BALUCHISTAN 



565 



BALZAC 



in number, are less than an inch long, and are 

 dull white, with irregular, dark-brown blotches. 



The male bird 

 is a handsome 

 creature from 

 to eight 

 inches long, with 

 glossy-black head 

 and upper parts, 

 white- tipped 

 wings and bril- 

 liant orange un- 

 der parts. The 

 female is a little 

 smaller than her 

 mate and paler 

 in color, with the 

 black sometimes 

 replaced by olive- 

 brown or prayish- 

 orange. These 

 birds feed on 



1 caterpillars, THE NEST 



i in kinds of beetles and small flies, and as 

 th y seldom disturb any of the garden fruits 

 they are harmless as well as useful. They are 

 cheerful and playful when placed in cages, 

 and make interesting pets. The Baltimore 

 oriole winters in Central America. Linnaeus, 

 who obtained his first specimen from Maryland, 

 gave the name Baltimore oriole to the bird, as 

 a compliment to Lord Baltimore, proprietor of 

 the colony, because his colors, like the birds, 

 were orange and black. 



BALUCHISTAN, ba lu chi stahn ' , a semi- 

 independent country of Asia, which has so few 

 desirable features to offset its disadvantages 

 m 1911 it had an average population of 

 only six to the square mile 810,850 inhabit- 

 ants to its 134,- 

 638 square miles 

 of territory. 

 From its south- 

 ern boundary, 

 it meets 

 the Arabian Sea 

 in a steep, in- 

 hospitable shore 

 line, to the bor- 

 ders of Afuli.-m- 

 istan on the 

 north, it is rocky, dry and desolate. Mountain 

 (hurts, some of them attaining a height of from 

 10,000 to 12,000 feet, are found everywhere ex- 

 cept in the northwest, where stretch wide plains 

 of mingled stone and sand. Several short rivers 



LOCATION OF BALU- 

 CHISTAN 



start from the north toward the sea, but few 

 of them finish their course, for unless they 

 sink into the sand and disappear they are 

 drawn off for irrigating purposes, for Balu- 

 chistan has very little rain. Some districts 

 average only five inches a year, and even the 

 most primitive agriculture cannot be carried 

 on without some irrigation. Where this can 

 be practiced, grains, cotton, indigo and vari- 

 ous fruits will grow, and the date palm, as in 

 so many dry countries, is a staple product. 



The People, Their Life and History. Two 

 races live in Baluchistan the Baluchis, for 

 whom the state is named, and the Brahnis. 

 The former are Aryans, and related to the 

 peoples t of India and Persia, but of the race 

 connections of the latter nothing has been 

 learned. Scarcely any of the people can be 

 considered more than partly civilized, and the 

 large proportion of the inhabitants who roam 

 the deserts with their goats, sheep and cam- 

 els, are very primitive in their methods of 

 life. (See NOMAD LIFE.) In religion, prac- 

 tically all are Mohammedans. 



Government and History. The history of 

 this barren and uninviting country previous 

 to the time that Europeans began to interest 

 themselves in Southern Asia, is little known. 

 A member of the Persian ruling house estab- 

 lished himself firmly about the middle of the 

 eighteenth century, and made the various 

 tribal chiefs acknowledge the supremacy of 

 the khan, or king, of Khelat. Because this 

 ruler opposed Great Britain during the Afghan 

 War, a force of British soldiers entered the 

 country in 1839; fifteen years later Great 

 Britain acquired a protectorate over the en- 

 tire state, the khan of Khelat receiving each 

 year a subsidy from the British government. 

 From Quetta, their capital city, the British 

 now control much of the country, but the 

 semi-independent wandering tribes still ac- 

 knowledge the somewhat hazy supremacy of 

 the khan who rules from Khelat, the native 

 capital city. 



BALZAC, balzak', HONOR*: DE (1799-1850), 

 the foremost of French novelists, whose 

 Eugenie Grandct is considered by some crit- 

 ics the greatest novel ever written. This is 

 not because it has an absorbingly interesting 

 plot. f<.i tli.- story is a simple one, with no 

 i \i-it inn incidents; nor yet because its pen 

 pictures are beautiful or unusual, for the setting 

 is a dull, bleak old house in a village street; 

 but the character-drawing is masterly. No- 

 where else in literature is there such a study 



