From the Indus to the Tigris

by H. W. Bellew

Beyond Pír Lákha the defile turns sharp to the north, and then bends round to the west and south, where it expands into the little basin of Hassúa. Here we found some small patches of corn cultivation, and a few huts of the Jám Zehrí Brahoe. Here too we met a káfila of sixty camels laden with wool and madder from Calát to Shikárpúr, under charge of Zehrí Brahoe, amongst whom were a couple of African slaves. We also met a small party of Samalári Brahoe driving a few asses and bullocks to Kotra for a supply of grain for their families somewhere in the hills close by. They appeared very poor people, like the rest of the Brahoe we have seen on our journey. What little corn this country produces is bought up at harvest-time by Hindu merchants, and taken down to Kotra, where it is again retailed by them to the peasantry. By this arrangement the tribes are pretty much in the hands of the Hindus, and they in turn of the chiefs.

Beyond Hassúa we passed through a small gap and entered the basin or valley of Narr, and turning off to the left away from the Míloh stream, camped on some open ground at the foot of the hills to the south. There is no village here, though there is a good deal of cultivation in scattered patches. Here and there, too, in the nooks of the hills, we found some small camps of Jám Zehrí Brahoe. They seemed very poor people, possessed of few goats and fewer cattle. Water, fuel, and camel forage are abundant here, but forage for man and horse are unprocurable.

In this march we found no fossils, as in the lower part of the pass; but the hills, though wider apart, are just as bare and inhospitable. The succession of basins or valleys enclosed by them, however, are more thickly wooded with tamarisk.

At Narr, the Míloh Pass may be said to end in a wide basin, from which narrow valleys lead off to the north and to the west. They bring down the drainage from the hills between Khozdár and Calát The main valley runs northward to Zehrí and Nichára, and down it flows the main stream of the Míloh rivulet.

As we entered the Narr basin from Pír Lákha, a solitary tree standing in the midst of a small patch of young corn on the right of the road was pointed out to us as the scene of the assassination of Sherdil Khán in May 1864. He had usurped the government from the present chief, Khudádád Khán of Calát, and was enabled to hold out against him for some time owing to the defection of Sher Khán, the commandant of Khudádád’s regiment of mercenaries, who with his men joined the pretender. After a while Sher Khán, with the proverbial fickleness of these people, became dissatisfied with his new master, and sought to get restored to the favour of the chief he had deserted. As the best means to this end, as well as by way of repairing the injury he had done the rightful chief, he caused the rebel to be shot by one of his men as they were marching to oppose some of the troops sent against them. Sherdil, on being hit, lost control over his horse, and the startled animal, dashing off across country, threw his rider at the tree mentioned, where he presently died in the arms of a fellow-rebel, Sardár Táj Muhammad Khán. Sher Khán with his mercenaries then returned to his allegiance, and joined Khudádád Khán in his retreat at Kach.

Our next stage was thirteen miles to Gorú. We crossed the Narr basin in a southerly direction over a rough pebbly surface, and at about four miles left it by a narrow winding gorge that opens on to a rough and wild tract between the hills. In the gorge are a few pools of water in the bed of a pebbly channel that conveys the drainage of these hills to the Míloh rivulet; it comes down from the southward along the foot of the hills bounding the valley in that direction; our route diverged from it and followed the skirt of the hills bounding it to the north. At about half-way on this march we passed a gaur-band, or “Gabardam,” built across the outlet of a small gully in the side of the hills to our right. It is a very solid and substantial wall of dressed stones, rising from one to two feet above the surface of the ground, and conspicuous from its dark colour contrasting with the lighter hues of the rocks around. Our companions could tell us nothing of its history more than that, like many similar structures in different parts of the country, it belonged to the period when the country was inhabited by pagans. The hills here are very precipitous and wild; their slopes are dotted all over with little black specs, said to be bushes of the juniper, here called hápurs; the lower ridges are covered with a coarse grass that grows in tufts, and is called húwe; it is said to be a very nourishing fodder for cattle.

Our camp at Gorú was pitched on a slaty ridge close to three or four small wells sunk in the gravelly soil. The water is reached at about twelve feet from the surface, and is very good. During the day immense flocks of goats and sheep came to be watered here; they appeared to me to be of a very diminutive breed. They were tended only by a few boys, from which circumstance we concluded there must be some Brahoe camps in the vicinity, though we saw no habitation or sign of cultivation in the whole march from Narr, excepting only a few booths of the wandering Lúrí. These people are a kind of gipsy, and are found in all parts of the country in scattered parties of a few families each. They are a distinct race from the Brahoe and Baloch, and are occupied as musicians, potters, rope makers, mat weavers, pedlars, &c. They own no land, never cultivate the soil, and are looked on as outcasts.

The night air of Gorú proved sharp and chill, and towards daylight a hard frost set in. From this we marched eighteen miles to Khozdár, the route mostly westward. At a short distance from our camping-ground we came upon the cultivation of Gorú, and farther on passed the hamlet of the same name, at the foot of the hills to the left of the road. The huts are now empty, their tenants being camped in the nooks of the surrounding hills with their cattle and flocks, for the facility of pasture and water, neither the one nor the other being at this season procurable at Gorú. There is a very extensive cemetery here, whence the place derives its name (gor = grave). The graves are neatly raised tombs built of loose stones, the resting-places of defunct Zehrí Brahoe, who occupy all the hill country round about. At four miles on from Gorú, the road passes over some rough ground, and drops on to the Khozdár valley, the most open piece of country we have seen since leaving the plain of Kach. It bears a very dreary and wintry aspect, and along its northern borders shows no signs of habitation or cultivation or water. In the opposite direction, however, are seen a collection of villages called Zedi, with their gardens and fields, along the course of the little streams draining the southern part of the valley.

At two or three miles from Khozdár, we were met by Major Harrison, Political Agent at the Court of Calát. He came out with a party of forty troopers of the Sindh Horse, and conducted us to his camp, pitched close to the fort of Khozdár, where he gave us a most hospitable welcome; whilst the General’s arrival was announced and re-echoed amongst the surrounding hills by a salute of eleven guns fired from a couple of old cannon drawn up outside the fort. The canonneers, of whom there were nearly twenty engaged in the operation, were a wild and dirty-looking set of fellows, with long matted hair, and every sort of dress and undress except uniform.

The little fort is a new structure of mud, only recently completed. It holds a garrison of sixty Brahoe militia, and half a company of regular infantry, and is armed with the two guns above mentioned. It is well situated for the purpose it is meant to serve, viz., to protect the caravan routes centring in this valley through Nal from Kej and Panjgúr on the west, through Wadd from Bela and Sonmiáni on the south, through the Míloh Pass from Kotra, Gandáva, and Shikárpúr on the east, and through Bághwána from Súráb and Calát on the north.