utilized. To explain this
fully would demand a full explanation also of the physical geography
of Eastern Makran. I have no doubt whatever that Sir H. Elliott is
right in his conjecture, and that amongst the many relics of ancient
civilization which are to be found in Panjgur is the site of Kanazbun.
Kanazbun was in existence long before the Arab invasion of Sind. The
modern fort of Kudabandan probably represents the site of that more
ancient fort which was built by the usurper Chach of Sind, when he
marched through Makran to fix its further boundaries about the
beginning of the Mahomedan era. Kanazbun was a very large city indeed.
"It is a town," says Idrisi, "of which the inhabitants are rich. They
carry on a great trade. They are men of their word, enemies of fraud,
and they are generous and hospitable." Panjgur, I may add, is a
delightfully green spot amongst many other green spots in Makran. It
is not long ago that we had a small force cantoned there to preserve
law and order in that lawless land. There appeared to be but one
verdict on the part of the officers who lived there, and that verdict
was all in its favour. In this particular, Panjgur is probably unique
amongst frontier outposts.
The next important city on the road to Sind was Armail, Armabel, or
Karabel, now, without doubt, Las Bela. From Kudabandan to Las Bela is
from 170 to 180 miles, and there is considerable variety of opinion as
to the number of days that were to be occupied in traversing the
distance. Istakhri says that from Kiz to Armail is six days' journey.
Deduct the two from Kiz to Kanazbun, and the distance between Kanazbun
and Armail is four days. Ibn Haukal makes it fourteen marches from
Kanazbun to the port of Debal, and as he reckons Armail to be six
from Debal on the Kanazbun road, we get a second estimate of eight
days' journey. Idrisi says that from Manhabari to Firabuz is six
marches, and we know otherwise that from Manhabari to Armail was four,
so the third estimate gives us two days' journey. Istakhri's estimate
is more in accordance with the average that we find elsewhere, and he
is the probable author of the original statements. But doubtless the
number of days occupied varied with the season and the amount of
supplies procurable. There were villages _en route_, and many
halting-places. The _Ashkalu l' Bilad_ of Ibn Haukal says: "Villages
of Dahuk and Kalwan are contiguous, and are between Labi and Armail";
from which Elliott conjectures that Labi was synonymous with Kiz.
Idrisi states that "between Kiz and Armail two districts touch each
other, Rahun and Kalwan." I should be inclined to suggest that the
districts of Dashtak and Kolwah are those referred to. They are
contiguous, and they may be said to be between Kiz and Armail, though
it would be more exact to place them between Kanazbun and Armail.
Kolwah is a well-cultivated district lying to the south of the river,
which in its upper course is known as the Lob. I should conjecture
that this may be the Labi referred to by Ibn Haukal.
The city of Armail, Armabel (sometimes Karabel), or Las Bela, is of
great historic interest. From the very earliest days of historical
record Armail, by right of its position commanding the high-road to
India, must have been of great importance. Las Bela is but the modern
name derived from the influx of the Las or Lumri tribe of Rajputs. It
is at present but an insignificant little town, picturesquely perched
on the banks of the Purali River, but in its immediate neighbourhood
is a veritable _embarras de richesse_ in ancient sites. Eleven miles
north-west of Las Bela, at Gondakahar, are the ruins of a very ancient
city, which at first sight appear to carry us back to the
pre-Mahomedan era of Arab occupation, when the country was peopled by
Arabii, and the Arab flag was paramount on the high seas. Not far from
them are the caves of Gondrani, about which there is no room for
conjecture, for they are clearly Buddhist, as can be told from their
construction. We know from the Chachnama of Sind that in the middle of
the eighth century the province of Las Bela was part of a Buddhist
kingdom, which extended from Armabel to the modern province of Gandava
in Sind. The great trade mart for the Buddhists on the frontier was a
place called Kandabel, which Elliott identifies with Gandava, the
capital of the province of Kach Gandava. It is, however, associated in
the Chachnama with Kandahar, the expression "Kandabel, that is,
Kandahar" being used, an expression which Elliott condemns for its
inaccuracy, as he recognizes but the one Kandahar, which is in
Afghanistan. It happens that there is a Kandahar, or Gandahar, in
Kach Gandava, and there are ruins enough in the neighbourhood to
justify the suspicion that this was after all the original Kandabel
rather than the modern town of Gandava.
