Our next stage was fifteen miles to Rodinjo. The morning was bright and sunny, but bitterly cold, with a keen north wind. Our tent awnings were frozen stiff as boards, and could not be struck till near 10 A.M., for fear of the cloth snapping. The morning sun, however, thawed them sufficiently for packing, and by 10.35 A.M. we were fairly started on the march. We followed a well-trodden path over the pasture land of Mall, and at about half-way came to the camping-ground of Damb, where is a small pool of brackish water at the foot of a detached mound.
I struck off the road in company with our mihmandár (conductor and entertainer), Mulla Dost Muhammad, in hopes of getting a hare, of which animals he assured us there were untold numbers in the wormwood scrub covering the plain. We had ridden some distance without seeing a single living creature, or any signs of one except the shell of a tortoise (here called sarkúk), and the shrivelled skin of a hedgehog or jájak, as it is here called. My companion was telling me that the egg of the tortoise was used by the Brahoe, whipped up with water and smeared over the postules, as a remedy to prevent pitting from small-pox; and I was just making a mental note to the effect that an ordinary hen’s egg might be used with equal advantage under similar circumstances, when a hare dashed out across our path. I was holding my gun, a double-barrelled breech-loader by Dougall, resting against the shoulder at the moment, but it was instantly down at the “present,” and fired, but no puss was to be seen. “You have missed,” said the Mulla; “her hour of death (ajal) has not arrived.” “I am not sure of that,” I said; “I heard a squeak, and am going to see;” so saying, I dismounted, and giving him my pony to hold, moved forward to examine the bushes, the while adjusting a fresh cartridge. I had hardly advanced forty or fifty paces, when I instinctively “ducked” to a sudden, sharp, rushing sound, wsheeooh, close over my head, and caught sight of a great bird alight at a bush some forty or so yards ahead. To step aside and fire straight upon him was the work of an instant, and then running up, I found a great black eagle sprawling over the hare, whose stomach was already torn open. Both were secured to my saddle-straps, and the pony, taking fright at these unaccustomed bodies dangling against his flanks, set off at full speed across the plain towards the rest of the party, whom we overtook at Damb. The hare formed a welcome addition to our blaze, and the black eagle (siyáh waccáb) forms the largest specimen amongst the bird-skins I collected on this journey. The stretch of the wings from tip to tip measured very nearly eight feet.
Beyond Damb we halted half-an-hour at a pebbly ravine skirting a low ridge, to let the baggage get on, and then proceeding over an undulating country similar to that already traversed, arrived at Rodinjo at 2.20 P.M., and camped under the lee of the sarae outside the village for shelter from the wind. This is a neat little village of about 180 houses. Many little hill-streams run over the surface, which is widely cultivated. There are some very fine white poplar and willow trees here, and two or three small apricot orchards. The elevation of Rodinjo is 6650 feet above the sea.
23d January.—The cold during the night was severe. At daylight the mercury stood at 14° Fah., and between seven and eight A.M. rose to 22° Fah. Our servants were so numbed and stupefied by it that we could not get them to move till they had had some hours sunning. We got away at 11.10 A.M., and proceeded northwards over an undulating plain bounded on the east and west by low hills. The width of the plain is about six miles, and its surface presents nothing but an unvaried scrub of wormwood growing on a soft, spongy, and gravelly soil. Neither village, nor tree, nor camp, nor, except a few very widely separated little patches, cultivation is to be seen, nor is any water to be found on it.
After marching an hour we came to a ridge of magnesian limestone, at the foot of which a small well is sunk in the rock. Beyond this we entered a narrow gully, winding between high banks of gravel and shingle, and rose up to a gap from which the valley of Calát, and the Mírí or palace, dominating the town at the end of a subsiding ridge of rock, lay before us. The scene was wild and dreary, and all nature seemed withered by the chill of winter.
From the gap we went down a long declivity between low ridges, and passing under the walls of the Mírí, and round the fortifications of the town, crossed the largest rivulet we have seen in the country, and alighted at a house prepared, or, I should properly say, emptied, for our reception, in a garden a mile to the north of the town, our arrival being announced by a salute of eleven guns from the citadel—distance, thirteen miles. A little way down the slope from the gap above mentioned, we were met by an isticbál, or ceremonial reception party, headed by Mír Karam Khán, a handsome youth of some eighteen years, with glossy black curly ringlets hanging over his shoulders. He is a nephew of the Khán’s (sister’s son), and though so young, already looks worn out and enervated by too early and too free an abuse of the pleasures prized by Eastern potentates. He was gaily dressed, and mounted on a powerful and spirited horse, richly caparisoned with silver-mounted trappings. But the whole effect of this grande tenue was marred by his timid seat and awkward clutches every now and again, as the horse pranced, at the high pommel of the saddle, which rose up in front as if it had been purposely put there for the rider to hold on by.
He was attended by Mír Saggid Muhammad, Iltáfzai, a cousin of the Khán’s, and was followed by a party of twenty-five or thirty horsemen—the most ragged and motley troop I ever saw. There was the Persian and the Pathan, the Brahoe and the Baloch, the Sindhí and the Sídí, each clad in his own national costume and armour, but the poorest of its kind, and all mounted on very inferior, weedy, and unkept ponies. They gradually dropped off from us as we passed under the town.
Two hours after our arrival, we donned our uniforms and went to call on the Khán at the Mírí. The cold was withering, and a keen north wind cut us to the very bones. The ground was frozen hard, and snow-wreaths lay under the shade of the walls. Our path led across a brisk rivulet, flowing in a wide pebbly channel—the same we had crossed a while ago; and then past some walled fields to the town itself, which we entered by a gate leading into the main bazaar—a poor and decayed collection of shops ranged on each side of a filthy street. From this we went up a steep and slippery ascent, very narrow, and flanked by high walls. Dismounting at the top, we groped our way through a dark winding passage, strewed with all sorts of filth and litter, and redolent of the nastiest smells, and suddenly arrived at the door of the Khán’s reception room, where we found him standing to receive us.
We shook hands all round, with the usual complimentary phrases, and at once entering the room, were conducted to a row of chairs placed at its upper end. Khudádád Khán, the chief of Calát, and Major-General Pollock occupied the two central seats, and Major Harrison and myself those on either side. On the floor in front of us were spread two dirty old Persian carpets, separated by a space in which was placed a great dish of live charcoal. At the edge of the carpets, to the right and left, sat a number of court officials, and at the further end fronting us stood the Khán’s bodyguard, a dozen of the most unshorn, ragged, and ruffianly set of cut-throats it would be possible to collect anywhere. No two were clad or armed alike, and each looked a greater scoundrel than his neighbour. Where the Khán collected such a unique set of villains I cannot understand. I never saw anything to equal their barbarous attire and rascally looks anywhere.
One more personage remains to complete the picture of the Khán’s court as we found it on this memorable occasion, for I never think of that cold ride without a shiver running through my limbs. Crouched up against the wall to the left of our row of chairs was a portly individual with a jovial fat face and a sleek beard, which would have been white had he but treated it to a little soap and water. He shuffled about under the bundle of clothes—neither clean nor new—that mostly concealed his figure, as from time to time he joined in the conversation as one in authority and in the Khán’s confidence. This was Wazír Walí Muhammad, aged seventy years, the most sensible man in Calát, the Khán’s truest friend, and a stanch ally of the British Government, of which his experience runs through the past and present generation. He was a friend to Masson when he visited this place in 1831, and he was present when the town was taken, eight years later, by the force under General Willshire, the chief, Mihráb Khán, being killed in the defence, with four hundred of his men.