From the Indus to the Tigris

by H. W. Bellew

Seeing these people scattered widely in their tents, and considering the nature of their country, overrun as it is by interrupted hill ranges affording concealment to the robber, one can easily understand how a dozen horsemen, suddenly dashing out from their shelter in the hills, could surprise one of the small camps, and carry off its women and children before succour could arrive. Formerly these frontier Elyáts used to be regularly hunted by the Afghan and Baloch, and sometimes even the Turkman, their cattle carried off, and themselves sold into slavery. Of late years, however, this miserable species of raid has been put a stop to. But the Elyát of Gháyn very seldom venture beyond the protection of the frontier forts, such as Husenabad. Their wealth principally consists in goats and sheep, the former particularly, and also camels.

Immense flocks of goats are reared on the rich pastures of this elevated region. They are almost all of a black colour, with long coarse hair that hangs in matted tangles. We noticed that most of the goats were shedding a very soft light-brown down that grows at the roots of the hair. It adhered in flocks to the matted tresses of hair, and was easily picked off. Some flocks I gathered were extremely soft and fine and downy, and seemed to have been shed with the outer skin, for dry scales of cuticle were caught in its meshes.

This down is picked off and collected under the name of kurk, and is used in the manufacture of a soft, warm woollen stuff known by that name. This kurk is made up into the cloaks called chogha, jubba, &c., and the finer kinds fetch a high price. The camels and sheep shed a similar down, and the materials manufactured from them are called respectively shuturi pashmína and barrak pashmína. The coarser kinds of all three materials are called pattú, and somewhat resemble baize in texture.

We alighted at the Abi Ghunda Koh for breakfast. Its preparation proved as difficult a task as its discussion afterwards was a disagreeable duty. A steady rain had set in, and squally gusts of wind from the south whirled drifts of its drenching showers upon us with unmitigated persistence, in the poor shelter afforded by the lee of the rocks around. Our Persian servants were, however, quite equal to the occasion, and speedily produced a number of hot dishes from the stores concealed in the recesses of the capacious bags of their packhorses, with more facility than we experienced in their disposal.

The rain had washed the rocks, and brought out their bright colours with unusual distinctness, and the mounds of amygdaloid trap and speckled granite shone out handsomely. For three miles onwards from this pool our route followed the course of a drainage gully, the surface of which sparkled with bright-coloured stones; fragments of green, red, and brown trap, light blue and pink water agates, cellular lava of cream, orange, and chocolate hues, and masses of a striated and starred rock of rust colour, resembling iron ore, with sharp angular fragments of “pepper and salt” trap, strewed the path everywhere.

At the top of the gully we rose suddenly by a narrow path over a great ridge of granite on to a small gap called Gudar Ghanda Koh. It forms the watershed boundary between the Husenabad and Sarbesha plateaux, and is about 6885 feet above the sea, the aneroid on its summit figuring 22·91. The descent on the other side is by a long slope, skirting some low hills to the left down to the great Sarbesha plateau, which we crossed at its southern extremity, and camped at the village from which it takes its name.

In our route over this pass we found a good deal of wild vegetation in the hollows of the hills. The principal plants were the wild almond and tamarisk, dwarf ephedra, camel-thorn, and the ghích, also caroxylon, wild rue, artemisia, orchids, crocus, and other similar plants.

We halted a day at Sarbesha, owing to the inclemency of the weather, and saw enough to prove that its winter must be a rigorous season. Rain fell more or less continuously during our halt here; the air was cold, raw, and cheerless, and wintry blasts of a south wind howled over the wide plateau in dismal tones quite in keeping with the bleak and wild nature of the country. During our stay here two couriers overtook us with posts from Peshawar. They arrived within a few hours of each other, the one with Peshawar dates up to the 26th February from Jacobabad viâ Calát and Kandahar, and the other with dates from the same place up to the 1st March by the direct route of Kurram and Ghazni to Kandahar.

Sarbesha, or “wilderness head,” is an open village of 350 domed huts at the foot of a high detached hill. It is named from its position at the head of a great wilderness or waste, that extends away to the north-west for many miles as an open plateau bounded by bare hills. It is the residence of the zábit or governor of this frontier district, who came to meet us at Husenabad. His name is Saggid Mír Asadullah Beg, and he has the power to cut off noses and ears at discretion, and to mutilate in other forms, but not to deprive of life. He discharged his special duties towards us with no unnecessary grace, and left no more notable memorial of his character than his steady devotion to the calyán, which he kept going throughout the march, lighting and relighting its replenished bowl I am afraid to say how often, but much oftener than could be good for anybody.

The Sarbesha plateau, though yet dreary, bleak, and wild in the transition state from the snows of winter to the balmy airs of spring, is not always the waste it now looks.