The capital of this ancient Buddha--or Buddhiya--kingdom I believe to
have been Armabel rather than Kandabel, it being at Armabel that Chach
found a Buddhist priest reigning in the year A.H. 2, when he passed
through. The curious association of names, and the undoubted Buddhist
character of the Gondrani caves, would lead one to assign a Buddhist
origin also to the neighbouring ruins of Gondakahar (or Gandakahar)
only that direct evidence from the ruins themselves is at present
wanting to confirm this conjecture. They require far closer
investigation than has been found possible in the course of ordinary
survey operations. The country lying between Las Bela and Kach Gandava
is occupied at present by a most troublesome section of the Dravidian
Brahuis, who call themselves Mingals, or Mongols, and who possibly may
be a Mongolian graft on the Dravidian stock. They may prove to be
modern representatives of the old Buddhist population of this land,
but their objection to political control has hitherto debarred us from
even exploring their country, although it is immediately on our own
borders. About 8 miles north of Las Bela are the ruins of a
comparatively recent Arab settlement, but they do not appear to be
important. It is probable that certain other ruins, about 1½ miles
east of the town, called Karia Pir, represent the latest mediæval
site, the site which was adopted after the destruction of the older
city by Mahomed Kasim on his way to invade Sind. Karia Pir is full of
Arabic coins and pottery. So many invasions of India have been planned
with varied success by the Kalifs of Baghdad since the first invasion
in the days of Omar I. in A.D. 644, till the time of the final
occupation of Sind in the time of the sixth Kalif Walid, about A.D.
712, that there is no difficulty in accounting for the varied sites
and fortunes of any city occupying so important a strategical position
as Bela.
From Armail we have a two-days' march assigned by Istakhri and Idrisi
as the distance to the town of Kambali, or Yusli, towards India. These
two places have, in consequence of their similarity in position,
become much confused, and it has been assumed by some scholars that
they are identical. But they are clearly separated in Ibn Haukal's
map, and it is, in fact, the question only of which of two routes
towards India is selected that will decide which of the two cities
will be found on the road. There is (and always must have been) a
choice of routes to the ancient port of Debal after passing the city
of Armail. That route which led through Yusli in all probability
passed by the modern site of Uthal. Close to this village the
unmistakable ruins of a considerable Arab town have been found, and I
have no hesitation in identifying them as those of Yusli. About
Kambali, too, there can be very little doubt. There are certain
well-known ruins called Khairokot not far to the west of the village
of Liari. We know from mediæval description that Kambali was close to
the sea, and the sea shaped its coast-line in mediæval days so as
nearly to touch the site called Khairokot. Even now, under certain
conditions of tide, it is possible to reach Liari in a coast
fishing-boat, although the process of land formation at the head of
the Sonmiani bay is proceeding so fast that, on the other hand, it is
occasionally impossible even to reach the fishing village of Sonmiani
itself. The ruins of Khairokot are so extensive, and yield such large
evidences of Arab occupation that a place must certainly be found for
them in the mediæval system. Kambali appears to be the only possible
solution to the problem, although it was somewhat off the direct road
between Armail and Debal.
From either of these towns we have a six-days' journey to Debal,
passing two other cities _en route_, viz. Manabari and the "small but
populous town of Khur."
