BA-LUBA, a Bantu negroid race with several subdivisions; one of the most important and cultivated peoples of Central Africa. They are distributed over eight degrees of longitude between Lakes Tanganyika, Mweru and Bangweulu in the east, and the Kasai in the west. In the east, where they are found in the greatest racial purity, they founded the states of Katanga, Urua and Uguha; in the west they have intermixed to some extent with the Ba-Kete aborigines, whom they have partially dispossessed, dividing them into two portions, one to the north, the other to the south. To the western Ba-Luba the name Ba-Shilange has been given. With the Ba-Luba are connected the founders of the great Lunda empire—now divided between Belgian Congo and Angola—ruled by a monarch entitled Muata Yanvo (Jamvo). The westward movement of the Ba-Luba took place in comparatively recent times, the end of the 18th century or the beginning of the 19th. Shortly afterwards a chief named Kalamba Mukenge founded a large state. There followed in 1870 a remarkable politico-religious revolution, the result of which was the establishment of a cult of hemp-smoking, connected with a secret society termed Bena Riamba; the members of this abandoned their old fetish worship and adopted a form of communism of which the central idea was the blood-brotherhood of all the members. Towards the east hemp-smoking becomes less common.
The Ba-Luba practise circumcision and scar-tattooing is common; tooth-filing is very frequent in the east, though in the west it is comparatively rare; the fashion of dressing the hair is very varied and often extremely fantastic. Their houses, which are built by the women, are rectangular; on the Lulua, however, pile-houses, square in shape, are found. They are an agricultural people, but work in the fields is relegated to the women and slaves; the men are admirable craftsmen and are renowned for their wood-carving, cloth-weaving and iron-work. In the west, bows and arrows are the chief weapons, in the east spears principally are used. The old form of religion still obtains in the east, which was untouched by the communistic movement mentioned, and charms of all sorts, as well as carved anthropomorphic figures, are extremely common. The Ba-Luba are a fine race physically and seem very prosperous, though in the extreme west considerable deterioration, physical, moral and cultural, has taken place.
BALUCHISTAN, a country within the borders of British India which, like Afghanistan, derives its name from its dominant race of inhabitants. It extends from the Gomal river to the Arabian Sea, and from the borders of Persia and Afghanistan to those of the Punjab and Sind. It is divided into two main divisions, British Baluchistan, which is a portion of British India under the chief commissioner, and the foreign territories under the administration or superintendence of the same officer as agent to the governor-general. The former portion, with an area of 9403 sq. m., consists principally of tracts ceded to the British government by Afghanistan under the treaty of Gandamak (1879), and formally declared to be part of British India in 1887. The second class comprises three subdivisions, namely areas directly administered, native states and tribal areas. The directly-administered districts include areas acquired in various ways. Some portions are held on lease from the khan of Kalat; while others are tribal areas in which it has been decided for various reasons that revenue shall be taken. They include the whole of the Zhob and Chagai political agencies, the eastern portion of the Quetta tahsil and other tracts, among which may be mentioned the Bolan Pass, comprising 36,401 sq. m. in all. The whole of the northern boundary, with the north-eastern corner and the railway which traverses Baluchistan through Quetta up to New Chaman on the Afghan-Baluch frontier, is therefore in one form or other under direct British control. The remainder of the territory (79,382 sq. m.) belongs to the native states of Kalat (including Makran and Kharan) and Las Bela. Tribal areas, in the possession of the Marri and Bugti tribes, cover 7129 sq. m.
Baluchistan as a whole is a sparsely populated tract covering a larger area than any Indian province save Burma, Madras and Bengal. Three hundred miles of its mountain walls facing the Indus are south of the railway from the Indus to Quetta, and about 250 north of it. The railway with the passes and plains about it, and the dominant hills which surround Quetta, divide Baluchistan into two distinct parts. North of the railway line, hedged in between Afghanistan and the plains of the Indus, stretch the long ridges of rough but picturesque highlands, which embrace the central ranges of the Suliman system (the prehistoric home of the Pathan highlander), where vegetation is often alpine, and the climate clear and bracing and subject to no great extremes of temperature. The average breadth of this northern Pathan district is 150 m., but it narrows to less than 100 m. on the line of the Gomal, and expands to more than 200 m. on the line of the railway. Here all the main drainage either runs northwards to the Gomal, passing through the uplands that lie west of the Suliman Range; or it gathers locally in narrow lateral valleys at the back of these mountains and then bursts directly eastwards through the limestone axis of the hills, making for the Indus by the shortest transverse route. South of the railway lies a square block of territory, measuring roughly 300 m. by 300, primarily the home of the Brahui and the Baluch; but within that block are included almost every conceivable phase of climate and representatives of half the great races of Asia. Here, throughout the elevated highlands of the Kalat plateau which are called Jalawan, the drainage gathers into channels which cut deep gorges in the hills, and passes eastwards into the plains of Sind. Beyond and south of the hydrographical area of the Jalawan highlands the rivers and streams of the hills either run in long straight lines to the Arabian Sea, north of Karachi, or, curving gradually westwards, they disappear in the inland swamps which form so prominent a feature in this part of south-west Asia. A narrow width of the coast districts collects its waters for discharge into the Arabian Sea direct. This section includes Makran. Baluchistan thus becomes naturally divided into two districts, north and south, by an intervening space which contains the Sind-Pishin railway. This intervening space comprises the wedge-shaped desert of Kach Gandava (Gandava), which is thrust westwards from the Indus as a deep indentation into the mountains, and, above it, the central uplands which figure on the map as "British Baluchistan"—where lies Quetta. All Baluchistan has now been surveyed. From the great Indus series of triangles bases have been selected at intervals which have supported minor chains of triangulation reaching into the heart of the country. These again have been connected by links of more or less regularity, so that, if the Baluchistan triangulation lacks the rigid accuracy of a "first
class" system, it at least supports good topography on geographical scales.
