274 VREDENBURG: SKETCH OF BALOCHISTAN DESERT. 



The K6h~u Sultan. 



The K6h-i-Sult£n derives its name from that of the most cele- 

 brated and most respected of all the " Pirs " or saints who form such 

 a curious feature in the religion of the tribes that inhabit Baluchistan. 

 With reference to this " Pir Sultan " or "Pir Kisri," Ferrier, with 

 great justice, says of the Baluchis, that u although acknowledging 

 that Mahomet is a prophet there is another they consider of much 

 greater importance than he, and as second only to God, with whom 

 they sometimes confound him." 1 



Situated as it is in a very inaccessible position in the heart of the 

 desert, this mountain has attracted very little 



Previous observers. ' 



notice from travellers. Its name was mentioned 

 from secondhand, or rather thirdhand, information by Bellew in 1862, 

 and it is evident that his informant was not quite clear about the 

 separate existence of the K6h-i-Sulta*n which he calls Pir Kisri, and 

 the K6h-i-Tafd3n which is called Ch£h-i-Dudi, " the smoking well." 8 

 Some distant views of the mountain are given by MacGregor in 

 his ,( Wanderings through Balochistan," and it has been described by 

 Captain McMahon. 3 



The K6rwi-Sulta*n is an oval-shaped mountain, whose longer axis, 

 Physical and geological striking west-north-west, is about 17 miles, the 

 features. transverse width being about 10 miles. It is 



an extinct volcano consisting of rocks very similar to those of the 

 K6h-i-Tafddn ; but instead of forming one cone the centre of eruption 

 seems to have shifted several times, so that the mountain is really an 

 aggregate of three distinct cones, now greatly denuded, whose centres 

 are disposed along one straight line. As in the case of the K6h-i- 

 Tafdan the earlier eruptions were mostly explosive, the later ones 

 effusive, but the more or less continuous covering of lava-flows, 

 which, no doubt, at one time capped the great accumulations of tuffs, 



1 Caravan Journeys, p. 432. 



2 Journal of a Political Mission to Afghanistan in 1857, by II. W. Bellew (1862), 

 pp. 278-279. 



3 Geogr. Journ., Vol. IX (1897) ; Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, Vol. LIU (1897). 



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