FROM
THE INDUS TO THE TIGRIS
A NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY THROUGH THE COUNTRIES
OF BALOCHISTAN, AFGHANISTAN, KHORASSAN
AND IRAN, IN 1872
TOGETHER WITH
_A SYNOPTICAL GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY OF
THE BRAHOE LANGUAGE_
AND A RECORD OF
_THE METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS AND ALTITUDES ON THE
MARCH FROM THE INDUS TO THE TIGRIS_
BY
HENRY WALTER BELLEW, C.S.I.
SURGEON BENGAL STAFF CORPS
_Author of a “Journal of a Mission to Afghanistan in 1867-58,” and
a “Grammar and Dictionary of the Pukkhto Language.”_
LONDON
TRÜBNER & CO., 57 & 59 LUDGATE HILL
1874
[_All rights of publication reserved_]
PREFACE.
The steady progress of Russian conquest in Turkistan during the past
half-century, and, during late years, the rapid advance of her frontiers
in the direction of India, have raised the States of Central Asia to a
position of importance in the eyes of European politicians higher than
they ever before occupied.
The accounts published from time to time by venturesome travellers in
those regions have informed us of the barbarism and bigotry of their
peoples—of the anarchy and weakness of their Governments—and of the
growing decay and approaching dissolution of the polity that holds them
together by the bonds of a common religion and common interest. And now
the military operations against Khiva at present in course of prosecution
by Russia, whilst opening up that country to the influences of European
civilisation, promise to unfold to that power a field of enterprise that
must, I believe, culminate in her paramount ascendancy over all the
region draining to the valley of the Oxus. This is a prospect full of the
weightiest moment to ourselves in India, and one that furnishes matter
for the gravest consideration of our statesmen. Much has been already
written on this subject from different points of view, and much remains
to be written; and doubtless the public journals will keep alive the
discussion of the question. But let us be careful lest, while straining
at the gnat of Yárkand, we swallow the camel of Herat.
Since the region intervening between the Asiatic possessions of Russia
and England now claims the attention of the several Governments
concerned, and is by the current of progressing events brought
prominently before the notice of the politicians of Europe generally,
any recent information regarding these countries cannot fail to prove
of interest to the general reader. With this conviction, therefore,
I venture to set before the public an account of the incidents and
experiences of a journey made across this region during last year—from
the Indus to the Tigris.
In explanation of all shortcomings as to matter and defects as to style,
I have to remind the reader that the narrative has been written at odd
hours, between the duties of an onerous charge in the principal frontier
station of India, without leisure for generalisation, or opportunity for
reference to authorities.
Further, I am constrained by the force of circumstances to commit my
manuscript to the care of the publisher, without the advantage of
correcting the proof-sheets in their passage through the press.
H. W. B.
PESHAWAR, _18th April 1873_.
CONTENTS.
PAGES
INTRODUCTION.
Appointment of Mission to Sistan and Tehran—Influence of
British and Russian civilisation—Historical Associations—The
“sick man” of Asia—Physical features of the region
traversed—Climate and inhabitants 1-17
CHAPTER I.
Departure from Multán—The Chenáb and the Indus—_Tria juncta in
uno_—Interesting fact for naturalists—Shikárpúr—Jacobabad—A
plundered _káfila_—Afghan effrontery—Interesting
rencontre—Barshori—Sinjarani—Odhána—False
alarm—Gandáva—Kotra—Disorderly baggage ponies—Pír
Chhatta—Muhammadan credulity 18-39
CHAPTER II.
The Míloh Pass—Nah-langa Tangí—The Khánzai Brahoe—Pír
Lákha—The Pír and the dragon—Scene of assassination of Sherdil
Khán—Khozdár—Roadside memorials—The Brahoe—Brahoe gratitude—The
Záwah defile—Scanty supplies 40-71
CHAPTER III.
Súráb to Calát—Reception by the Khán—The Court of
Calát—Description of Calát—Mundi Hájí—An efficacious charm—Our
hostess and the mirror—Mastung—Military honours—Nishpá
Pass—Shál Kot—Native custom 72-100
CHAPTER IV.
The Kákarrs—The Náib and the Malik—The Afghan Commissioner—The
Peshín valley—The Tarins—A numerous relationship—Kojak
Pass—Topographical survey—Barghanah Pass—Sháh Ahmad,
Durrani—Wool exports—Sardár Mír Afzal Khán—Afghan chivalry—A
startling object—American clocks 101-132
CHAPTER V.
Kandahar—Afghan cookery—Visit to a gold-mine—Process of
extraction—Antique porphyry bowl—City of Kandahar—Mausoleum
of Ahmad Sháh—Discontent of the inhabitants—Oppression of the
Government—Pyrotechnical display—Travellers’ notes—The Saggid’s
experience—Departure—Sardár Núr Muhammad Khán—Kandahar to
Ballakhan 133-166
CHAPTER VI.
Salt-pits—The Saggid on the English press—Búst—Ancient
ruins—The Argandáb—Extensive jangal—Hazárjuft—Afghan
stolidity—The Helmand—Khanishín—Abdullah Khán—Colonel Táj
Muhammad 167-202
CHAPTER VII.
Rúdbár—The Garmsel—Ján Beg—Change of post-route—The plain of
Sistan—An Afghan welcome—Sardár Ibráhím Khán, the murderer
of Dr Forbes—Sardár Ahmad Khán and Mardán Khán—Sharíf Khán—A
primitive ferry—Nasírabad—Windmills 203-236
CHAPTER VIII.
Meeting with Sir F. Goldsmid—Banjár—Ruins of Pesháwarán—History
of Sistan—Its limits—Watershed—Language 237-271
CHAPTER IX.
Kol Márút—Mythical inscription—Khyrabad—Lásh—News
of Lord Mayo’s death—Calá Koh—Singular acoustic
phenomenon—Duroh—Husenabad—The Sarbesha plateau—Birjand—Trade
and products—District of Gháyn—Historical sketch 272-308
CHAPTER X.
Birjand to Ghíbk—Depopulation of inhabitants—Sihdih—Persian
rights of perquisite—Gháyn—The Hájí’s advice—Change of
route—A noisy dispute—Precautions against the Turkmans—Dashtí
Pyáz—A harmless fright—Bijistan—Widespread suffering—Persian
veracity—Persian cruelty 309-357
CHAPTER XI.
Mashhad—Procession through the city—Interviews with the
Prince-Governor—Gratifying reception—Description of the
city—Its industry and trade—Plain of Mashhad—District of
Nishabor—Untrustworthiness of Persians—Sabzwár—An old
institution—Pilgrims—Motley spectacle—Shahrúd—An old
acquaintance 358-397
CHAPTER XII.
Treatment of Persian soldiers—Lásjird—Our
Mirakhor—His _savoir faire_—The “Portals of
delight”—Tehran—Destitution of the inhabitants—Arrangements
for return—Shukrullah Beg—A retrospect—Interview with the
Governor of Kirmánshah—Effects of the famine—Frightful
scenes—Hamadán—Kangawár—Besitun—Kirmánshah 398-439
CHAPTER XIII.
An enormous caravan—The Khaleva
tribe—Karriud—Zuháb—Difficulties as to passport and
escort—Their removal—Marauding Khaleva—Turko-Persian
frontier—Quarantine—Sad disappointment—Bukhariot pilgrims—Their
opinion of Russian influence in Central Asia—Flight of
locusts—A captive chief—The hermit and his disciple—Attack by
Arab robbers—Their repulse—Baghdad—Down the Tigris 440-472
APPENDIX.
A.—SYNOPTICAL GRAMMAR AND VOCABULARY OF THE BRAHOE LANGUAGE 473-493
B.—RECORD OF METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS AND ALTITUDES ON THE
MARCH FROM THE INDUS TO THE TIGRIS, THROUGH BALOCHISTAN,
AFGHANISTAN, SISTAN, KHORASSAN, AND IRAN 494-496
FROM THE INDUS TO THE TIGRIS.
INTRODUCTION.
Towards the close of 1871, Major-General F. R. Pollock (now Sir Richard
Pollock, K.C.S.I.) was deputed by the Government of India on a political
mission to Sistan, and I was selected to accompany him. I left Peshawar
on the 12th December, and joined him at Lahore, where our arrangements
for the journey were made. In Sistan we joined Sir Frederick Goldsmid’s
mission, and proceeded together to the Persian capital. Thence I returned
to India with the camp and establishment taken with us.