From Domandi, at the junction of the Gomal and Kundar rivers, Northern. the boundary between Baluchistan and Afghanistan follows the Kundar stream for about 40 m. to the south-west. It then leaves the river and diverges northwards, so as to include a section of the plain country stretching away towards Lake Ab-i-Istada, before returning to the skirts of the hills. After about 100 m. of this divergence it strikes the Kadanai river, turning the northern spurs of the Toba plateau (the base of the Kwaja Amran (Kojak) Range), and winds through the open plains west of the Kojak. Here, however, the boundary does not follow the river. It deserts it for the western edge of the Toba plateau (8000 ft. high at this point), till it nears the little railway station of New Chaman. It then descends to the plains, returns again to the hills 40 m. south of Chaman, and thenceforward is defined by hill ranges southwards to Nushki. The eastern boundary of this northern section of Baluchistan is the "red line" at the foot of the frontier hills, which defines the border of British India. This part of Baluchistan thus presents a buffer system of independent tribes between the British frontier and Afghanistan. But the independence of the Pathan people south of the Gomal is not as the independence of the Pathans (Waziris, Afridis, &c.) who live north of it. It is true that the Indian government interferes as little with the internal jurisdiction of the tribal chiefs amongst the Pathans of the Suliman Range as it does with that of the northern chiefs; but the occupation of a line of posts on the Zhob river, which flanks that range almost from end to end on the west, places the doors of communication with Afghanistan in British hands, and gives command of their hills. It thus tends to the maintenance of peace and order on the southern frontier to a degree that does not exist in the north.
The central range of the Suliman hills is the dominant feature in the geography of northern Baluchistan. The central line or axis of the range lies a little east of the meridian of 70° E., and it is geologically composed of one or more great folds of the Cretaceous series. Towards the northern extremity of the range occur a group of peaks, which together form an oblong block or "massif" amongst the neighbouring ridges known as "Kaisargarh" amongst the Sherani clansmen who occupy it; and as the "Takht-i-Suliman" (Solomon's throne), generally, on the frontier, from the fact of a celebrated shrine of that name existing near its southern abutment. The massif of the Takht is a high tableland (about 8000 ft. above sea-level), bounded on its eastern and western edges by high, rugged and steep parallel ridges. The western ridge culminates on the north in the peak of Kaisargarh (11,300 ft.), and the eastern in a block, or detached headland, on the south, where rests the immortal "zirat" or shrine (11,070 ft.). This tableland is formed by a huge cap of coral limestone, estimated by Griesbach at from 4000 to 5000 ft. in thickness. At each end the tableland is rent by gorges which deepen, amidst stupendous precipices, to the channel of the Draband or "Gat" on the north, and of the Dhana on the south. These two channels carry the rush of mountain streams from the western slopes of the massif right across the axis of the mountains and through the intervening barrier of minor ridges to the plains of the Indus. The plateau is covered with a fairly thick growth of the chilghosa or "edible" pine, and a sprinkling of juniper, on the higher slopes. It was ascended and surveyed for the first time in 1883.
