Mark Tapley himself would scarcely have taken a cheerful view of things on landing at Sonmiani. Imagine a howling wilderness of rock and scrub, stretching away to where, on the far horizon, some low hills cut the brazen sky-line. On the beach the so-called town of Sonmiani—a collection of dilapidated mud huts, over which two or three tattered red and yellow banners flutter in the breeze, and beneath which a small and shallow harbour emits a powerful odour of mud, sewage, and rotten fish. Every hut is surmounted by a "badgir," or wind-catcher—a queer-looking contrivance, in shape exactly like a prompter's box, used in the summer heats to cool the interior of the dark, stifling huts. A mob of ragged, wild-looking Baluchis, with long, matted locks and gaudy rags, completes this dreary picture.
Shouts of "Kamoo!" from the crowd brought a tall, good-looking native, clad in white, out of an adjacent hut, who, I was relieved to find, was the interpreter destined to accompany us to Kelát. The camels and escort were, he said, ready for a start on the morrow, if necessary. In the mean time there was a bare but clean Government bungalow at our disposal, and in this we were soon settled. But notwithstanding the comparative comfort of our quarters compared with the filthy native houses around, I determined to get away as soon as possible. The mosquitoes were bad enough, but the flies were far worse. Ceiling, walls, and floor were black with them. One not only ate them with one's food, but they inflicted a nasty, poisonous bite. As for the smells, they were beyond description; but the fact that a dead camel was slowly decomposing in the immediate vicinity of our dwelling may have had something to do with this.
With all these drawbacks, I was glad to find the population, although dirty, decidedly friendly—rather too much so, indeed; for the little whitewashed room was crowded to overflowing the greater part of the day with relays of visitors, who apparently looked upon us as a kind of show got up for their entertainment. Towards sunset a tall, swarthy fellow, about fifty years old, with sharp, restless eyes and a huge hook nose, made his appearance at the doorway; and this was the signal for a general stampede, for my visitor was no other than the head-man of Sonmiani—Chengiz Khan.
Chengiz was attired in a very dirty white garment, loose and flowing to the heels, and a pair of gold-embroidered slippers. A small conical cap of green silk was perched rakishly on the top of his head, from which fell, below the shoulders, a tumbled mass of thick, coarse, black hair. The head-man was unarmed, but his followers, five in number, fairly bristled with daggers and pistols. Like all natives, Chengiz was at first shy and reserved. It was only when I had prevailed upon him to take a cigar that my visitor became more at his ease. Having lit his cheroot, he took a long pull and passed it on to one of his followers, who repeated the performance. When it had gone the round twice it was thrown away; and Chengiz, turning to Kamoo, gravely asked if I wished for anything before he retired for the night.
"You should reach Kelát in twenty-five days," was the answer to my question, "provided the camels keep well and you have no difficulty with the people at Gwarjak; they are not used to Europeans, and may give you some trouble."
One of the men here whispered to his chief.
"Malak is the name of the head-man at Gwarjak," went on Chengiz—"a treacherous, dangerous fellow. Do not have much to do with Malak; he detests Europeans."
Malak was, judging from my experiences that night, not the only Baluchi possessed of this failing. Chengiz having left, I retired to rest, to be suddenly aroused at midnight by a piercing yell, and to find a tall, half-naked fellow, with wild eyes and a face plastered with yellow mud, standing over me, brandishing a heavy club. Though a revolver was at hand, it was useless; for I saw at a glance that I had to deal with a madman. After a severe tussle, Gerôme and I managed to throw out the unwelcome visitor and bar the door, though we saw him for an hour or more prowling backwards and forwards in the moonlight in front of the bungalow, muttering to himself, waving his arms about, and breaking every now and then into peals of loud laughter. The incident now seems trifling enough, though it left a powerful impression upon my mind that night, on the eve of setting out through an unknown country, where the life of a European more or less is of little moment to the wild tribes of the interior. The madman was a dervish, the head-man said, and perfectly harmless as a rule, but liable to fits of rage at sight of a European and unbeliever. I was, therefore, not sorry to hear next morning that this ardent follower of the Prophet had been securely locked up, and would not be released till the morrow, when we were well on the road to Beïla.
There are, I imagine, few countries practically so little known to Europeans as the one we were about to traverse. I had, up to the time of my visit, often wondered that, with India so near, Baluchistán should have been so long allowed to remain the terra incognita it is. My surprise ceased on arrival at Kelát. It is impossible to conceive a more monotonous or uninteresting journey, from a traveller's point of view, than that from the sea to Quetta—a distance (by my route) of nearly five hundred miles, during which I passed (with the exception of Kelát and Beïla) but half a dozen villages worthy of the name, and met, outside the villages in question, a dozen human beings at the most. This is, perhaps, scarcely to be wondered at. The entire population of the country does not exceed 450,000, while its area is estimated at something like 140,000 square miles, of which 60,000 are under Persian rule, and the remaining 80,000 (nominally) under the suzerainty of the Khan of Kelát.
The inhabitants of Baluchistán may be roughly divided into two classes: the Brahuis [A] in the north, and the Baluchis in the south. The former ascribe their origin to the earliest Mohammedan invaders of Persia, and boast of their Arab descent; the latter are supposed by some to have been originally a nation of Tartar mountaineers who settled at a very early period in the southern parts of Asia, where they led a nomad existence for many centuries, governed by their own chiefs and laws, till at length they became incorporated and attained their present footing at Kelát and throughout Northern Baluchistán. Both races differ essentially in language and customs, and are subdivided into an infinitesimal number of smaller tribes under the command or rule of petty chiefs or khans. Although somewhat similar in appearance, the Brahuis are said to be morally and physically superior to their southern neighbours. The Baluch, as I shall now call each, is not a prepossessing type of humanity on first acquaintance, with his swarthy sullen features, dark piercing eyes, and long matted locks. Most I met in the interior looked, a little distance off, like perambulating masses of dirty rags; but all, even the filthiest and most ragged, carried a bright, sharp tulwar. Though rough and uncouth, however, I found the natives, as a rule, hospitable and kindly. It was only in the far interior that any unpleasantness was experienced. This was, perhaps, only natural, seeing that seventy miles of the journey lay through a region as yet unexplored by Europeans, the inhabitants of which were naturally resentful of what they imagined to be intrusion and interference.