Rawalpindi

“ On the side of India, the Empire enjoyed a twofold security. From the shores of the Indian Ocean in the vicinity of the Runn of Cutch to the 31st parallel of north latitude—a distance of above 600 miles—there extends a desert, from one to two hundred miles across, which effectually shuts off the valley of the Indus from the rest of Hindustan. It is only along the skirts of the mountains, by Lahore, Umritsir, and Loodiana, that the march of armies is possible—by this line alone can the Punjabis threaten Central India, or the inhabitants of Central India attack the Punjab. ”

“ The only way out is east. So the weaker tribes on the Yemen border are constantly pushed out into the bad lands, where farming becomes less and less easy, and farther out still until they become pastoral and finally are forced into the actual desert. There they work about from oasis to oasis perhaps for several generations until they may be strong enough to establish themselves again as agricultural Arabs in Syria or Mesopotamia. This, writes Lawrence, is the natural circulation that keeps Arabia healthy. ”

“ He then turned against the Libyans, and coming upon them unexpectedly in the tract between the Sebennytic branch of the Nile and the Canopic, he defeated in a great battle the seven tribes of the Mashuash, Lubu, Merbasat, Kaikasha, Shai, Hasa, and Bakana, slaughtering them with the utmost fury, and driving them before him across the western branch of the river. "They trembled before him," says the native historian, "as the mountain goats tremble before a bull, who stamps with his foot, strikes with his horns, and makes the mountains shake as he rushes on whoever opposes him." ”

“ The physical and economic geography of the Arabian Peninsula controlled in a, decisive manner the primitive social stages of its inhabitants and produced the Semitic type.
Arabia exhibits a great and contrasting variety of physical conditions, partly favouring a rapid increase of population, partly compelling migration and emigration. The south-western, southern, and central highlands possess a healthy climate, and in many parts a rarefied and bracing air, a fertile soil, yielding to a moderate amount of labour rich harvests of subtropical products. ”

“ That region of Ethiopia which was known to the Romans as the kingdom of Auxuma, was called by the Arabians Al Habesh, of which the modern name of Abyssinia is merely a corruption. Its eastern boundary is the Red Sea, and on the north it adjoins to Nubia; and in its physical geography it bears a great resemblance to the Arabian peninsula. It is described as a country of mountains. Like Arabia, it is characterized by its coast chains ”

“ If to these central highlands, or Nedjed, taking that word in its wider sense, we add the Djowf, the Ta’yif, Djebel ’Aaseer, Yemen, Oman, and Hasa, in short, whatever spots of fertility belong to the outer circles, we shall find that Arabia contains about two-thirds of cultivated, or at least of cultivable, land, with a remaining third of irreclaimable desert, chiefly to the south. In most other directions the great blank spaces often left in maps of this country are quite as frequently indications of non-information as of real non-inhabitation. ”

“ Babylonia lay open also on the side of Arabia. Here, however, the nature of the country is such that population must be always sparse; and the habits of the people are opposed to that political union which can alone make a race really formidable to others. Once only in their history, under the excitement of a religious frenzy, have the Arabs issued forth from the great peninsula on an errand of conquest. In general they are content to vex and harass without seriously alarming their neighbors. ”

“ We have thus far used the term Arabian for all the inhabitants of the peninsula without regard for geographic location. But we must differentiate between the Arabians of the South and the North, the latter including the Najdis of Central Arabia. The geographical division of the land by the trackless desert into northern and southern sections has its counterpart in the peoples who inhabit it. ”

“ Disliking to have at the capital a person so venerable, and of such high rank as Brahma Sahi, he induced that chief to accept the government of Kumau or Almora, the most honourable in the kingdom, and augmented in dignity by the new title of Raja Brahma Sahi, exempt from ambition, and knowing from his character that he was safe from danger, accepted the office as more suited to his great years, than the dangerous intrigues of Kathmandu. ”