It is not the purpose of this work to enter into any detail of the
objects of the mission, nor in any way to refer to the political events
connected with it—preceding or succeeding; and I have been careful in
the following pages to avoid allusion to or discussion of the politics
of the countries we visited, inasmuch as they are now the subjects of
consideration to the several Governments affected by them, and are,
besides, questions foreign to the nature of this publication.
But as it is seldom than Europeans have an opportunity of visiting much
of the country embraced within the limits of the journey of this mission,
I have thought that a popular account of our experiences would not be
unacceptable to the British public; particularly since the region covered
by our travels, apart from its own special claims upon our interest, is,
I believe, destined ere very long to attract the most serious attention
of European politicians and statesmen.
And this because the civilisation of the West is advancing with such
steady progress towards the East, that it must sooner or later penetrate
to the countries that have hitherto successfully excluded its influence.
On the Asiatic continent, at least, its advance is from opposite
quarters, at different rates of speed, and of very different characters.
The highly organised and intricate system of European civilisation
introduced into India, and now being consolidated within the limits of
the British Empire there, though not without its advantages, has hardly
produced a shadow of effect on the bordering countries lying beyond
the region of its control. It stops short at, and with as clear a line
of definition as, the natural boundaries of the peninsula. Cross the
mountain barrier limiting the plains of India, and you pass at once
from civilisation to barbarism, from order to anarchy, from security to
danger, from justice to oppression. So much from the side of India.
From the opposite quarter advances the growing civilisation of Russia—a
civilisation which, notwithstanding its elements of European science and
art, is still but little raised in its general character above that of
the countries it is so rapidly overspreading, and yet, by consequence,
less opposed to the tastes and the requirements of their newly-conquered
peoples. The steamer, the telegraph, and the railway add consolidation to
the new rule in the annexed countries. Order and security are established
within the newly-conquered area by a sharp and decisive though despotic
military rule; whilst commercial enterprise is encouraged with the
countries lying beyond, and fostered by Government patronage. So much
from the side of Russia.
The region lying between the Russian conquests in Central Asia and the
British Empire in India is now the barrier that separates these two forms
of civilisation. It cannot always remain so. It must sooner or later
succumb to the one form or the other; and for this reason it is that the
region claims from us a more than ordinary interest, and, I may say,
sympathy too, by way of reparation for the wrong we inflicted in the
Afghan war—a wrong the fruits of which are yet abundant, as anybody who
has served on our north-west frontier can testify.
The narrative contained in the following pages will, it is hoped, convey
a correct picture of the general nature of the country included between
the Indus and the Tigris, illustrate the chief points in the character of
its peoples, and exemplify the state of the society in which they live.
With respect to the last, I may here say, in anticipation, that tyranny
and insecurity, oppression and violence, reign everywhere all over the
country. It was our lot, on entering this region, to meet a caravan
that had been attacked and plundered by tribes in revolt against their
chief. It was my lot, on leaving the region, to meet another caravan that
had been attacked and plundered by tribes in rebellion against their
sovereign. And it was yet again my lot, before clear of the region in
which we had successfully run the gauntlet through Brahoe and Baloch,
Turkman and Hamadán, to be brought to bay by Arab robbers, from whom we
escaped I know not how.
As the narrative is confined to a description only of the country
actually traversed, it may be useful here to set before the reader a
general view of the whole region lying between the valleys of the Indus
and the Tigris, by way of introduction to the subject-matter of this
book; and this because the region itself is as interesting on account of
its peculiar physical characteristics as it is attractive on account of
its varied historical associations.
The land of the Medes and Persians, Magians and Zoroastrians, on the
one side, and of the Scythians and Aryans, Buddhists and Brahmists, on
the other—the kingdom of Cyrus and of Darius—the country of Alexander’s
fame—the theatre of Arab conquest and Islamite growth—the scene of
Tartar bloodshed and devastation, and the home ever since of anarchy and
desolation—the hotbed of Mohammedan bigotry—the arena of Shia and Sunni
hostility—and, towards the east, the bone of contention between Persian
and Mughal—later still, the battlefield between Afghan and Persian—the
prize of Nadír—the spoil of his successors—and now the possession of
Kajar and Durrani, of Persian and Afghan, each jealous of other, and each
claiming as frontier what the other possesses.
Such are some of the varied historical associations, past and present, of
the region I shall now endeavour to describe in its physical character
only—a region which, with the exception of its western portion, has long
been a closed country to the European, and a jealously-guarded barrier
against the civilisation of the age. The term of its isolation, however,
is doomed; the time of its freedom draws nigh. For the force of Western
civilisation is irresistible. Through it the enlightenment of the age
must soon shed its lustre upon these benighted regions.
The Crimean war poured its light upon Turkey, and under its influence the
“sick man of Europe” has become convalescent. His neighbour is now the
“sick man of Asia.” He looks wistfully at the remedy of civilisation.
Let us hope he may be persuaded to try it. But if Persia is the sick man
of Asia, what shall we say of Afghanistan, shut up in his own barbarism,
imbued to the core with fanatic bigotry, and steeped in the pride of
nationality? Verily, he is very sick—sick unto death. And he knows it,
yet he refuses, obstinately and suspiciously, the only remedy that can
save his decaying constitution from dissolution. Is he to be left to his
fate? or will the physician appear in good time and patch up his broken
frame? These are questions for serious reflection, because the patient is
our neighbour, and his fate cannot be a matter of indifference to us.
The region whose past history and present condition I have thus briefly
alluded to is comprised within the fiftieth and seventieth degrees of
east longitude, and the twenty-fifth and thirty-fifth degrees of north
latitude. Its length is about twelve hundred miles, and its breadth about
six hundred.
Its most characteristic features are its general elevation, and the fact
that no river from its interior reaches the sea. It forms, in fact, a
great elevated block, interposed between the basin of the Caspian and
the low-lying valley of Turkistan on the north, and the Persian Gulf and
Arabian Sea on the south, and is bounded east and west by the valleys of
the Indus and the Tigris respectively.
The area thus limited geographically, in contradistinction to its
political boundaries, presents some remarkable physical peculiarities,
which may be considered characteristic of the whole region. Its mountain
system, its river system, its deserts, and its plains, all offer special
features for notice.
Its mountains, girding it on all sides, shut it off from surrounding
countries. By their internal disposition they divide the region into two
distinct parts, and form a natural boundary separating three distinct
races—the Persian, the Afghan, and the Uzbak.
Its rivers, owing to this internal disposition of the mountains, are
directed in three different directions. Those of Persia mostly converge
to the south-east of its territory; those of Afghanistan converge to the
south-west of its territory; and those to the north of the mountain chain
that separates these two systems, flow northward to the swamps, tracts
lying between the lower course of the Oxus and the Caspian.
Its deserts, too, by the same internal disposition of the mountains, are
divided into three distinct sets—those of Persia and Afghanistan, lying
one on either side of the mountain range separating these two countries,
and that of Turkistan, lying to the north of the same range, in the angle
formed by the mountains that converge from east and west to produce it.
Its plains present greater variety in extent and direction and elevation,
but are all alike in general character—equally arid, equally void of
trees, and equally covered with pasture plants. All are more or less the
resort of nomads with their flocks and herds, and some are peopled by
fixed communities settled in villages.
I will now describe each of these points in the physical geography of
this region separately, but time and space only permit of my doing so
very briefly and in general terms.
As before indicated, the region between the valleys of the Indus and the
Tigris is an elevated country, propped up on all sides by great mountain
ranges.
On the east, it is separated from the valley of the Indus by the Sulemán
range, which continues southwards to the sea-coast in the Hala mountains
that separate Balochistan from Sind. To the northward it connects,
through the Sufed Koh of Kabul, with the Kohi Baba of Hindu Kush. This
range contains within its ridges many fertile valleys and small plains,
all of which drain eastwards to the Indus. To its west lies the high
tableland of Ghazni, and Kandahar and Balochistan.
