Thomas Hungerford Holdich

“ Where the summits of the loftier ranges are not buried beneath snow and ice they are bare, bleak and splintered, and the nakedness of the rock scenery extends down their rugged spurs to the very base of them. ”

“ BALUCHISTAN, a country within the borders of British India which, like Afghanistan, derives its name from its dominant race of inhabitants. It extends from the Gomal river to the Arabian Sea, and from the borders of Persia and Afghanistan to those of the Punjab and Sind. It is divided into two main divisions, British Baluchistan, which is a portion of British India under the chief commissioner, and the foreign territories under the administration or superintendence of the same officer as agent to the governor-general. ”

“ The Bhutias are no sportsmen. They have a superstitious objection to firing a gun, thinking that it offends the deities of the woods and valleys, and brings down rain. A species of horse, which seems indigenous to Bhutan, and is used as a domestic animal, is called tángan, from Tangastan, the general appellation of that assemblage of mountains which constitutes the territory of Bhutan. It is peculiar to this tract, not being found in any of the neighbouring countries of Assam, Nepal, Tibet or Bengal, and unites in an eminent degree the two qualities of strength and beauty. ”

“ A great chain of snowy mountains branching off south-east and north-west divides the drainage of the Chenab and the Jhelum rivers from that of the higher branches of the Indus. It is within spurs from this chain that the valley of Kashmir is enclosed amid hills which rise from 14,000 to 15,000 ft., while the valley itself forms a cup-like basin at an elevation of 5000 to 6000 ft. All beyond that great range is a wide tract of mountainous country, bordering the north-western part of Tibet and embracing Ladakh, Baltistan and Gilgit. ”

“ There are no large industries to attract the population to the towns; these, except Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan, are either expansions of large agricultural villages or bazaars which have grown up round the many cantonments of the province. The great majority of the population are Pathan by race and Mahommedan by religion. The predominant language is Pushtu (q.v.) . The conquered strata of the population speak servile Indian dialects, called Hindki in the north and Jatki in the south, while Gujari is spoken by the large Gujar population in the hills of Hazara and north of Peshawar. ”

“ Sun-baked in summer and frost-riven in winter, the mountain sides are but immense ramps of loose rock débris, only awaiting the yearly melting of the upper snow-fields, or the advent of a casual rainstorm, to be swept downwards in an avalanche of mud and stones into the gorges below. ”

“ To the north are the long sweeping lines of the Sarawan ridges, enclosing narrow fertile valleys, and passing away to the south-west to the edge of the Kharan desert. East and south are the rugged bands of Jalawan, amongst which the Mulla rises, and through which it breaks in a series of magnificent defiles in order to reach the Gandava plain. Routes which converge on Kalat from the south pass for the most part through narrow wooded valleys, enclosed between steep ridges of denuded hills, and, following the general strike of these ridges, they run from valley to valley with easy grades. ”

“ The railway with the passes and plains about it, and the dominant hills which surround Quetta, divide Baluchistan into two distinct parts. North of the railway line, hedged in between Afghanistan and the plains of the Indus, stretch the long ridges of rough but picturesque highlands, which embrace the central ranges of the Suliman system (the prehistoric home of the Pathan highlander) , where vegetation is often alpine, and the climate clear and bracing and subject to no great extremes of temperature. ”

“ The Yashkun-Chitral-Kunar river (it is called by all three names) is the longest affluent of the Kabul, and it is in many respects a more important river than the Kabul. Throughout its length it is closely flanked on its left bank by this main water-divide, which is called Moshabar or Shandur in its northern sections, and owns a great variety of names where it divides Bajour from the Kunar valley. It is this range, crowned by peaks of 22,000 ft. altitude and maintaining an average elevation of some 10,000 ft. ”

“ Some of the valleys about Kalat (Mastang, for instance) are wide and fertile, full of thriving villages and strikingly picturesque; and in spite of the great preponderance of mountain wilderness (a wilderness which is, however, in many parts well adapted for the pasturage of sheep) existing in the Sarawan lowlands almost equally with the Jalawan highlands, it is not difficult to understand the importance which the province of Kalat, anciently called Turan (or Tubaran) , maintained in the eyes of medieval Arab geographers (see Baluchistan) . ”

