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.