The Manhanari of Istakhri, Manbatara of Ibn Haukal, or Manabari of
Idrisi, again confronts us with the oft-repeated difficulty of two
places with similar names, there being no one individual site which
will answer all the descriptions given. General Haig has shown that
there was in all probability a Manjabari on the old channel of the
Indus, nearly opposite the famous city of Mansura, some 40 miles
north-east of the modern Hyderabad, which will answer certain points
of Arabic description; but he shows conclusively that this could not
be the Manhabari of Ibn Haukal and Idrisi, which was two days' journey
from Debal on the road to Armail. As we have now decided what
direction that road must have taken, after accepting General Haig's
position for Debal, and bearing in mind Idrisi's description of the
town as "built in a hollow," with fountains, springs, and gardens
around it, there seems to me but little doubt that the site of the
ancient Manhabari is to be found near that resort of all Karachi
holiday-makers called Mugger Pir. Here the sacred alligators are kept,
and hence the recognized name; but the real name of the place,
divested of its vulgar attributes, is Manga, or Manja Pir. The affix
Pir is common throughout the Bela district, and is a modern
introduction. The position of Mugger Pir, with its encircling walls of
hills, its adjacent hot springs and gardens (so rare as to be almost
unique in this part of the country), its convenient position with
respect to the coast, and, above all, its interesting architectural
remains, mark it unmistakably as that Manhabari of Idrisi which was
two days' march from Debal.
Whether Manhabari can be identified with that ancient capital of
Indo-Skythia spoken of by Ptolemy and the author of the _Periplus_ as
Minagar, or Binagar, may be open to question, though there are a good
many points about it which appear to meet the description given by
more ancient geographers. The question is too large to enter on now,
but there is certainly reason to think that such identification may be
found possible. The small but populous town of Khur has left some
apparent records of its existence near the Malir waterworks of
Karachi, where there is a very fine group of Arab tombs in a good
state of preservation. There is a village called Khair marked on the
map not far from this position, and the actual site of the old town
cannot be far from it, although I have not had the opportunity of
identifying it. It is directly on the road connecting Debal with
Manhabari. With Manhabari and Khur our tale of buried cities closes in
this direction. We have but to add that General Haig identifies Debal
with a ruin-covered site 20 miles south-west of Thatta, and about 45
miles east-south-east of Karachi.
All these ancient cities eastwards from Makran are associated with one
very interesting feature. Somewhat apart from the deserted and hardly
recognizable ruins of the cities are groups of remarkable tombs,
constructed of stone, and carved with a most minute beauty of design,
which is so well preserved as to appear almost fresh from the hands of
the sculptor. These tombs are locally known as "Khalmati."
Invariably placed on rising ground, with a fair command of the
surrounding landscape, they are the most conspicuous witnesses yet
remaining of the nature of the Saracenic style of decorative art which
must have beautified those early cities. The cities themselves have
long since passed away, but these stone records of dead citizens still
remain to illustrate, if but with a feeble light, one of the darkest
periods in the history of Indian architecture. These remains are most
likely Khalmati (_not_ Karmati) and belong to an Arab race who were
once strong in Sind and who came from the Makran coast at Khalmat. The
Karmatians were not builders.
We have so far only dealt with that route to India which combined a
coasting voyage in Arab ships with an overland journey which was
obviously performed on a camel, or the days' stages could never have
been accomplished. But the number of cities in Western Makran and
Kirman which still exist under their mediæval names, and which are
thickly surrounded with evidences of their former wealth and
greatness, certifies to a former trade through Persia to India which
could have been nowise inferior to that from the shores of Arabia or
Egypt. Indeed, the overland route to India through Persia and Makran
was probably one of the best trodden trade routes that the world has
ever seen. It is almost unnecessary to enumerate such names as Darak,
Bih, Band, Kasrkand, Asfaka, and Fahalfahra (all of which are to be
found in Ibn Haukal's map), and to point out that they are represented
in modern geography by Dizak, Geh, Binth, Kasrkand, Asfaka, and Bahu
Kalat. Degenerated and narrowed as they now are, there are still
evidences written large enough in surrounding ruins to satisfy the
investigator of the reality and greatness of their past; whilst the
present nature of the routes which connect them by river and mountain
is enough to prove that they never could have been of small account in
the Arab geographical system. One city in this part of Makran is, I
confess, something of a riddle to me still. Rasak is ever spoken of by
Arab geographers as the city of "schismatics." There is, indeed, a
Rasak on the Sarbaz River road to Bampur, which might be strained to
fit the position assigned it in Arab geography; but it is now a small
and insignificant village, and apparently could never have been
otherwise. There is no room there for a city of such world-wide fame
as the ancient headquarters of heresy must have been--a city which
served usefully as a link between the heretics of Persia and those of
Sind.
