LIFE IN CEKTKAL ASIA. 291 



heat in these defiles is so great during the day, that 

 whenever there is more than half-moon, it is best to 

 travel by her light. Beluchistan is out of the tropics, 

 but at certain seasons of the year it is hotter than 

 any portion of Hindostan. Even in spring, the air 

 seemed full of fire during the day, and in the shade 

 the thermometer stood above 110 degrees. But what 

 made the climate peculiarly trying was this great heat 

 being followed in the evening, early morning, and 

 during the night, by piercing cold winds, which came 

 down from the snowy mountains of Sarewan and 

 Jhalewan. With the deserts of Sind upon one side, 

 and those of .Seistan upon another, with a broad flat 

 sandy line of coast, which soon vitiates the sea-breeze, 

 with snowy mountains in the centre, few rivers and 

 little vegetation, it is not surprising that the climate 

 is, for the most part, of the very worst kind, and that 

 the inhabitants have been able to preserve the inde- 

 pendence of their country from before the days of 

 Alexander until now. 



Yet is it these mountains, with their valleys, which 

 redeem the land from desolation. On these clouds 

 gather, supplying many of the valleys Avith small 

 perennial streams, while, for a season, rivers proceed 

 from the melting snow of the interior. The large 

 valleys are sometimes sixty or a hundred miles broad 

 at their base ; they are quite flat, covered with low 

 jungle, and bounded by mountain-ranges which seem, 

 in the distance, to rise up at once high perpendicular 



