LIFE IN CENTRAL ASIA. 289 



rugged, flaming mountains. He may also do well to 

 sympathise with the violent conclusion, quoted from 

 the Koran, " Iblis ! but Allah has said, ' Thou 

 shalt be driven away with stones.' " 



Everything about the country is strange to the 

 European, and requires a peculiar mode of life. For 

 a distance of about sixteen miles from Kurrachee, to 

 the Hubb river, which forms the boundary between 

 Sind and Beluchistan, there is a road marked out, 

 though otherwise it cannot be said to be made ; and 

 close to the river there is, not a gallows, but a stone 

 dui*rlmmsallali, or open building, for travellers, the 

 last sign of civilisation, and warning the traveller 

 that he is about to enter on a region where stone 

 houses are unknown, and where the entire system of 

 law and order, for there is rule of a kind even in 

 the most savage countries, is totally different from 

 any to which he has been accustomed. During the 

 greater part of the year the Hubb consists only of 

 detached pools of stagnant or half-stagnant water, in 

 many of which crocodiles may be found ; and in its 

 bed there are many " sunny spots of greenery," which 

 form a fruitful subject of dispute between the pastoral 

 inhabitants of either side. On the Beluch side, low 

 jungle and grass stretch up for three or four miles to 

 the Hala here called the Pubb mountains which 

 rise up in savage cliffs to about the height of two 

 thousand feet. Not till the traveller passes these can 

 he be said to have fully encountered Beluchistan. 