Istakhri says that Rasak is two days' journey from Fahalfahra (which
there is good reason for believing to be Bahu Kalat), but Idrisi makes
it a three-days' journey from that place, and three days from Darak,
so that it should be about half-way between them. Now, Darak can
hardly be other than Dizak, which is described by the same authority
as three days' journey from Firabuz (_i.e._ Kanazbun). It is also said
to have been a populous town, and south-west of it was "a high
mountain called the Mountain of Salt." South-west of Dizak are the
highest mountains in Makran, called the Bampusht Koh, and there is
enough salt in the neighbourhood to justify the geographer's
description. It may also be said to be three days' journey from
Kanazbun. Somewhere about half-way between Dizak and Bahu Kalat is the
important town of Sarbaz, and from a description of contiguous ruins
which has been given by Mr. E. A. Wainwright, of the Survey Department
(to whom I am indebted for most of the Makran identifications), I am
inclined to place the ancient Rasak at Sarbaz rather than in the
position which the modern name would apply to it. It is rather
significant that Ibn Haukal omits Rasak altogether from his map. Its
importance may be estimated from Idrisi's description of it taken from
the translation given by Elliott in the first volume of his History of
India: "The inhabitants of Rasak are schismatics. Their territory is
divided into two districts, one called Al Kharij, and the other Kir"
(or Kiz) "Kaian. Sugar-cane is much cultivated, and a considerable
trade is carried on in a sweetmeat called 'faniz,' which is made
here.... The territory of Maskan joins that of Kirman." Maskan is
probably represented by Mashkel at the present day, Mashkel being the
best date-growing district in Southern Baluchistan. It adjoins Kirman,
and produces dates of such excellent quality that they compare
favourably with the best products of the Euphrates. Idrisi's
description of this part of Western Makran continues thus: "The
inhabitants have a great reputation for courage. They have date-trees,
camels, cereals, and the fruit of cold countries." He then gives a
table of distances, from which we can roughly estimate the meaning of
"a day's journey." After stating that Fahalfahra, Asfaka, Band, and
Kasrkand are dependencies of Makran which resemble each other in point
of size and extent of their trade, he goes on to say, "Fahalfahra to
Rasak two days." (Istakhri makes it three days, the distance from Bahu
Kalat to Sarbaz being about 80 miles.) "From Fahalfahra to Asfaka two
days." (This is almost impossible, the distance being about 160 miles,
and the route passing through several large towns.) "From Asfaka to
Band one day towards the west." (This is about 45 miles south-west
rather than west.) "From Asfaka to Darak three days." (150 to 160
miles according to the route taken.) "From Band to Kasrkand one day."
(About 70 miles, passing through Bih or Geh, which is not mentioned.)
"From Kasrkand to Kiz four days." This is not much over 150 miles, and
is the most probable estimate of them all. It is possible, of course,
that from 70 to 80 miles may have been covered on a good camel within
the limits of twenty-four hours. Such distances in Arabia are not
uncommon, but we are not here dealing with an absolutely desert
district, devoid of water. On the contrary, halting-places must have
always been frequent and convenient.
