] 840.] Account of a Journey from Kurrachee to Hinglaj. 151 



the peasant. The vicinity of roads is generally avoided, to es- 

 cape molestation from travellers, and their camps are moved 

 from place to place as water or pasturage fail them. The 

 nearest village to Hinglaj is Oormura, situated on the coast, 

 at a distance of two days march, and said to contain two hun- 

 dred inhabitants, many of whom are fishermen. A few Hindoo 

 shop-keepers reside there. The coins current are the German 

 crown, the Mahmoodee rupee, and the paolee. It is described 

 as having a good bay, but my time did not admit of visiting 

 it. 



On ascending the left bank of the river, after passing 

 The Aghor river, 8 miles, between the peaks in the mountains, which 

 seem as if they had been severed by some convulsion of nature, 

 a full view is obtained of the sand hills. They appear to consist 

 of one irregular range, cut in two by the river extending south- 

 wards to near the sea, and to the north, far into the moun- 

 tains. They are from three to four hundred feet in height, 

 covered from base to summit with numberless small conical- 

 shaped, ribbed peaks, like that of the Chundur Koops, and their 

 surface appears to have been baked to hardness by the sun. To- 

 wards the plain a few are coated with a crust of dark brown 

 colored sandstone, with which at one time the whole range 

 seems to have been covered. A winding path, with several 

 ascents and descents, steep, though short, leads through them. I 

 picked up many pieces of talc, (or Govid nusree and Cherotee 

 as it was called by my companions) in the water courses near 

 them. On the north-eastern side is a plain of a mile in length 

 and half that width, much cut up by ravines. Through this 

 the river flows over a bed of pebbles, its banks fringed with 

 tamarisk and baubul trees ; on its right bank rises the Hingool 

 mountain, conspicuous in the range by its great height and 

 scarped sides. The name given to the stream above the 

 peak in the Hara mountains is the Hingool, and from them 

 to the sea it is called the Aghor. It is always a running stream, 

 is said to have a very long course, and rises on the melting of the 

 snow to the northward, or as it was described to me, without 

 rain falling. After crossing its bed, where the water was about 

 knee deep, the path enters a deep ravine, which leads to a 



