LIFE IN CENTRAL ASIA. 287 



jealousy of strangers, the authorities invariably ob- 

 jected to our sleeping inside ; but they allowed us to 

 lounge about the bazaars during the day, and to have 

 interviews with various parties. Perhaps even this 

 might have been denied, had it not been for some 

 letters of introduction (written in Persian) which we 

 had contrived to obtain from merchants in Sind and 

 from British authorities. These last we applied for 

 just before starting, and had forwarded by a runner, 

 being aware that an Order in Council of the Governor- 

 General forbids all aid and encouragement to (if it 

 did not even actually prohibit) any passage by Euro- 

 peans beyond the western frontier of British India. 



The peculiarities of travelling in Beluchistan cannot 

 well be appreciated without some general idea of the 

 character of the country, and that is not very easily 

 conveyed. A desert country, a mountainous country, 

 a fruitful country, a cold country, and a hot country, 

 are designations which suggest tolerably distinct 

 ideas ; and we shall suppose, in order to give a notion 

 of Beluchistan, large samples of all these countries 

 well shaken together, thrown down at the head of the 

 Arabian Gulf, allowed to settle into a land, covered 

 with snow and ashes, and then broken up again in an 

 irregular way. It is as nearly a primeval country, 

 "without form and void," as it is possible to conceive 

 any country to be. The Beluches themselves account 

 for its present condition by a very characteristic story. 

 Above their country there are stony Khorassan and 