I cannot leave this corner of Makran without a short reference to what
lay beyond to the north-west, on the Kirman border, as it appears to
me that one or two geographical riddles of mediæval days have recently
been cleared up by the results of our explorations. Idrisi says that
"Tubaran is near Fahraj, which belongs to Kirman. It is a
well-fortified town, and is situated on the banks of a river of the
same name, which are cultivated and fertile. From hence to Fardan, a
commercial town, the environs of which are well populated, four days.
Kir Kaian lies to the west of Fardan, on the road to Tubaran. The
country is well populated and very fertile. The vine grows here and
various sorts of fruit trees, but the palm is not to be found."
Elsewhere he states that "from Mansuria to Tubaran about fifteen
days"; and again, "from Tubaran to Multan, on the borders of Sind, ten
days." Here there is clearly the confusion which so constantly arises
from the repetition of place-names in different localities. Multan and
Mansuria are well-known or well-identified localities, and Turan was
an equally well-recognized district of Lower Sind, of which Khozdar
was the capital. Turan may well be reckoned as ten days from Multan,
or fifteen from Mansuria, but hardly the Tubaran, about which such a
detailed and precise description is given. There are two places called
indifferently Fahraj, Pahrag, Pahra, or Pahura, both of which are in
the Kirman district; one, which is shown in St. John's map of Persia,
is not very far from Regan, in the Narmashir province, and is
surrounded far and wide with ruins. It has been identified by St. John
as the Pahra of Arrian, the capital of Gadrosia, where Alexander
rested after his retreat through Makran. The other is some 16 miles
east of Bampur, to the north-west of Sarbaz. Both are on the banks of
a river, "cultivated and fertile"; both are the centres of an area of
ruins extending for miles; both must find a place in mediæval
geography. For many reasons, into which I cannot fully enter, I am
inclined to place the Pahra of Arrian in the site near Bampur. It
suits the narrative in many particulars better than does the Pahra
identified with Fahraj by St. John. The latter, I have very little
doubt, is the Fahraj of Idrisi, and the town of Tubaran was not far
from it. Fardan may well have been either Bampur itself (a very
ancient town) or Pahra, 16 miles to the east of it; and between Fardan
and Fahraj lay the district of Kir (or Kiz) Kaian, which has been
stated to be a district of Rasak. "On Tubaran," says Idrisi, "are
dependent Mahyak, Kir Kaian, Sura" (? Suza), "Fardan" (? Bampur or
Pahra), "Kashran" (? Khasrin), "and Masurjan. Masurjan is a
well-peopled commercial town surrounded with villages on the banks of
the Tubaran, from which town it is 42 miles distant. Masurjan to Darak
Yamuna 141 miles, Darak Yamuna to Firabuz 175 miles." If we take Regan
to represent the old city of Masurjan, and Yakmina as the modern
representative of Darak Yamuna, we shall find Idrisi's distances most
surprisingly in accordance with modern mapping. Regan is about 40
miles from Fahraj, and the other distances, though not accurate of
course, are much more approximately correct than could possibly have
been expected from the generality of Idrisi's compilation.
