In front of the hospital one is rather staggered by finding an actual tennis court laid down according to the most precise rules, and no doubt in course of time we may expect golf links and ping-pong tournaments which will mark further steps towards the Anglicisation of that district. But personally I was more interested in the local bazaar, counting already 150 shops.
The Nushki bazaar is along a wide road kept tidy and clean, and the place boasts of butcher-shops, a washerman, one tailor marked by smallpox and one who is not; ghi merchants with large round casks outside their doors; cloth merchants; blacksmiths and grain shops. In a back street—for, indeed, Nushki boasts already of two streets parallel with the main thoroughfare—under a red flag hoisted over the premises is an eating house—a restaurant for natives. The merchants are mostly Hindoos from Sind.
Jemadar and Levies, Nushki.
A Giant Beluch Recruit. (Chaman.)
The land on which the shops have been built has practically been given free by the Government on condition that, if required back again at a future date, the builder of the house upon the land reclaimed is entitled, as an indemnity, only to the restitution of the wood employed in the construction of the house—the chief item of expense in Nushki constructions.
Cotton goods, blue, red and white, seem to command the greatest sale of any articles in Nushki, after which the local trade consists of wheat, almonds, barley, carpets (from Sistan), wool, kanawes (cloth from Meshed), and cloths imported from England, mostly cheap cottons; camels, dates, etc.
The transit trade of Nushki is, however, very considerable. The Government returns of the trade that passed through Nushki during the year from April, 1900, to April, 1901, showed an aggregate of Rs.1,534,452, against Rs.1,235,411 for the preceding twelve months, while two years before (1898-1899) the returns barely amounted to Rs.728,082. Last year, 1901, the trade returns made a further jump upwards in the nine months from April to the end of December, 1901, the imports amounting to Rs.680,615, and the exports Rs.925,190, or an aggregate of Rs.1,605,805, which is very satisfactory indeed.