On the west, it is separated from the valley of the Tigris by the
range of the Zagros mountains, which northwards, through the hills of
Kurdistan, unite with the Armenian mountains. To the southward it extends
by the mountains of Laristan and Khuzistan to those forming the southern
boundary of this region. The declivity of the Zagros ranges toward the
west. The mountains in this direction drop at once to the plains below,
and, viewed from them, look like a huge buttress wall propping up the
tableland of Persia.[1]
On the south, it is supported against the coast of the Arabian Sea by
the Mushti range of Balochistan, on the one hand, and upon the littoral
of the Persian Gulf by the chain of mountains connecting the Balochistan
range with that of Zagros, on the other. To the east these mountains
support the interior tableland of Afghanistan, against the low rugged
hills of the sea-coast, by the hills and valleys of Makrán; and to the
west, by the hills of Laristan and Fars, they unite with the Zagros
range, and support the elevated interior of Persia against the low-lying
shore of the Persian Gulf. This range is pierced by many passes up to the
interior, and encloses numerous fertile and well-watered valleys.
Towards the north, it is separated from the valley of the Oxus and low
plains of Turkistan by the Hindu Kush range on the side of Afghanistan,
and from the basin of the Caspian by the Alburz range on the side of
Persia.
This northern boundary presents some special features. The two great
ranges approaching from the east and west bend southwards to meet in
the vicinity of Herat, whence they project across the whole country,
dividing the region into the two kingdoms of Persia and Afghanistan, and
separating each from the intermediate region to the north—the country of
the Turkmans and the Hazara, with other cognate Uzbak tribes. Thus the
Hindu Kush, west of Kabul, sends off two principal ranges separated by
the Hari Rúd, or river of Herat. The southern of these ranges is called
Syáh Koh, and breaks up into the mountains of Ghor, which, extending
south of Herat, join the Khorassan mountains emanating from the Alburz
range, and form the watershed between the hydrographic systems of
Afghanistan and Turkistan. That is to say, all the streams to the north
of the Syáh Koh range flow to the valley of the Oxus, or to the low
swampy tracts of Marv and Tajand, between the lower course of that river
and the Caspian, whilst all the streams to its south flow to the Sistan
basin, the receptacle for all the drainage of Afghanistan west of Ghazni.
And so from the opposite direction. The Alburz range west of Mashhad
sends off a succession of lofty offshoots, snow-topped in midsummer,
that traverse the northern highlands of Khorassan in a direction from
north-west to south-east, and enclose between them a number of elevated
plateaux, such as those of Nishabor, Sabzwár, Turshíz, and Tabbas, that
all drain westwards into Persia. The principal of these offshoots is the
Binaloh range of mountains. It separates the plain of Mashhad from that
of Nishabor, and towards the south-east connects with the high mountains
of Záwah and Bákharz, north of Herat. This range forms a watershed
between the drainage converging on to the great salt desert of Persia on
the one side, and that flowing to the swamps of Tajand and Marv on the
other.
Between Záwah and Tabbas the chain of mountains is interrupted by a
narrow arm of the salt desert called Kavír, which at Yúnasi projects
eastward on to the plain of Kháf and Ghorian. But it is continued
onwards by spurs from Bákharz which connect with the mountains of Ghazn
on the one side, and with those of Ghor on the other, a little south
of Herat. Here the Ghazn valley drains into Afghanistan, and onwards
south the two ranges proceed in parallel lines, a strip of desert waste
intervening, till they mingle in the Sarhadd mountains, through which
they connect with the great southern mountain border of this region—the
border previously described as extending from the Sulemán range across
Balochistan and the southern provinces of Persia to the Zagros range on
the west.
Of these two parallel ranges, that formed by the projections from the
Ghor mountains extends in detached ridges running mostly north and
south. They enclose amongst them the valleys of Sabzwár or Isapzár, and
Anartarrah, and drain to the Sistan basin by the Harutrúd or Adraskand,
as it is also called. The range passes to the west of the Sistan basin,
of which it forms the boundary in that direction, under the name of Koh
Bandán, and ultimately joins the Sarhadd mountains.
The other range, joined by the spurs from Bákharz, is an extensive
and elevated mountain tract, enclosing numerous plateaux and valleys,
that all drain to the Khusp river, which flows on to the salt desert.
The general direction of the range is from north to south, with spurs
projecting east and west. It connects through the hills of Nih and Bandán
with the Sarhadd mountains.
The mountain barrier thus formed by the emanations from Alburz is the
natural geographical boundary between Persia and Afghanistan, north and
south across the length of their conterminous frontiers. It forms a wide
mountain region called Irani Khorassan, or Persian Khorassan, and abounds
in populous and fertile valleys, full of fruit-gardens and running
streams. Its climate is variable, and its winters severe; but on the
whole it is a very salubrious region, and is everywhere easily traversed
by practicable passes among the hills.
Its inhabitants are a very mixed community. In the southern districts
they are mostly Ilyats, from different stocks, with some Persians settled
in the principal towns, and all under the rule of local chiefs of Arab
descent. In the central districts,—Tún, Tabbas, and northern parts of
Ghazn,—there are many Baloch and Tartar families mixed up with the
general population. To the north of these, in Záwah and Bákharz, the
people are mostly Karai Tartars and Hazárah Uzbaks; and in the northern
districts, Nishabor, Sabzwár, Burdjnurd, Khabúshán, &c., they are
entirely Kurds.
From the above description it will be seen that the Hindu Kush and Alburz
ranges combine to form the Khorassan mountains that separate Persia
from Afghanistan; that Herat, and the country north of their point of
junction, is geographically separated from both, and connected by its
hydrographic system with the valley of the Oxus; that in the vicinity
of Herat the continuity of the Khorassan hills is interrupted, south of
Bákharz, by an arm of the salt desert of Persia; and also that, with
Herat as a centre, the three divergent mountain ranges—viz., those of
Alburz, Ghor, and Ghazn—separate three distinct peoples—the Persians,
the Afghans, and the Turkmans, with Uzbaks and other cognate tribes.
I draw attention to this last point, because the natural configuration
of the country explains the facility with which, from time immemorial,
the predatory tribes of the lower Oxus valley have been enabled to harass
the Persian frontier unchecked with their annual marauding inroads and
slave-hunting expeditions, and because also history has marked out this
locality as the point of ingress towards the east for all northern
invaders; for Herat towards the north, and with it Mashhad, is open to
both Khiva and Bukhára.
The mountain barriers that I have mentioned as geographically bounding
the region lying between the Indus and the Tigris, have by their interior
disposition determined its hydrographic system in a remarkable manner,
on either side of the great Khorassan range separating Afghanistan from
Persia.
The Sulemán range, as already mentioned, is a wide mountain tract,
enclosing within its hills many valleys and hills which all drain
eastwards to the Indus. Its declivity is towards the east, whilst to the
west it slopes gently on to the elevated plateaux of Afghanistan.
To the north, this range connects with the Sufed Koh east of Ghazni, and
at this point commences that great watershed that separates the drainage
of the Indus from that of the Helmand. It runs in a southerly direction,
inclining to west as far as the Bolán and the tableland of Calát, whence
it strikes westward towards the Mushti range, separating the great desert
of Balochistan from Makrán.
To the north of this watershed, Sufed Koh connects through the highlands
of Ghazni with the Kohi Baba of Hindu Kush. From this range starts the
Syáh Koh of Hazárah, which stretches west to Herat, and forms the
watershed between the valley of the Oxus on the north, and the Sistan
basin on the south. From Herat it extends southward by Sabzwár and Bandán
to Sarhadd, where it joins the western spurs of the Mushti range, and
thus completes the circle of the hydrographic system of Afghanistan.
With the exception of the drainage of the Ghazni river, which collects in
the Abistada marsh, and the drainage of the Calát tablelands, which flow
to the desert north of the Mushti range, all the rivers within the area
indicated flow towards the Sistan basin, at the south-western extremity
of the Kandahar plain, though they do not all reach it. All the rivers
and rivulets from the eastward and southward flow to the stream of the
Helmand, whilst those of Sabzwár and Ghor flow in separate streams, all
to meet in the Sistan basin. So it is in the Afghanistan half of the
region; and a similar system, though on a much less extensive scale,
is found to hold in the Persian half. Thus all the streams between the
Alwand range of Hamadán on the west, and the Alburz on the north-east,
converge to the south-east corner of the Persian tableland, where they
expand themselves on the surface of the great salt desert north of
Kirmán. At least, such is the case if any reliance is to be placed on
the statements of my Persian informants, whose testimony I am willing to
believe from my own observations as to the general course of the streams
and the lie of the land; for I have not seen this shown on any map. The
river Khusp of Birjand, the Yúnasi river, the Kál Shor of Nishabor and
Sabzwár, the Kál Abresham and others on to Tehran, all flow direct on
to the salt desert, and the streams crossed on the road from Tehran to
Hamadán all flowed in the same direction.
