From the Indus to the Tigris

by H. W. Bellew

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.”