I cannot, however, now open up a fresh chapter on mediæval geography
in Persia. It is Makran itself to which I wish to draw attention. In
our thirst for trans-frontier knowledge farther north and farther
west, we have somewhat overlooked this very remarkable country. Idrisi
commences his description with the assertion that "Makran is a vast
country, mostly desert." We have not altogether found it so. It is
true that the voyager who might be condemned to coast his way from the
Gulf of Oman to the port of Karachi in the hot weather, might wonder
what of beauty, wealth, or even interest, could possibly lie beyond
that brazen coast washed by that molten sea; might well recall the
agonies of thirst endured during the Greek retreat; might think of the
lost armies of Cyrus and Simiramis; and whilst his eye could not fail
to be impressed with the grand outlines of those bold headlands which
guard the coast, his nose would be far more rudely reminded of the
unpleasant proximity of Ichthyophagi than delighted by soft odours of
spikenard or myrrh. And yet, for century after century, the key to the
golden gate of Indian commerce lay behind those Makran hills. Beyond
those square-headed bluffs and precipices, hidden amongst the serrated
lines of jagged ridges, was the high-road to wealth and fame, where
passed along not only many a rich khafila loaded with precious
merchandise, but many a stout array of troops besides. Those citizens
of Makran who "loved fair dealing, who were men of their word, and
enemies to fraud," who welcomed the lagging khafila, or sped on their
way the swift camel-mounted soldiers of Arabia, could have little
dreamed that for centuries in the undeveloped future, when trade
should pass over the high seas round the southern coast of Africa, and
the Western infidel should set his hated foot on Eastern shores,
Makran should sink out of sight and into such forgetfulness by the
world, that eventually this ancient land of the sun should become
something less well known than those mountains of the moon in which
lay the far-off sources of the Egyptian Nile.
Yet it is not at all impossible that Makran may once again rise to
significance in Indian Councils. Men's eyes have been so much turned
to the proximity of Russia and Russian railways to the Indian frontier
that they have hardly taken into serious consideration the problems of
the future, which deal with the direct connection overland between
India and Europe other than those which touch Seistan or Herat. That
such connection will finally eventuate either through Seistan or Herat
(or through both) no one who has any appreciation of the power of
commercial interests to overcome purely military or political
objections will doubt; but meanwhile it may be more than interesting
to prove that a line through Persia is quite a practicable scheme,
although it would not be practicable on any alignment that has as yet
been suggested. It would not be practicable by following the coast,
for instance. It would be useless to link up Teheran with Mashad,
unless the Seistan line were adopted in extension; and the proposal to
join Ispahan to Seistan through Central Persia would involve such a
lengthening of the route to India as would seriously discount its
value. The only solution of the difficulty is through Makran to
Karachi. Military nervousness would thus be met by the fact that
Russia could make no use of such a line for purposes of invasion,
inasmuch as it would be commanded and protected from the sea.
Political difficulties with Afghanistan would be absolutely avoided by
a Persian line. Whether that would be better than a final agreement
with Russia based on mutual interest, which would certainly make
strongly for the peace of our borders, is another question. I am only
concerned just now in illustrating the geography of Makran and
pointing out its facilities as a land of possible routes to India, and
in showing how the exploration of Baluchistan and of Western India was
secured in mediæval times by means of these routes.
It will, then, be interesting to note that at the eastern extremity of
Makran, dovetailed between the Makran hills as they sweep off with a
curve westward and our Sind frontier hills as they continue their
general strike southwards, is the little state of Las Bela. The
mountain conformation which encloses it makes the flat alluvial
portion of the state triangular in shape, and from the apex of the
triangle to the sea runs a river now known as the Purali, which in
ancient times was called the Arabis from the early Arab occupation of
the region. There are relics of apparent Arabic origin which,
independently of Greek records, testify to a very early interest in
this corner of the Indian borderland. Las Bela has a history which is
not without interest. It has been a Buddhist centre, and the caves of
Gondakahar near by testify to the ascetic fervour of the Buddhist
priesthood. The grave of one of the greatest of frontier political
leaders, Sir Robert Sandeman, lies near this little capital. Already
it forms an object of devotional pilgrimage through all the Sind
countryside. Possibly once again it may happen that Las Bela will be a
wayside resting-place on the road to India, as it has undoubtedly been
in the centuries of the past. It is not difficult to reach Las Bela
from Karachi by following the modern telegraph line. There are no
great physical obstacles interposed to make the way thorny for the
slow-moving train of a khafila, and where camels can take their
stately way there the more lively locomotive can follow. Should the
railway from Central Persia (let us say Ispahan) ever extend its iron
lines to Las Bela, it will make little of the rest of its extension to
Karachi. It is the actual physical arrangement of Makran topography
only which really matters; and here we are but treading in the
footsteps of the ubiquitous Arab when first he made his way
south-eastward from Arabia, or from Syria, to the Indian frontier. He
could, and he did, pass from the plateau of Persia into the very heart
of Makran without encountering the impediment of a single difficult
pass.