The great salt desert of Persia, called the Daryáe Kabír, or “the vast
sea,” extends all along the western side of the Khorassan hills, from
Nishabor in the north to Kirmán in the south, and sinks to its lowest
level in the latter direction, opposite to the Sistan basin, on the other
side of the intervening mountain range. So that the water systems of the
two countries converge towards each other, and at some remote period
probably formed lakes or swamps on either side of the mountain range
dividing them, where it joins the great southern border of the region.
The water system of the country, to the north of this dividing range,
belongs to the hydrographic system of Turkistan, and is beyond the
limits of the region I am describing. Its rivers all flow towards the
lowest part of the desert tract lying between the lower course of the
Oxus and the Caspian, and there end in the swamps of Tajand and Marv.
The principal of these streams are the Murgháb, the Hari Rúd, and the
river of Mashhad. With the exception of the Helmand and Farráh Rúd in
Afghanistan, none of these streams always reach their destination.
They only do so in periods of excessive flood; usually their waters
are dissipated by evaporation, absorption by the porous soil, and by
diversions for purposes of irrigation, long before they can reach their
terminal receptacles.
The deserts of this region between the Indus and Tigris are in a measure
connected with its water system. They present vast tracts of elevated
sandy wastes, perfectly void of water and vegetation except on their
skirts. Each division of the region has a desert of its own. That of
Persia has been before mentioned as stretching north and south across
the eastern portion of that country. The desert of Afghanistan extends
east and west across the western half of its southern border, from the
highlands of Calát to the mountains of Sarhadd, south of Sistan. It
is called the Regi Sistan or Regi Balochistan—the sands of Sistan or
Balochistan—and extends from the Mushti range of mountains on the south
up to the plain of Kandahar on the north, where it ends in a high coast
of desert cliffs. This elevated border is called _chol_, or “dry land,”
and forms a belt ten or fifteen miles wide, on which is found a rich
winter pasture for the cattle of the nomads who here make their winter
quarters.
There is also a desert tract to the north between the Caspian and Oxus;
but it differs from the deserts of Persia and Afghanistan in an important
particular. Its surface is a firm gravel, broken into undulations, and
covered with a more or less rich pasture of aromatic herbs, and water is
found in some of the hollows on its surface.
The plains of this region are all elevated plateaux of greater or
less extent, and more frequently the latter. They are all covered
with excellent pastures of rich aromatic herbs and hardy plants, and
are the natural home of the asafœtida and wormwood, and, in the more
elevated tracts, of the rhubarb. Most of them are watered by brisk
little hill-streams, or by those artificial subterranean conduits called
_kárez_, and are more or less populous; villages, fruit-gardens, and
cultivation following the course of the streams, and nomad camps covering
the pastures during the summer months.
In Balochistan, these plateaux rise in steps one above the other between
the hills up to the tableland of Calát. North of this they fall in steps
to the Kandahar plain, which itself sinks towards the south-west to the
Sistan basin. In Persia they rise in a similar gradation from the shores
of the Persian Gulf and basin of the Tigris up to the tablelands of the
interior, where they sink again gradually to the lowest part of the salt
desert in the south-east portion of the country.
Such, in general terms, are the main features of the region between the
Indus and the Tigris. Its climate, as may be imagined, is as varied as
the surface of the country. It partakes of the temperate character of
an Alpine climate in the northern mountain tracts, whilst in the lower
desert tracts it equals in heat the torrid plains of India during the
summer months. But in winter it is everywhere cold; in the mountain
regions rigorously so, whilst on the wide plains and deserts it is
equally severe by reason of the strong north winds that sweep the country
for months.
On the whole, the climate, with its many variations, may be considered
salubrious and favourable to life. Its inhabitants certainly are
physically amongst the finest of the human race, notwithstanding the
inferior fare and barbarous mode of life that are the lot of a large
proportion of them, in Afghanistan particularly. In this country the
signs of departed prosperity and plenty are everywhere met with. From
Ghazni westward, all along the valleys of the Tarnak and the Helmand,
down to the basin of Sistan, the whole country is covered with the ruins
of former cities, obliterated canals, and deserted cultivation—all
assigned to the devastation of the Tartars under Changhiz and Tymúr in
the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries.
The country has never recovered the havoc created by these curses of the
human race. Since the destruction of the Arab rule overthrown by them,
the country has known no stable government, and has been a stranger to
peace, order, and prosperity alike. But it has within itself all the
material elements of prosperity. What it wants are a firm government and
a just rule. With these once more established over it, there is no reason
why the country should not again recover its former state of prosperity
and plenty. Its mountains contain a store of unexplored treasure, and its
plains an only half-developed wealth.
Of its inhabitants I need add little here, as to describe them fully
would fill a volume. Suffice it to say, that those of Persia and
Afghanistan alike contain representatives of various Tartar races thrown
into this region by the successive waves of invasion from the north,
as well as representatives of earlier known peoples pushed on into it
from the south-west, mixed up with the ancient inhabitants of the land.
Thus in Persia, with the ancient inhabitants, who are mostly settled in
the large towns and cities, are found various tribes of Mughals, Turks,
and Kurds, together with Arabs, Armenians, and Jews. A fourth of the
population, which may be estimated at six millions, consists of wandering
tribes, generically known as _ilyát_, a term which signifies “the
tribes,” and corresponds with the _úlús_ of the Afghans. In the _ilyát_
are comprised all sorts of tribes, Arab and Ajam, that is to say, of Arab
origin and of Persian or foreign origin, or, in other words, tribes who
have come into the country at different times from the west and from the
north.
In Afghanistan, with its province of Balochistan, both included in the
country of Khorassan, are the original Tajiks of Persian origin, the
Afghans or Pukhtúns (the dominant race), and the Hazárah of Tartar
invasions, together with Kazzilbash Mughals, and Uzbaks and Turks of
various tribes, Hindkis and Kashmiris, and others of Indian origin,
all in the northern tracts. In the southern are Brahoe and Baloch, of
different origin and diverse speech; the Dihwár or Tajik, of Persian race
and tongue, and a mixture of different tribes, such as Jats of Sind,
Hindus of Shikárpúr, and a few mongrel tribes of nobody knows where.
In our passage through the Brahoe country I collected the material for
a concise grammar and vocabulary of that language. It will be found in
the Appendix. I had hoped to have been able to add similar grammars
and vocabularies of the Baloch and Sistan dialects; but the adverse
circumstances of our sojourn in these countries prevented my acquiring
a sufficient knowledge of their languages, and I find that the data
collected are much too scanty to permit of my making the attempt, though,
from what I did gather, I believe both are closely allied to the Persian.
CHAPTER I.
We left Multán by the morning train on the 26th December 1871, and after
a ride of near an hour, alighted at Sher Sháh Ghát on the river bank.
Here we took leave of our kind host, Colonel Stuart Graham, Commissioner
of the Division, and embarked on board the river steamer _Outram_. By
noon we had loosed our moorings, and the _Outram_, wedged in between
two unwieldy flats lashed to her one on either side, was fairly started
down-stream of the river Chenáb.
We had hardly proceeded two hours when we were brought to a stand-still
by “something” wrong with the engine. Whatever this mysterious
“something” may have been, it necessitated our mooring alongside the
river bank for the rest of the day. A stout plank thrown across from one
of the flats served to communicate with the shore, which is here a dead
level of loose sand, evidently a recent deposit by floods. The banks
here are very low, so too is the stream between them at this season,
as we soon discovered, to the no small trial of our patience. They—the
banks—are of loose sand, flush with the general surface of the plain as
far as the eye can reach on either side. They are perpetually sucking up
moisture from the stream washing them, and then, becoming overweighted,
subside into the river, to be restored again in the succeeding year’s
floods.