“ As the Hindu Kush strikes westwards, after first rounding the head of an Oxus tributary (the Ab-i-Panja, which Curzon considers to be the true source of the Oxus) , it closely overlooks the trough of that glacier-fed stream under its northern spurs, its crest at the nearest point being separated from the river by a distance which cannot much exceed 10 m. As the river is here the northern boundary of Afghanistan, and the crest of the Hindu Kush the southern boundary, this distance represents the width of the Afghan kingdom at that point. ”

“ This was undoubtedly one of the greatest trade routes of the medieval days of Arab ascendancy in Sind, and it is to this route that Bela owes a place in history which its modern appearance and dimensions hardly seem to justify. Bela is itself rather prettily situated on a rocky site above the banks of the Purāli. About four miles to the south are the well-kept gardens which surround the tomb of Sir Robert Sandeman; which is probably destined to become a “ziarat,” or place of pilgrimage, of even greater sanctity than that of General Jacob at Jacobabad. ”

“ There is an intervening width of mountainous country, represented chiefly by glaciers and ice-fields, and intersected by narrow sterile valleys, measuring some 100 to 150 m. in width, to the north and north-east, which separates the province of Gilgit from the Chinese frontier beyond the Muztagh and Karakoram. This part of the Kashmir borderland includes Kanjut (or Hunza) and Ladakh. To the north-west, beyond the sources of the Yasin and Ghazar in the Shandur range (the two most westerly tributaries of the Gilgit river) is the deep valley of the Yarkhun or Chitral. ”

“ The nomadic population which seeks pasturage during the summer months in these dreary altitudes is entirely Kirghiz, and we may take it for granted that it will soon be entirely Russian. The non-Russian population during the summer of 1895 could not have amounted to more than a few hundred souls—occupying a few encampments in the Little Pamir and in the Taghdumbash. The total population of the Russian Pamirs has been reckoned at 250 “kibitkas,” or 1500 souls. There is no ethnographical distinction to be traced between the Kirghiz of the Alichur Pamir and the Kirghiz of the Taghdumbash. ”

“ The ever-restless Pathan tribes of the Suliman hills are held in check by the occupation of the Zhob valley; whilst the central Strategic interest.dominant position at Quetta safeguards the peace and security of Kalat, and of the wildest of the Baluch hills occupied by the Marris and Bugtis, no less than it bars the way to an advance upon India by way of Kandahar. Nominally all the provinces and districts of Baluchistan, with the exception of the ceded territory which we call British Baluchistan, are under the khan of Kalat, and all chiefs acknowledge him as their suzerain. ”

“ They are not a homogeneous race. Peoples of Arab extraction intermixed with people of Dravidian and Persian stock are all lumped together under the name of Baluch. The Marri and Bugti tribes, who occupy the most southern buttresses of the Suliman Mountains, are Rind Baluchis, almost certainly of Arab extraction. They came to Sind either with the Arab conquerors or after them, and remained there mixed up with the original Hindu inhabitants. The Arab type of Baluch extends through the whole country at intervals, and includes all the finest and best of Baluch humanity. ”

“ Women no longer are seen toiling in the fields, for their husbands are now at home to do the work, and the long journeys to Gilgit are a thing of the past. When the harvest is ripe the peasant reaps it at his own good time, and not a soldier ever enters the villages.” In consequence of this improvement in their conditions of life and of the influx of wealth into the country brought by visitors, the Kashmiri grows every year in material prosperity and independence of character. The Kashmir women have a reputation for beauty which is not altogether deserved, but the children are always pretty. ”

“ KASHMIR, or Cashmere, a native state of India, including much of the Himalayan mountain system to the north of the Punjab. It has been fabled in song for its beauty (e.g. in Moore’s Lalla Rookh) , and is the chief health resort for Europeans in India, while politically it is important as guarding one of the approaches to India on the north-west frontier. The proper name of the state is Jammu and Kashmir, and it comprises in all an estimated area of 80,900 sq. ”