From the summit of the Kaisargarh peak a magnificent view is obtained which practically embraces the whole width of northern Baluchistan. Westwards, looking towards Afghanistan, line upon line of broken jagged ridges and ranges, folds in the Cretaceous series overlaid by coarse sandstones and shales, follow each other in order, preserving their approximate parallelism until they touch the borders of Baluchistan. Immediately on the west of the Kaisargarh there towers the Shingarh Mountain, a geological repetition of the Kaisargarh ridge, black with pines towards the summit and crowned with crags of coral limestone. Beyond it are the grey outlines of the close-packed ridges which enclose the lower reaches of the Zhob and the Kundar. As they pass away southwards this grid-iron formation strikes with a gentle curve westwards, the narrow enclosed valleys widening out towards the sources of the rivers, where ages of denudation have worn down the folds and filled up the hollows with fruitful soil, until at last they touch the central water-divide, the key of the whole system, on the Quetta plateau. Thus the upper parts of the Zhob valley are comparatively open and fertile, with flourishing villages, and a cultivation which has been greatly developed under British rule, and are bounded by long, sweeping, gentle spurs clothed with wild olive woods containing trees of immense size. The lower reaches of the Zhob and Kundar are hemmed in by rugged limestone walls, serrated and banded with deep clefts and gorges, a wilderness of stony desolation. Looking eastwards from the Kaisargarh, one can again count the backs of innumerable minor ridges, smaller wrinkles or folds formed during a process of upheaval of the Suliman Mountains, at the close of a great volcanic epoch which has hardly yet ceased to give evidence of its existence. On the outside edge, facing the Indus plains, is a more strictly regular, but higher and more rugged, ridge of hills which marks the Siwaliks. The Baluch Siwaliks afford us strange glimpses into a recent geological past, when the same gigantic mammals roamed along the foot of these wild hills as once inhabited the tangled forests below the Himalaya. Between the Takht Mountain and the Siwaliks, the intervening belt of ridge and furrow has been greatly denuded by transverse drainage—a system of drainage which we now know to have existed before the formation of the hills, and to have continued to cut through them as they gradually rose above the plain level. Where this intervening band is not covered by recent gravel deposits, it exhibits beds of limestone, clays and sandstone with fossils, which, in age, range from the Lower Eocene to the Miocene. Beyond the Siwaliks, still looking eastwards, are the sand waves of the Indus plain; a yellow sea broken here and there with the shadow of village orchards and the sheen of cultivation, extending to the long black sinuous line which denotes the fringe of trees bordering the Indus. Such is the scene which Solomon is said to have invited his Indian bride to gaze upon for the last time, as they rested on the crags of the southern buttress of the Takht—where his shrine exists to this day. To that shrine thousands of pilgrims, Mahommedans and Hindus alike, resort on their yearly pilgrimages, in spite of its dangerous approach. All this country, so far, is independent Baluchistan within the jurisdiction of the Baluchistan Agency, with the exception of certain clans of the Sheranis on the eastern slopes of the Takht-i-Suliman, north of the Vihowa, who are under the North-West Frontier Province administration. Wedged in between the railway and the Indus, but still north of the railway, is a curious mass of rough mountain country, which forms the southern abutment of the Suliman system. The strike of the main ridges forming that system is almost due north and south till it touches 30° N. lat. Here it assumes a westerly curve, till it points north-west, and finally merges into the broad band of mountains which hedge in the Quetta and Pishin uplands on the north and east.
At this point, as might be expected, are some of the grandest peaks and precipices in Baluchistan. Khalifat on the east of Quetta, flanking the Harnai loop of the Sind-Pishin railway; Takatu to the north; Chahiltan (Chiltan) on the south-west; and the great square-headed Murdar to the south—all overlook the pretty cantonment from heights which range from 10,500 to 11,500 ft. Lying in the midst of them, on an open plain formed by the high-level tributaries of the Lora (which have also raised the Pishin valley to the north), 5500 ft. above the sea, is Quetta. The mass of twisted flexures, the curved wrinkles that end the Suliman system, is occupied by true Baluchis, the Marri and Bugti sections of the great Rind confederation of tribes owning an Arabic origin. There are no Pathans here. To the north of them are the Bozdars, another Rind clan; and these Rind tribes form the exception to the general rule of Pathan occupation of northern Baluchistan. Amongst the Pathans, the Kakars and Dumars of Pishin, with the Mando Khel of Zhob, are the most prominent tribal divisions.
The curved recession of the Suliman Ranges to the north-west Central. leaves a space of flat alluvial desert to the south, which forms a sort of inlet or bay striking into the Baluchistan mountain system. The point of this desert inlet receives the drainage of two local basins, the Bolan and the Nari. Both drain south-eastwards from the central Quetta-Pishin plateau and both have served for railway alignment. Being fed by tributaries which for the most part drain narrow valleys where gradual denudation has washed bare the flat-backed slopes of limestone ridges, and which consequently send down torrents of rapidly accumulating rainfall, both these central lines of water-course are liable to terrific floods. The drainage of the Bolan and Nari finally disappears in the irrigated flats of the alluvial bay (Kach Gandava), which extends 130 m. from the Indus to Sibi at the foot of the hills, and which offers (in spite of periodic Indus floods) an opportunity for railway approach to Baluchistan such as occurs nowhere else on the frontier. Kach Gandava, whilst its agricultural development has in no way receded, is now rivalled by many of the valleys of the highlands. Its climate debars it from European occupation. It is a land of dust-storms and poisonous winds; a land where the thermometer never sinks below 100° F. in summer, and drops below freezing-point in winter; where there is a deadly monotony of dust-coloured scenery for the greater part of the year, with the minimum of rain and the maximum of heat. The Quetta and Pishin plateau to which it leads is the central dominant water-divide of Baluchistan and the base of the Kandahar highway.