By seven o’clock next morning we had cast off from our moorings, and
were drifting down mid-stream, fairly started for a good day’s run. But
we had hardly proceeded half-an-hour when a smart bump announced our
stoppage by a sandbank. A little delay presently revealed the unpleasant
fact that the _Outram_ with her flats was jammed in a shallow channel
with only two and a half feet of water. Anchors were thrown out, first
on one side, then on the other; the engine was backed astern, and then
turned ahead. The _Outram_ was hauled first this way and then that;
she was worked now backwards and again driven forwards; and so on in
alternation for upwards of seven hours. Finally, about three o’clock, our
unwieldy _tria juncta in uno_ was wriggled out of the strait into free
water four feet deep.
But we were not yet clear of our difficulties. A few hundred yards
farther on we were again stranded on a sandbank; and not being able to
get off it at sunset, anchored for the night in mid-stream, having during
the day increased our distance from Multán by four miles more than it
was on the previous evening. We did not get fairly off this bank till
noon of the following day. And so we went on, with like obstructions
daily, entailing more or less delay, till we reached Bakrí at sunset
of the 30th. Here next morning we transhipped to the river steamer _De
Grey_, the cargo being transferred during the night, and making a good
start, arrived at Cháchá, a little below the junction of the Chenáb with
the Indus, on the morning of the second day of the new year. Here our
only fellow-traveller, the Rev. T. V. French, of the Church Missionary
Society, left us for Baháwalpúr.
The _De Grey_ fared only a little better than the _Outram_. We
experienced many delays from shoal water and narrow channels, and
at sunset of the second day ran on to a sandbank. The shock of the
concussion caused one of the flats to break away from its attachments
and crush against the stern of the steamer. The whole night was employed
in securing the flat and working the steamer off the bank. By eight
o’clock next morning we got off into free water, and making a good day’s
run, at sunset moored for the night at Rodhar, a little hamlet of reed
huts close on the river bank, and about forty-eight miles above Sakkar.
During the day, we saw immense numbers of water-fowl of all sorts. Ducks
in great variety, coolan, wild geese, herons, cranes, and paddy-birds
were the most prominent in point of size and numbers. Porpoises hunted
up and down the stream, alligators on the sandbanks lazily basked in
the sunshine, and wild pigs cautiously issued from the thick coverts
on either side for a wallow in the shallows and puddles bordering the
river’s stream.
In one of these shallows, formed by an overflow of the river, we
witnessed a curious sight—an interesting fact for the naturalist. A
large fish floundering about in the shallow water had attracted the
attention of a buzzard flying overhead. The bird made one or two stoops
at the fish, when a jackal, looking on from the edge of the jangal, came
forward to contest its possession. He boldly went some twenty paces into
the water, and after a sharp struggle seized the fish and brought it to
land. Here he laid it on the sand to take breath and look around, and the
buzzard, seizing the opportunity, again made a stoop at the fish, but was
driven off by the jackal, who made a jump into the air at him. This was
repeated two or three times, after which the jackal, taking up his prize,
with head aloft proudly trotted back to his covert. The fish appeared to
be at least twenty inches long.
We left Rodhar early next morning, and proceeded without obstruction. We
passed a number of small hamlets close on the river bank on either side.
They were composed of reed cabins supported on slender poles eight or ten
feet high. Each cabin was a neat pent-roofed box, about ten feet long by
six wide, and as many high at the sides. They belonged to Sindhí Jats,
who live by fishing, cutting wood for fuel, and by tending cattle.
The country here is wooded close to the water’s edge by a thick jangal
of Euphrates poplar, tamarisk, and mimosa, and here and there are
great belts of tall reeds, eighteen to twenty feet high. The approach
to Sakkar is very fine and unique of its kind. It presents a charming
contrast to the dead level of the scenery on either side the river above
it as far as Multán. The island fortress of Bakkar in mid-stream, with
the many-storied houses and lofty palm groves of Rorhí, on one side,
and the high rocks and sunburnt town of Sakkar on the other, are the
characteristic features of this peculiar spot. We steamed through the
channel between Rorhí and Bakkar, and then, making for the opposite
shore, moored under the town of Sakkar at about one o’clock. It thus took
us nearly eleven whole days to perform the journey by river from Multán
to Sakkar. In the hot season, when the river is in full flood, the same
journey is usually accomplished in one third of the time.
Cattle for our baggage and camp equipage having been collected here by
previous arrangement, we left our servants to follow with them, and at
half-past three set out for Shikárpúr in a buggy kindly placed at our
service by Captain Hampton, Superintendent of the Panjab Steam Flotilla.
At Mangráni, the half-way stage, we mounted camels sent out for us, and
in four hours from Sakkar, arrived at Shikárpúr. The road is excellent
throughout, and laid most of the way with long reed grass to keep down
the dust. The country is flat, crossed by many irrigation canals, and
covered with jangal patches of tamarisk and mimosa. In the last five
miles from Lakkí to Shikárpúr, cultivation is general, and large trees
become more abundant.
In the morning our obliging host, Colonel Dunsterville, Collector of
Shikárpúr, took us for a drive to see the place. In the public gardens
called Shákí Bágh is a small menagerie and the Merewether pavilion. The
latter, built after the design of those useless decorated structures
one sees at English watering-places and pleasure gardens, is a striking
object, absurdly at variance with all its surroundings. But it is
characteristic of our prejudices and tastes in matters architectural. We
unaccountably neglect the encouragement of the oriental architecture,
with its elegant designs, elaborate detail, and durable material, for the
nondescript compositions, incongruous mixture of colours, and inferior
material of the public buildings and monuments we have spread all over
the country. We seem to forget that what is suitable to the climate,
conformable to the scenery, and acceptable to the tastes of the people
of Europe, may be the reverse in each instance when introduced into this
country without modification or adaptation to its circumstances. The town
of Shikárpúr is clean for an oriental city, and wears an air of quiet and
prosperity. The environs are well stocked with large trees, such as the
_ním_ (melia azadirachta), _sirras_ (acaciaelata), _sissú_ (Dalbergia
sissoo), palm, &c., and the roads are everywhere covered with a layer
of reeds to keep down the dust. The people are clad in bright-coloured
garments, and appear a very thriving commercial community. The bazaar is
covered with a pent-roof, and has a cool look, which alone must be a boon
in this hot climate. There is a very useful charitable dispensary here,
and a jail for five hundred prisoners. I observed that the convicts were
clad in fur jackets (_postín_), a luxury very few of them ever possessed
in their free state.
We left Shikárpúr at two o’clock, and drove to Sultán di Gót, where we
found camels awaiting our arrival. The one intended for my riding took
fright at the buggy, tore away from his nose-ring, and, luckily for
me, escaped into the jangal. This I say advisedly; for had the frisky
creature been recaptured, I could not have declined to ride him, and the
consequences might have been anything but agreeable. I was unaccustomed
to this mode of travelling, and knew little about the handling of a
camel. Had he bolted with me on his back, there is no knowing where he
would have stopped, and the jolting—well! it is lucky I escaped the
chance of its consequences.
After a short delay, a pony having been procured from the village, we set
off, and at half-way passing the staging bungalow of Humáyún, arrived at
Jacobabad at seven o’clock. The road is excellent, and is bordered by an
avenue of large trees nearly the whole way, and is crossed by several
irrigation canals. Jacobabad is the headquarters of the Sindh Irregular
Force, and is a flourishing frontier station, luxuriant in the vigour of
youth. It was laid out, planted, and watered, not a score of years ago,
by the talented officer whose name it commemorates, on a bare and desert
tract, near the little hamlet of Khangarh, on the very verge of the
desert. It affords a striking example of what the energy and judgment of
a determined will can effect.
Our servants with the camp equipage did not arrive at Jacobabad till
daylight of the next day. We halted here a day to complete the final
arrangements for our journey across the border, and to decide on the
route we were to take.