“ Water is abundant. Fish of all kinds abound off the coast, and are very cheap in the markets. The inhabitants are a mixed race of Arab, Omanite and Persian blood, slender and small in their physical appearance; they possess great activity and intelligence, and are known in all the ports of the Persian Gulf for their commercial and industrial ability.
The sea around the Bahrein islands is shallow, so shallow as to admit only of the approach of native craft, and the harbour is closely shut in by reefs. ”

“ The appearance of the houses is precisely that of Swiss chalets, picturesque and comfortable—the only drawback being a want of chimneys, which the Bhutias do not know how to construct. The people nominally profess the Buddhist religion, but in reality their religious exercises are confined to the propitiation of evil spirits, and the mechanical recital of a few sacred sentences. Around the cottages in the mountains the land is cleared for cultivation, and produces thriving crops of barley, wheat, buckwheat, millet, mustard, chillies, &c. Turnips of excellent quality are extensively grown ”

“ The hill ranges to the east, parting the plains from Sind (generally known locally as the Mor and the Kirthar) , between which lies the long narrow line of the Hab valley, strike nearly north and south, diminishing in height as they approach the sea and allowing of a route skirting the coast between Karachi and Bela. To the west they are broken into an infinity of minor ridges massing themselves in parallel formation with a strike which curves from south to west till they form the coast barrier of Makrān. ”

“ The sultan, a descendant of those Yemenite imams who consolidated Arab power in Zanzibar and on the East African coast, and raised Oman to its position as the most powerful state in Arabia during the first half of the 19th century, resides at Muscat, where his palace directly faces the harbour, not far from the British residency. The little port of Gwadar, on the Makran coast of the Arabian Sea, a station of the Persian Gulf telegraph system, is still a dependency of Oman. ”

“ The great mass of the Chitral population are Kho (speaking Khowar) , and they may be accepted as representing the aboriginal population of the Chitral valley. (See Hindu Kush.) Between Chitral and the Indus the “Dards” of Dardistan are chiefly Yeshkuns and Shins, and it would appear from the proportions in which these people occupy the country that they must have primarily moved up from the valley of the Indus in successive waves of conquest, first the Yeshkuns, and then the Shins. ”

“ Ladakh, however, is improving in its trade prospects apart from Tibet. It is curious that both Ladakh and Tibet import a considerable amount of treasure, for on the borders of western Tibet and within a radius of 100 or 200 m. of Leh there centres a gold-mining industry which apparently only requires scientific development to render it enormously productive. Here the surface soil has been for many centuries washed for gold by bands of Tibetan miners, who never work deeper than 20 to 50 ft., and whose methods of washing are of the crudest description. ”

“ Every house possesses its staircase, its well, and cisterns for irrigation; and on the whole the Aryan Tajiks of this northern section of the Oxus valley seem to be well provided with most of the comforts, if not the luxuries, of life. Their language is the language of Bokhara and Samarkand. Bokharan supremacy was re-established in 1878, when Kala Khum was occupied by Bokharan troops. Since then the right bank of the river has been politically divided from the left, and the latter now belongs to Afghanistan. ”

“ Access to Chitral from the north is therefore but a matter of practicable tracks, or passes, in two or three directions, and the measure of practicability under any given conditions can best be reckoned from Chitral itself. By most authorities the possibility of an advance in force from the north, even under the most favourable conditions, is considered to be exceedingly small; but the tracks and passes of the Hindu Kush are only impracticable so long as they are left as nature has made them. ”

“ A Russian branch railway is said to have been recently built from Samarkand to Termez.
From the south two very remarkable affluents of the Oxus join their streams to the main river between Kolab and the Mazar Badakshan Affluents. crossings. The Kokcha and the Khanabad (or Kunduz) are the two great rivers of Badakshan. The valley of the Kokcha leads directly from the Oxus to Faizabad, the capital of Badakshan, and its head is close above Ishkashim at the southern elbow of the great Oxus bend, a low pass of only 9500 ft. dividing its waters from those of the main river. ”