“ They will transport the modern reader into a new world—which is yet the old, long vanished world of pastoral simplicity and warlike enthusiasm, in primitive Arabia. But the novelty lies in the plot of the tales. Djaida and Khaled, Antar and Ibla, and the race between Shidoub and the great racers Dahir and Ghabra, bring before our eyes with singular freshness the character of a civilization, a domestic life, a political system, which were not wanting in refinement, purity, and justice. ”

“ The land improves as we ascend. Above the junction of the Khabour with the main stream, the left bank is mostly cultivable. Much of the land is flat and well-wooded, while often there are broad stretches of open ground, well adapted for pasturage. A considerable population seems in ancient times to have peopled the valley, which did not depend wholly or even mainly on its own products, but was enriched by the important traffic which was always passing up and down the great river. ”

“ In the streets of Lahore we meet not only the stalwart Punjaubees, but the hill tribes, that have come out of the fastnesses of the Himalayas; the men of Cabul—Afghans and Beloochees—who have a striking resemblance to the Circassians, who crossed the Mediterranean with us on their pilgrimage to Mecca, the long dresses of coarse, dirty flannel, looking not unlike the sheepskin robes of the wild mountaineers of the Caucasus. ”

“ Afghanistan, the provinces of Hejaz, Asir, Nejd and Hadramout in Arabia, Russian Turkestan, parts of Siberia, Bokhara, the eastern part of the Malay peninsula, Socotra, the Moslem populations of Madagascar, Albania, Bulgaria, Jugoslavia, the Crimea, Georgia, and Russia in Europe, Tripoli in North Africa, the French Sudan, the great Aures Mountains, Saharan Atlas ranges, the central populous mountain region of Morocco, and the vast Sahara itself — fields having in them a total population of nearly 40,000,000. ”

“ In a country bounded by the Red Sea on the one side, and by a wilderness on the other, and presenting but a narrow strip of land for its inhabitants, laws would at once become necessary for mutual protection; and we may suppose that while one portion of the Mizraimites embraced these social restrictions, another, impatient of control, passed beyond the desert barrier on the west, and spreading themselves over the north of Africa, became those nomadic tribes to which the earliest annals give the name of Libyans. ”

“ The Lahul valley, which is a part of British Tibet, has an altitude of 10,000 feet. It prospers under British rule, its population has increased, Hindu merchants have settled in Kylang, the route through Lahul to Central Asia is finding increasing favour with the Panjābi traders, and the Moravian missionaries, by a bolder system of irrigation and the provision of storage for water, have largely increased the quantity of arable land. The Lahulis are chiefly Tibetans, but Hinduism is largely mixed up with Buddhism in the lower villages. ”

“ Its soil is generally rocky and barren; but many of the valleys are fertile, abounding with enchanting scenery and enjoying a delightful climate. More especially is this the case in the neighborhood of the city of Kabul, which is perhaps the Caspatyrus of Herodotus, where Darius built the fleet which descended the Indus.
South of Aria and Gandaria, in the tract between the Great Desert and the Indus valley, the plateau was occupied by four nations—the Thamanseans, the Sarangians, the Sattagydians, and the Arachotians. ”

“ It is certain that over wide districts, now dependent for productive power wholly on the spring rains, and consequently quite incapable of sustaining a settled population, there must have been maintained in Assyrian times some effective water-system, whereby regions that at present with difficulty furnish a few months’ subsistence to the wandering Arab tribes, were enabled to supply to scores of populous cities sufficient food for their consumption. ”

“ The most valuable district which the Raja of Nepal possesses, is that which formed the western division of the principality, founded by Lohangga, although the district called Mahatari has been separated, and annexed to the Subah of Saptari. The Subah of this district resides usually at Makwanpur, on the hills, but, in the cold season, he visits the plains and resides at Baragarhi, from whence he is often called the Baragarhi Subah. His jurisdiction extends from the Rato, on the east, to the Trisul Gangga, and Gandaki, on the west ”