The affairs of Balochistan had for some time been in an unsettled state,
owing to differences that had arisen between the ruling chief and some
of his most powerful feudal barons. Matters had grown worse, and, at
the time of our arrival here, several of the tribal chiefs were in open
rebellion, and had taken the field against the Khán of Calát, over
whose troops, it appears, they had gained the advantage in more than
one encounter. Owing to these disturbances, the direct and ordinary
route through Balochistan by the Bolán Pass was closed. There were two
alternative routes, namely, that by Tal Chhotiyálí, to the north of the
Bolán, and that by the Míloh Pass to its south. The first is described
as an easy road, and has the advantage of leading direct into the Peshín
valley; moreover, it is a route hitherto untraversed by Europeans. But
these advantages and desiderata were annulled and counterbalanced, as
far as we were concerned, by the perilous nature of the route in the
vicinity of Mount Chapper, occupied by the lawless and savage tribe of
Kákarr, notorious robbers, who are restrained by the fear of neither God
nor devil, and much less of man. The Míloh Pass route, although nearly a
hundred and ninety miles longer than that by the Bolán, was consequently,
thanks to the sound judgment of Sir William Merewether (for which we
subsequently found good reason to be grateful), decided on as the road
for us to proceed by.
Our camp having gone ahead at daylight, under escort of two native
commissioned officers and forty troopers of the Sindh Irregular Horse,
we set out from the hospitable mansion of Sir William Merewether,
Commissioner of Sindh, at nine o’clock in the morning of the 8th January
1872, and clearing the station, presently entered on a vast desert plain.
At about three miles we crossed the line of the British frontier, and
at two miles more reached Mumal, the first habitation in the territory
of the Khán of Calát or Kelat. It is a collection of eighteen or twenty
mean hovels, the occupants of which were the personification of poverty
and wretchedness. Here we bade adieu to Captain R. G. Sandeman, Deputy
Commissioner of Dera Gházi, who, with a party of Mazári horsemen,
accompanied us thus far, and mounting our camels, set out at a swinging
trot across the desert towards Barshori, thirty miles distant, turning
our backs upon civilisation, and hurrying into the regions of discord and
barbarism. We were accompanied by Pír Ján, son of Muhammad Khán, the Khán
of Calát’s agent at Jacobabad, and eight of his horsemen.
The desert is a wide smooth surface of hard dry clay, as level as a
billiard-table, and bare as a board. Not a single pebble, nor even a
blade of grass, was anywhere to be seen. The caravan track lying before
us was the only distinguishable feature on the dull surface of bare
clay. After travelling thus for about two and a half hours, we sighted
two lofty mounds set together in the midst of the desert, with shrubby
bushes fringing pools of water at their bases, all remarkably clear and
distinct. “That,” said Pír Ján, “is the _Lúmpáni áb_, or ‘the lustre
of the minstrel’s water,’ so named from the tradition of a travelling
_Lúm_, or ‘minstrel,’ who, seeing such abundant signs of water, emptied
the cruse under whose weight he was toiling, and perished in the desert
from thirst.” As we approached nearer, the illusion disappeared, and
the semblance dissolved to the reality—two heaps of clay on the sides
of a dry well-shaft, a few scattered saltworts, and a patch of soda
efflorescence. This was the most perfect _sihráb_ (magic water) or mirage
I had ever seen. We rested here awhile, to allow the baggage to get on
to our camp ground; but after half-an-hour, finding the midday sun too
hot, we remounted our camels and resumed our track across the desert, and
overtook the baggage a little way short of Barshori, where we arrived at
sunset.
Here we found a large káfila scattered over a considerable surface of
land about the village. As we passed by towards some clear ground on
the further side of the village, we were surrounded by a noisy crowd
of Afghans, who, with the utmost volubility and excitement, poured out
a confused jumble of complaints and laments, and begged an immediate
inquiry and redress for their grievances. Everybody speaking at once,
the confusion of sounds prevented our understanding what was said; so
we dismounted from our camels, and General Pollock directing the crowd
to disperse, retained a few as spokesmen for the rest. We presently
learned that the káfila had been attacked in the Bolán above Dádar by
Mulla Muhammad, Ráisání, chief of Sahárawán, who, with others, is in
open revolt against the authority of the Khán of Calát, and that they
had fought their way through, with the loss of six men killed, fourteen
wounded, and a hundred and fifty camels with their loads captured by
the enemy. Whilst listening to these accounts, eight wounded men were
brought forward. I examined and did what I could for them at the time.
They were all severely wounded, six by gunshot and two by sword-cut. I
was turning away, when a blustering fellow, loudly cursing the barbarity
of the robbers, set an old woman in my path, and removing her veil,
exclaimed, “Look here! they have not even spared our women; they have
cut off this poor woman’s nose with a sword.” The miserable creature’s
face was shockingly eaten away by disease. I raised my eyes from it to
the speakers’, and was about to speak, when I was forestalled by the
bystanders, who merrily said, “Take her away; that dodge won’t do, he
knows all about it.” The effrontery of the whole proceeding was Afghan
throughout.
The káfila, we were told, consisted of twelve hundred camels and eighteen
hundred followers from Kandahar. The merchandise comprised a varied
stock, such as wool, dried fruits, raisins, choghas, barrak, pashmína,
specie, and jewels. The value of the whole was estimated at nine laks
of rupees, of which about two laks had been plundered in the Bolán.
Directing our informants to make their representations to the authorities
of Jacobabad, we passed on to our own camp.
We were seated on our cots, watching the erection of our tents, when our
attention was diverted to four men cautiously approaching us from the
direction of the káfila. Their leader was a venerable greybeard, and by
his side walked a delicate youth. As they neared us I observed, “Surely,
I know those people;” when the elder, hastily glancing around to satisfy
himself that he was unobserved by the káfila people, hurried forward,
fell at my feet, then quickly rising, took my hands in his own, kissed
them, and pressed them to his forehead, uttering all the while a rapid
succession of prayers and congratulations on his good fortune in meeting
me.
“Saggid Mahmúd of Sariáb, what has brought you here from Ghazni?”
inquired I, after the customary interchange of salutations, so cordially
initiated by himself. “Hush!” said he, in a low voice, turning to my
ear. “We are going on a pilgrimage to Karbalá by Bombay, Basrah, and
Baghdad, but are obliged to call it Makha for fear of the bigoted
heretics composing our káfila. Yes,” continued he, in a louder tone, “we
are going the _haj_ to Makha. You see, poor Cásim is no better, though
he has carried out all your directions, and finished all the bottles
of that excellent medicine you were so gracious as to give him. It was
really a most potent medicine, and acted quite like a charm. Cásim was
nearly cured by it, and was fast recovering the use of his arm, when our
messenger returned from Peshawar with your gracious epistle promising to
send that magic chain for him, if I sent him back for it a month later.
I did send him, but he never returned, and poor Cásim rapidly losing
ground, soon became as bad as ever he was before he took your medicine.
God’s will be done. We are all His servants. You did your best for us,
and God prosper you.”
I must here digress a little to inform the reader of the circumstances
of my former acquaintance with our pilgrim friend. Just two years ago,
in the commencement of 1870, Saggid Mahmúd, bearing a recommendatory
letter from the Amir of Kabul, came to me at Peshawar for professional
advice regarding his son. I found the lad was afflicted with tubercular
leprosy and a paralysed arm, and learned on inquiry that his sister and
some cousins also were afflicted with leprosy. Like most natives of
these parts my patients believed, or professed to believe, that I had
only to feel the pulse, administer some physic, and prescribe a regimen,
to ensure a speedy recovery. And great was their disappointment on my
telling the old man that, as far as I was concerned, his son’s disease
was incurable. They had travelled upwards of three hundred miles for a
cure, and it was hard they should return without some sort of attempt
towards the attainment of so desirable an issue. So I took the case in
hand, and treated the lad for some months with little or no benefit.
At length, the hot weather approaching, they returned to their home at
Ghazni, with a large supply of medicine. In the following year Saggid
Mahmúd wrote to me for a fresh supply of medicine and the galvanic
battery I had employed on his son at Peshawar. The medicine I sent him
by his messenger, and promised to get him a galvanic chain if he would
send for it a month or so later. His messenger never came, and the chain
remained with me.