Although the chief trade route of the Arabs to India was not through
Persia, but by way of the sea in coasting vessels, it is probable that
both Arabs and Persians before them made good use of the geographical
opportunities offered for an approach to the Indus valley and Northern
India, and that the central line of Persian approach through Makran
had been a world-old route for centuries. It is really a delightful
route to follow, full of the interest of magnificent scenery and of
varied human existence, and it is the telegraph route from Ispahan to
Panjgur in Makran. With the initial process of reaching Ispahan,
whether through the Kurdistan hills from Baghdad by way of Kermanshah
and the ancient town of Hamadan to Kum (the mountain road selected for
the telegraph line), or whether from Teheran to Kum and thence by
Kashan (a line not so replete with hills), we have no concern. This
part of Persia now falls by agreement under the influence of Russia,
and it is only by further agreement with Russia that this link in any
European connection could be forged. But from Ispahan to Karachi one
may still look over the wide uplands of the Persian plateau and
imagine, if we please, that it is for England to take her share in the
development of these ancient highways into a modern railway. Ispahan
is 5300 feet above sea-level, and from Ispahan one never descends to a
lower level than 3000 feet till one enters Makran.
As Ispahan lies in a wide valley separated by a continuous line of
flanking hills from the main high road of Central Persia, which
connects Teheran and Kashan with Kirman, passing through Yezd, it is
necessary to cross this intervening divide in order to reach Yezd.
There is a waterway through the hills, near Taft, a little to the
south-west of Yezd which meets this difficulty. From Yezd onwards to
the south-west of Kirman, Bam, and the populous plains of Narmashir
and Regan, the road is never out of sight of mountains, the long lines
of the Persian ranges flanking it north and south culminating in the
magnificent peak of the Koh-i-Basman, but leaving a wide space between
unhindered by passes or rivers. From Narmashir the modern telegraph
passes off north-eastward to Seistan, and from there follows the new
trade route to Nushki and Quetta. It is probable that through all ages
this palpable method of circumventing the Dasht-i-Lut (the Kirman
desert) by skirting it on the south was adopted by travellers seeking
Seistan and Kandahar. There is, however, the difficulty of a
formidable band of mountains skirting the desert Seistan, which would
be a difficulty to railway construction. From Regan to Bampur and
Panjgur the normal and most convenient mountain conformation (although
the ranges close in and the valleys narrow) points an open way, with
no obstacle to bar the passage even of a motor; but after leaving
Bampur on the east there is a divide (of about 4000 to 5000 feet) to
be crossed before dropping into the final system of Mashkhel drainage,
which leads straight on to Panjgur, Kalat, and Quetta. Early Arab
commercial explorers did not usually make this detour to Quetta in
order to reach the Indus delta country, nor should we, if we wished to
take the shortest line and the easiest through Persia to Karachi or
Bombay. Much depends on the objective in India. Calcutta may be
reached from the Indus valley by the north-western lines on the normal
Indian gauge, or it may be reached through the Rajputana system on the
metre gauge. But for the latter system and for Bombay, Karachi becomes
our objective. To reach Karachi _via_ Seistan and Quetta would add at
least 500 unnecessary miles to our route from Central Persia, an
amount which equals the total distance between the present Russian
terminus of the Transcaspian line at Kushk and our own Indian terminus
at New Chaman. A direct through line from Panjgur to Karachi by the
old Arab caravan route, within striking distance from the sea, would
apparently outflank not only all political objections, but would
satisfy those military objectors who can only see in a railway the
opportunity for invasion of India.