“ The Raputi is a beautiful rapid clear stream, which, having come from the north, turns here to the west, and after having been joined by the Karara some way below, passes till it joins the Gandaki, through a valley, the lower part of which is cultivated, but all near Hethaura is waste, although the plain there would admit of a considerable extent of cultivation, should ever the jealousy of the Nepal government be so far removed as to allow the forests to be cleared. ”

“ The extent of country now governed by the Khalifa is little altered, it is true, from that occupied originally by the Egyptian Government, but with what a difference! Prosperous districts with a teeming population have been reduced to desert wastes. The great plains over which the western Arabs roamed are deserted, and their places taken by wild animals, while the homesteads of the Nile dwellers are now occupied by those nomad tribes who have driven out the rightful owners of the soil, or enslaved them to till the land for the benefit of their new masters. ”

“ The Punjab, which contains an area of above fifty thousand square miles, is mountainous towards the north, where it adjoins on Kashmeer and Thibet, but soon sinks down into a vast plain, with a soil which is chiefly either sand or clay, immensely productive under irrigation, but tending to become jungle or desert if left without human care. Sinde, or the Indus valley below the Punjab, is a region of even greater fertility. ”

“ On the plains, the population consists chiefly of Tharus and Aniwars. The great cast on the hills is the Murmi, and this is also the case on the north of the valley of Nepal. About the forts are some Rajputs, many of the spurious breed of Khas, and a good many Magars.
The inhabitants of this part of the Tariyani, which I had an opportunity of seeing, are quite the same in their circumstances, language, dress, persons, and customs, with the Hindus of the northern part of Behar. The peasantry are extremely nasty, and apparently indigent. ”

“ The vast majority of the population came from the Peninsula and were of pure Arabian blood. The tribes which, with their families, scenting from afar the prey of Persia, kept streaming into Chaldæa from every corner of Arabia, settled chiefly in these two cities. At Kufa, the races from Yemen and the south predominated; at Bussorah, from the north. Rapidly they grew into two great and luxurious capitals, with an Arab population each of from 150,000 to 200,000 souls. ”

“ For a long time I could extract no information from any of them, and it was not till I got to Rashida, and happened to ask the ’omda whether he knew anything about the oasis of Zerzura, that I got any information at all. There is no stopping a native of Dakhla when he gets on that subject, and one begins dimly to realise how very little the East has changed since the days when the “Arabian Nights” were written.
Many of the wealthier natives of the oases, and also, I believe, of the Nile Valley, spend an appreciable portion of their time in hunting for buried treasure. ”

“ Large areas of land thickly encrusted with salt and barren stretches of desert replaced the fertile fields and palm groves in the neighbourhood of Masara and Smint. Owing probably to the sinking of new wells at a lower level in the village of Rashida, the water supply of Mut has for many years been falling off, and now, although the place is the capital town, the district in which it lies is one of the poorest in the whole oasis. ”

“ A native Suwarree, or train of a great personage, in India always forms a picturesque and splendid pageant, but in the present dwindled state of Asiatic pride, none can stand a comparison with that of Runjeet Singh. In addition to all the glittering groups which the king of Oude can bring in support of his dignity, the chief of Lahore displays a martial host of followers, who have added many broad lands to his dominions, and rendered numerous warlike tribes tributary to the state. ”

“ On the west the mountains rise almost precipitously from the Jordan valley, above which they tower to the height of 3000 or 4000 feet. The outline is singularly uniform; and the effect is that of a huge wall guarding Palestine on this side from the wild tribes of the desert. Eastward the tableland slopes gradually, and melts into the sands of Arabia. Here water and wood are scarce; but the soil is still good, and bears the most abundant crops. ”

“ The intelligence of our arrival in the country of the Seiks soon reached Lahore; and a pair of gold armlets, set with diamonds and emeralds, arrived in due course as a gift from the Maharajah to our Mihmandar. The Lahore chief is munificent in his distribution of presents among his nobles, though less so than in former years. Grants of land, and gifts of jewels and money, are yet made. They attest the wealth of the country, and the sound policy of the prince. ”