On my leaving Peshawar for the journey before us, I packed the galvanic
chain (it was one of Pulvermacher’s) in one of my boxes, on the chance
of an opportunity offering to forward it to Ghazni. I now informed our
visitors of this, and opening the box, produced the case containing
the chain, and handed it over to Saggid Mahmúd, congratulating him on
the good fortune that had enabled me to present it personally. He was
completely taken aback at finding I had really got the chain for his
son, and taking it in both hands, exclaimed, “This is wonderful! Who
would have believed it? You are all true and just people, and deserve
to be great. It is for such sincerity that God prospers you.” With many
expressions of gratitude and prayers for our safe progress, our visitors
took their leave. Six months later we met this old man again at Shahrúd,
as will be hereafter related.
Barshori is an open village of about eighty houses on the edge of a
dry water-course. Its inhabitants are Mánjhú Jats, and appear to be
comfortably off. There is a good deal of corn cultivation around,
judging from the wide extent of corn-stalks. Water, however, is limited
in quantity, and very inferior in quality. It is derived from a number
of small shafts, upwards of a hundred, sunk in the bed of the drainage
channel above mentioned, and is very turbid and brackish. The road to the
Bolán Pass _viâ_ Bágh and Dádar goes off northwards from this, and that
to the Míloh Pass by Gandáva goes off to the west.
We left Barshori at nine o’clock next morning and proceeded westward
over a wide level plain intersected by a number of dry superficial
water-courses. The general surface is a bare, hard clay similar to
the desert traversed yesterday, but here and there we found traces of
cultivation, and at distant intervals came upon scattered patches of
thin jangal. At about half-way we passed Kikri, a collection of twenty
or thirty huts of Mánjhú Jats some little way to the right of the road;
and at five miles farther on passed through Bashkú, a flourishing village
of about two hundred houses, surrounded by jujube, mimosa, and tamarisk
trees. It stands on the edge of a deep and wide water-course, in the dry
bed of which we noticed a long series of wells. At a mile and a half
further on we came to Sinjarani, and camped; the distance from Barshori,
thirteen miles. Sinjarani is an open village, similar in size and
situation to Bashkú. Both are inhabited by Sinjarani Jats, and in both
we found the house-tops and courts piled with stacks of _júár_ (Sorgham
vulgare), the tall leafy stalks of which furnish an excellent fodder for
cattle. The water here is very turbid, but not brackish. The wells, of
which there are about two hundred in the water-course, are mere narrow
shafts sunk in the clay soil. Water is tapped at about ten cubits, and
oozes up in a thick muddy state in small quantities of a few gallons only
to each well.
We started from Sinjarani at seven A.M. on the 10th January, and at
eight miles came to the village of Odhána, one hundred houses. At about
a mile to the south of it is the Kubíha hamlet, of fifty houses. Both
were attacked and plundered less than a month ago by the Brahoes, at the
instigation of Mulea Muhammad, Ráisání, and Allah Dina, Kurd, who, with
Núruddín, Mingal of Wadd, are in revolt against the Khán of Calát. They
are now deserted except by two or three miserable old men, who came
forward to tell us their pitiful tale. We dismounted at Odhána and went
over its empty and desolate homesteads. The work of plunder had been most
effectively done. The houses were empty, heaps of ruin, and nothing but
bare walls remained standing. The doors and roof timbers had been carried
away, and the corn-bins emptied. Some of these last were left standing in
the courts. They resemble those seen in the Peshawar valley, and consist
of tall wicker frames plastered within and without with a coating of clay
and straw. The top is closed with a movable cover of the same material,
and they are raised above the ground on short pedestals. They are
impervious to rain and the ravages of rats, and are well adapted to the
storing of grain. At the lower edge of the bin is an aperture fitted with
a plug of rags. Through this the daily quantum of grain is withdrawn, as
it is required for the mill. We found all empty. The whole village had
been completely sacked, many of the people had been carried off, and the
rest dispersed after being stripped of everything. The Brahoes did not
even spare the women their mantles, nor the men their trousers, nor did
they allow a single head of cattle to escape them.
At about three miles further on we came to another village of the same
name. It too had been plundered, and was now deserted. Beyond this our
path crossed a bare desert surface on which were the traces of a flood
of waters. The plain itself cut the horizon, and resembled a great
sea glimmering in the vapours of the mirage. As we were crossing this
desolate tract our attention was drawn to a crowd of gigantic figures
moving against the southern horizon. Our companion Pír Ján stopped his
camel and begged us to rein up. He looked very grave, said the appearance
was suspicious, marauding Brahoes were known to be about, and that was
just the direction in which the rebel Mingals might be looked for. He
parleyed a while with his horsemen, then scrutinised the figures, then
he parleyed again, and again scrutinised them, and so on for eight or
ten minutes, himself and his men all the while capping their muskets,
slinging their swords, and tightly securing their turbans in readiness
for attack. Meanwhile the figures kept changing their positions and forms
in the vapoury glare of the mirage. They were in turn pronounced to be
horsemen, then camels at graze, then footmen, and finally cattle at
graze. In this uncertainty Pír Ján directed one of his horsemen to gallop
forward and solve the mystery. He did not, however, seem to see the
advisability of the proposal, and whilst professing ready acquiescence,
merely pranced his horse about within close reach of our party. By this
time the figures emerged from the mirage, and we counted eight horsemen
and two camels, making straight towards us. Pír Ján now sent forward
three of his horsemen at a gallop towards them, and they in turn sent a
like number to confront them. Our three then reined up, and so did the
others, at about five hundred yards apart. Then a single cavalier from
each side advanced, they approached together, stood a few moments, and
then both galloped off to the party who had so alarmed us, and who were
at a stand-still like ourselves. Presently the other two of our horsemen
galloped off to them. “It’s all well,” exclaimed Pír Ján, with a relieved
expression of countenance; “they are not enemies.” A little later our
horsemen rejoined us, with the intimation that the authors of our
diversion were not Mingals, only Magassis, a friendly tribe of Baloch, on
their way to Bágh. So we went on, and the Magassis crossed our track some
hundred yards behind us.
Beyond this desert tract the country is traversed by several irrigation
canals, and presents signs of very considerable cultivation right up
to Gandáva. At this season the whole country is dry, but during the
summer rains it is inundated by the Nárí river, which rises in the hills
about Dadur, and spreads its floods broadcast all over the desert tract
extending from Gandáva to Jacobabad. Most of this water is allowed to run
waste, and from want of care much is lost by evaporation. Under a settled
government there is little doubt that most of this desert tract could
be brought under cultivation, for the soil appears very good, and the
facilities for irrigation during the summer months are at hand. But both
are sadly neglected all over the Kachi _pat_, the designation by which
the great desert tracts of Kach are known.
Gandáva, the capital of Kach, is a decayed-looking town, and its
fortifications are fast crumbling into ruin. It is the winter residence
of the Khán of Calát, whose mansion is situated in the citadel, which
overlooks the town from the north. The town has an extremely sunburnt and
desolate appearance. The summer months here are described as excessively
hot, and unbearable to all but natives of the country. During this season
a poisonous hot wind, called _juloh_, prevails over the plain of Kach,
and destroys travellers exposed to its blast. It proves fatal in a few
hours, by drying up all the moisture of the body, and the skin of those
killed by it appears scorched and fissured, and putrefaction at once
takes place.
We rested here during the heat of the day in the Khán’s garden on the
south of the town, to allow our baggage to pass on. The garden is a
neglected wilderness of all sorts of trees crowded together, but to us
proved a grateful retreat for the shade it afforded. In its centre are
a couple of fine pipal trees (_Ficus religiosa_), and around them we
recognised the mango, jujube, sweet lime, vine, date-palm, apricot,
cordia myxa, banhinia variegata, sizygium jambolanum, and acacia siris.
Proceeding from Gandáva, we left Fatupúr, conspicuous by its lofty domed
tombs, to the left, and passing through a thick jangal of capparis,
salvadora, and acacia, amongst which were scattered small patches of
bright green mustard, came to the Garrú ravine, a wide drainage channel
with a sandy bed, covered with a thick belt of tamarisk trees. Beyond
this, at eight miles from Gandáva and thirty from Sinjarani, we came to
Kotra, and camped at sunset.
This is a collection of four villages close to each other, the residence
of the members of the Iltáfzai family, whose head is the ruling Khán
of Calát. They are surrounded by stately trees and productive gardens,
watered by a brisk stream from a spring at Pír Chhatta. Some of the
houses here appear very neat and comfortable residences. Altogether the
place wears an air of prosperity, and is out-and-out the most picturesque
and flourishing place we have seen since we left Jacobabad. Kotra is
the _entrepôt_ of the trade between Balochistan (Calát and Makrán) and
Shikárpúr.
