Although The Narrow Alleys Reeked With
Poisonous Smells And Filth And Abomination Of All Kinds, Beila Is Not
Unhealthy - So At Least The Wazir Informed Me.
I doubted the truth of
this assertion, however, for the features of every second person I met
were scarred more or less with small-pox.
My caravan, on leaving Beila, was considerably increased. It now
consisted of twenty-two camels (six of which were laden with water),
five Baluchis, my original escort, and six of the Djam's cavalry. I
could well have dispensed with the latter, but the kindly little Wazir
would not hear of my going without them. An addition also to our party
was a queer creature, half Portuguese, half Malay, picked up by Gerome
in the Beila bazaar, and destined to fulfil the duties of cook. How he
had drifted to Beila I never ascertained, and thought it prudent not
to inquire too much into his antecedents. No one knew anything about
him, and as he talked a language peculiar to himself, no one was ever
likely to; but he was an undeniably good _chef_, and that was the
chief consideration. Gaetan, this strange being informed us, was his
name - speedily transformed by Gerome into the more euphonious and
romantic name of Gaetano!
I took leave of the Prince and my old friend the Wazir with some
misgivings, for the new camel-drivers were Beila men, and frankly
owned that their knowledge of the country lying between Gwarjak and
Noundra (where we were to leave the caravan-track) was derived chiefly
from hearsay.
There are two caravan-roads through Beila. One, formerly much used, is
that over which we had travelled from the coast, and which, on leaving
Beila, leads due north to Quetta _via_ Wadd and Sohrab. An ordinary
caravan by this route occupies at least forty days in transit.
Traffic is now, therefore, usually carried on by means of the safer
trade-routes through British Sindh, whereby the saving of time is
considerable, and chances of robbery much lessened. The second road
(which has branches leading to the coast towns of Gwadar, Pasui, and
Ormara) proceeds due west to Kej, capital of the Mekran province,
near the Persian border. The latter track we were to follow as far as
Noundra, ninety miles distant. I should add that the so-called roads
of Baluchistan are nothing more than narrow, beaten paths, as often as
not entirely obliterated by swamp or brushwood. Beyond Noundra, where
we left the main track to strike northwards for Gwarjak, there was
absolutely nothing to guide us but occasional landmarks by day and the
stars at night.
Barring the intense monotony, the journey was not altogether
unenjoyable. To reach Noundra it took us five days. This may appear
slow work, but quicker progress is next to impossible in a country
where, even on the regular caravan-road, the guides are constantly
losing the track, and two or three hours are often wasted in regaining
it. The first two or three days of the journey lay through swampy
ground, through which the camels made their way with difficulty, for a
cat on the ice in walnut-shells is less awkward than a camel in mud.
Broad deep swamps alternating with tracts of sandy desert, with
nothing to relieve the monotonous landscape but occasional clumps of
"feesh," a stunted palm about three feet in height, and rough cairns
of rock erected by travellers to mark the pathway where it had become
obliterated, sufficiently describes the scenery passed through for the
first three days after leaving Beila. Large stones accurately laid out
in circles of eighteen or twenty feet in diameter were also met with
at intervals of every two miles or so by the side of the track, and
this very often in districts where nothing was visible but a boundless
waste of loose, drifting sand. Our Baluchis could not or would not
explain the _raison d'etre_ of them, though the stones must, in many
instances, have been brought great distances and for a definite
purpose. I could not, however, get any explanation regarding them at
either Kelat or Quetta.
With the exception of the Lakh Pass leading over a chain of hills
about eighteen miles due west of Beila, the road to Noundra was as
flat as a billiard-table. The crossing of the Lakh, however, was not
accomplished without much difficulty and some danger; for the narrow
pathway, leading over rocky, almost perpendicular, cliffs, three to
four hundred feet high, had, in places, almost entirely crumbled away.
The summits of these cliffs present a curious appearance - fifty to
sixty needle-like spires, hardly a couple of feet thick at the top,
which look as if the hand of man and not of nature had placed them in
the symmetrical order in which they stand, white and clear-cut against
the deep-blue sky, slender and fragile as sugar ornaments, and looking
as though a puff of wind would send them toppling over. The ascent
was terribly hard work for the camels, and, as the track is totally
unprotected by guard-rail of any kind, anything but comfortable for
their riders. Towards the summit we met a couple of these beasts laden
with tobacco from Kej, in charge of a wild-looking fellow in rags,
as black as a coal, who eyed us suspiciously, and answered in sulky
monosyllables when asked where he hailed from. His merchandise,
consisting of four small bags, seemed hardly worth the carrying, but
Kej tobacco fetches high prices in Beila. At this point the pathway
had latterly been widened by order of the Djam. Formerly, if two
camels travelling in opposite directions met, their respective owners
drew lots. The animal belonging to the loser was then sacrificed and
pushed over the precipice to clear the way for the other.
In the wet season a foaming torrent dashes through the Valley of Lakh,
but this was, at the time of my visit, a dry bed of rock and shingle.
Indeed, although we were fairly fortunate as regard wells, and I was
never compelled to put the caravan on short allowance, I did not
pass a single stream of running water the whole way from Sonmiani to
Dhaira, twenty miles south of Gwarjak, though we must in that distance
have crossed at least fifteen dry river-beds, varying from twenty to
eighty yards in width.
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