From the Indus to the Tigris

by H. W. Bellew

In summer Mastung must be a delightful residence, both in respect of climate and scenery. The winter is cold and bleak, but mild in comparison with its rigorous severity at Calát. Its elevation is about 5600 feet above the sea, and it is partially sheltered from the north wind by the hills bounding it in that direction. Its climate is described as very salubrious, and certainly the healthy looks of its inhabitants support the truth of the assertion.

Its scenery is very fine in itself, but, compared with the dreary wastes and rugged wilds of the country to the southward, is quite charming, by reason of its profuse vegetation and crowded population. The precipitous heights of Chihltan towering above the valley to the north constitute the grand feature of the scenery, and at this season, shrouded as the mountain is in a thick mantle of snow, present a magnificent spectacle by reason of their massive grandeur and overpowering proximity. Chihltan is the highest and best-wooded mountain in this country, but it is very steep and rugged, the trees being scattered in small clumps on favouring ledges and in deep recesses. The arbor vitæ, pistacia kabulica, mountain ash, wild fig, and mulberry are the principal trees found on the mountain. It is said to abound in snakes and pythons, also wild goat and wild sheep. The wolf, leopard, and hyena are also found in it, but not the bear.

Towards sunset the sky became overcast with clouds, and thick mists obscured the mountains from our view.

28th January.—We set out from Mastung at 7.15 A.M., whilst the signal gun in the citadel was slowly doling out a salute of eleven guns. The morning air was cold, dull, and misty, and presaged ill for the day. We no sooner cleared the gardens around the town, than we entered on a bare sandy tract of some miles in extent, in the midst of which, like an oasis in the desert, stands the little hamlet of Isá Khán. Away to the left were seen the villages and gardens of Fírí, and to the right those of Pringábád. Our route across the sandy waste was most trying. A blighting north wind swept down from the hills straight against us, and drove clouds of sand with blinding force before it. Our escort dwindled down to three or four horsemen who kept up with us, and they were so completely muffled up that it was impossible to get them to hear a word we said, and utterly hopeless to draw them into conversation. Beyond this sandy waste we entered on a rough ravine-cut gulf in the hills, and crossing the Mobí rivulet a little below the Khushrúd hamlet—the last of the Mastung villages in this direction—rose out of its deep ravine on to a sloping hill skirt, white with wavy wreaths of fresh snow, now frozen hard by the cold wind. Ascending thus along the base of Chihltan, we arrived at the entrance to the Nishpá or Dishpa Pass in three hours and a quarter—distance, thirteen miles. Here we halted under the bank of a rocky water-course to allow the baggage to come up, and to breakfast off such cold commodities as our cook had provided for us.

The view of the valley left behind us was completely obscured by dense clouds of sand driving across the plain, but immediately above us was a scene sufficient to rivet the attention with awe-inspiring sentiments. The beetling cliffs of Chihltan, here and there reft of their cumbrous loads of snow through sheer weight of its mass, rose above us in imposing magnitude, and, domineering over the lesser hills around, formed a picture such as is seldom equalled.

A little to the right of the Nishpá Pass is the Toghaghi hill, over the ridge of which is a lak or pass that conducts direct to the Dashtí Bedaulat plain. It is very difficult for laden camels, and is mostly used by footmen only. The Nishpá Pass, between Chihltan and Zindan mountains, is four miles long up to its crest, to which it winds by a very steady ascent. Though now covered with snow, we could here and there trace the road made through the pass in 1839 by the engineers of the British army. The pass is an easy one.

We reached the crest of the pass in a driving storm of hail and sleet, and by the aneroid estimated its elevation at about 6000 feet. The descent from the crest turns to the right down to the Dashtí Bedaulat, leaving a forest of pistacia trees in a glen away to the left. The forest is called Hazár Ganjí, from the number of trees—gwan in Brahoeki, and khinjak in Pushto, being the colloquial names of the pistacia kabulica.

The Dashtí Bedaulat is a singular hill-girt plain, perfectly level, and perfectly bare. It is, as the name implies, an unproductive waste, and this from the entire absence of water. It lies at the top of the Bolán Pass, the road from which skirts its border opposite to our position. From the Dashtí our road turned northward again, and led down a rough and stony defile to Sariáb in the valley of Shál. To the left the land is covered with a forest of gwan trees, and rises rapidly to the foot of the Chihltan range, and close on our right is the Koh Landi ridge, which separates us from the caravan road from Sariáb to Saribolán. In front of us is the plain of Shál. It lies at a considerably lower level, and wears a very bleak and wintry look, with its leafless gardens and bare fields, girt around by a mountain barrier topped with snow. At the edge of the Sariáb lands we were met by the Náib Abdul Latíf and a party of fifteen or sixteen horsemen—a most ragged and ruffianly set of rascals. We did not stop for the usual ceremony of compliments, as a shower of hail was, at the moment of our meeting, driving hard pellets with painful violence against our faces, but hurried on to the quarters prepared for us in a small fortified hamlet near the Lora rivulet. We arrived there at 2.45 P.M., after a very trying march of twenty-nine miles, and found the huts so filthy and close that we had our tents pitched in the court of the fort as soon as the baggage came up.