We arrived at Kotra just as the sun had set, and our baggage was yet
far behind. After selecting a site for our camp, and waiting some time
for its arrival, misgivings crept over us as to our evening meal, for
it was already eight o’clock, and no signs of our baggage being near at
hand were visible, and unpleasant suspicions of having to go supperless
to bed forced themselves on our mind. All length I hinted to our
companion Pír Ján—who, by the way, proved a very inefficient and indolent
cicerone—that, in the event of our servants not coming up in time, he
might be able to get us something to eat from the village before it
became too late. He took the hint, and, after some delay, in the interim
of which our camp arrived, at nearly nine o’clock, his messenger returned
from the village with a bowl of mutton, stewed in its own broth, and some
bannocks, which he said had been sent from Mír Khyr Muhammad’s house,
with that Iltáfzai chiefs compliments, and excuses for not being able to
see us this evening, a pleasure which he hoped to enjoy in the morning.
We forthwith set to work with our fingers on the mutton, and ladled up
the broth with successive spoons formed of shreds of bannock, which went
the same way as their contents, until the fast “setting” grease of the
cooling mess suddenly persuaded us that we had sufficiently taken off the
keen edge of our appetites, and we gladly turned from the coarse bowl and
soiled rag on which it stood. Though grateful for the entertainment, I
must say I was disappointed in this experience of Baloch hospitality. Any
Afghan peasant would have done the honours not only with better grace and
substance, but spontaneously.
Whilst our tents were being pitched in the dim light of approaching
night, a couple of rampant _yábús_, or baggage ponies, not satisfied
with a march of thirty miles, broke away from the rest, and made an
unwarrantable assault on our two Baloch mares—beautiful gazelle-eyed,
gentle creatures—as they quietly stood, with saddles and bridles
unremoved, waiting their turn to be picketed. There was immediately a
grand row; the mares kicking and squealing desperately, and the _yábús_
rearing and roaring as the horses of this country only can. A dozen men
rushed to the rescue from all directions, with shouts, threats, and
imprecations. In two minutes all four bolted out of camp, and tore wildly
out of sight into the jangal.
We got some men from the village to go in search of them during the
night, and our departure was delayed till noon of the next day, pending
their recapture. The animals were brought back none the worse for their
mad career over such rough country as that between Kotra and the adjacent
hills, but their gear was a good deal damaged, and one saddle was lost.
From Kotra we marched to Pír Chhatta, nine miles. The path winds through
a jangal of wild caper, mimosa, and salvadora to the Míloh ravine, on the
bank of which we found a collection of twelve or fourteen booths of the
Kambarání and Syáni Brahoe, who are occupied as camel-drivers between
Calát and Shikárpúr. Their dwellings were mere sheds of tamarisk branches
covering a loose framework supported on slender poles, and altogether
appeared a very inefficient and temporary sort of shelter. I noticed
that the women, though equally exposed to the weather, were much fairer
and comelier than the men. Their dress was as rough and simple as their
dwellings. A long loose shift of coarse cotton, with loose sleeves, was
the only dress of some of the women; one or two of them wore besides a
small sheet or mantle thrown loosely over the head and shoulders. The men
wore capacious cotton trousers, gathered in at the ankle, and over these
a short shirt with wide sleeves; round the head were wound a few folds of
a twisted turban. Grazing about their settlement were a number of pretty
little goats, the smallest I ever saw, hardly twenty inches high.
After following the dry pebbly bed of the ravine for a little way in a
southerly direction, we turned out of it to the right at a conspicuous
dome over the grave of Mír Iltaf, the uncle of the present Mír of
Kotra. By it flows a brisk stream, which, on its way to Kotra, turns
three or four water-mills, the sites of which are marked by clumps of
date-palm, jujube, and pipal trees. From this point we turned towards
the hill range, along which we had been travelling in a parallel course
from Gandáva. They wear a wild, dreary, and inhospitable look, and the
country at their skirt is rugged, and mostly bare of vegetation. At about
four miles from the tomb, crossing two or three ridges of conglomerate
rock, and the little stream winding between and round them _en route_,
we came to the palm grove of Pír Chhatta, and camped on an open turfy
spot amongst the trees, and near the spring-head of the stream above
mentioned. The soil here is a powdery clay, white with efflorescent
salines, and even the turf is stiff with white encrustations of soda
salts. At the spring-head is a hermit’s cell, and close by, suspended on
the boughs of a tree, is a peal of about thirty small bells, which the
_faqír_ rattles every now and then to wake up the mountain echoes.
The spring on issuing from the rock forms a small pool. We found it
absolutely crammed with fish from six to ten inches long. They looked,
I thought, like spotted trout, except that the scales were like those
of the salmon. These fish are held sacred, and most dire consequences
are said to overtake the sacrilegist who should so far forget himself
as to violate the sanctity of the pool of Pír Chhatta by feasting on
its protected fish. We threw a few handfuls of grain into the pool
to propitiate the saint, or his mean representative in the unwashed
and unclad person of the hermit, who seemed no ways pleased at our
unceremonious intrusion on his special domain. The surface of the pool
was instantly a solid mass of fish, struggling for the grain, which
disappeared in a marvellously short space of time. Whilst we thus amused
ourselves, the hermit, probably fearful of our annexing a few of the fish
for dinner, recounted some wonderful instances he knew of the agonised
deaths produced by so rash an act. But he was eclipsed by an attendant
orderly, who gravely assured us that a comrade of his—a trooper of the
Sindh Irregular Horse—had on one occasion, when passing this way, taken
one of these fish, cut it up, cooked, and eaten it. “And what happened?”
angrily asked the hermit. “By the power of God,” he answered, “the wicked
wretch was seized immediately after with the most excruciating pains in
his internals. He rolled on the ground in agony, and repeated _tabas_
and _astaghfirullahs_ (repentances and God forgive me’s) without number,
calling on all the saints and prophets to intercede for him.” “And then
he died!” chimed in the hermit, with a triumphant air. “No,” said the
other; “God is great, and, such is His mercy, he got up and went amongst
the bushes, groaning and moaning with agony. Presently he returned quite
another being, perfectly well and happy, with the fish alive in his hand,
and upbraiding him for his want of faith and veneration, and directing
its restoration to its own element.” “God’s ways are inscrutable,”
said the hermit; adding, with ineffable pride, “our pure prophet heard
his prayers, our blessed saint of this sacred spot interceded for him;
God, the Almighty, accepted his repentance.” Our narrator admitted on
interrogation that he was not an eye-witness of what he had just related,
but he knew several men who were. After this example—and it is one by no
means uncommon amongst Muhammadans in these countries—of audacity and
credulity, we strolled back to our tents speculating upon the mental
organisation of a people who could, without an attempt at question,
accept such absurdities. The blind credulity of the Muhammadan in all
that concerns his prophet and saints, their sayings and their doings,
their precepts and examples, affords an interesting field for inquiry to
the psychologist. Such investigation would, I believe, establish it as a
fact that the obstinate yet passive resistance of Muhammedans to the free
advance of Western civilisation amongst them is owing almost entirely to
the spirit of bigotry created by their religion and cherished by their
literature, for the one is a mere reflection of the other.
There is no habitation at Pír Chhatta, nor are any supplies procurable
here. Our cicerone, Pír Ján, with his usual want of forethought, had
himself made no arrangements for our supplies here, nor had he told us
of the necessity of making any such arrangements, nor, when he found how
matters stood, did he seem inclined in any way to stir himself to remedy
them. So the General summoned him to his presence, and took him sharply
to task for his carelessness. This had the effect of rousing him from
the dull lethargy into which the perpetual repetition of his beads had
thrown him, and he at last stirred himself to see what could be done to
feed our cattle and camp-followers. There was not alternative but to send
back some of our cattle with one of his men to purchase grain, fodder,
&c., at Kotra. The evening was well advanced before they returned. The
night air here was chill and damp, and a west wind setting in at sunset,
reduced the mercury to 59° Fah., which was thirty degrees less than it
stood at during the afternoon in the shade, and forty degrees less than
the temperature of the air at two P.M.