From Pole to Pole

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A BALUCHI RAID

We were glad to leave a country where the plague had taken up its abode
and to hasten away to the desert tracts of Baluchistan, which still
separated us from India. My old servants had taken their departure, and
a new retinue, all Baluchis, accompanied me.

We rode _jambas_, or swift-footed dromedaries, which for generations
have been trained for speed. Their legs are long and thin, but strong,
with large foot pads which strike the hard ground with a heavy tapping
sound as they run. They carry their heads high and move more quickly
than the majestic caravan camels; but when they run they lower their
heads below the level of the hump and keep it always horizontal.

Two men ride on each _jambas_, and therefore the saddle has two hollows
and two pairs of stirrups. A peg is thrust through the cartilage of the
nose and to its ends a thin cord is attached. By pulling this to one
side or the other the dromedary may be turned in any direction. My
courser had a swinging gait but did not jolt; and I sat comfortably and
firmly in the saddle as we left mile after mile behind.

It is not more than thirty or forty years ago since the Baluchis used to
make raids into Persian territory, and although much better order is
maintained now that the country is under British administration, an
escort is still necessary--I had six men mounted on dromedaries and
armed with modern rifles. This is how a raid is conducted.

One evening Shah Sevar, or the "Riding King," the warlike chieftain of a
tribe in western Baluchistan, sits smoking a pipe by the camp fire in
front of his black tent, which is supported by tamarisk boughs (Plate
VII.). The tale-teller has just finished a story, when two white-clad
men with white turbans on their heads emerge from the darkness of the
night. They tie up their dromedaries, humbly salute Shah Sevar, who
invites them to sit down and help themselves to tea from an iron pot.
Other men come up to the fire. All carry long guns, spears, swords, and
daggers. Some lead two or three dromedaries each.

Fourteen men are now gathered round the fire. There is a marked silence
in the assembly, and Shah Sevar looks serious. At length he asks, "Is
everything ready?"

"Yes," is the reply from all sides.

"Are the powder and shot horns filled?"

"Yes."

"And the provisions packed in their bags?"

"Yes--dates, sour cheese, and bread for eight days."

"I told you the day before yesterday that this time we shall strike at
Bam. Bam is a populous town. If we are discovered too early the fight
may be hot. We must steal through the desert like jackals. The distance
is three hundred miles, four days' journey."

Again Shah Sevar stares into the fire for a while and then asks, "Are
the _jambas_ in good condition?"

"Yes."

"And ten spare dromedaries for the booty?"

"Yes."

[Illustration: PLATE VII. A BALUCHI NOMAD TENT.]

Then he rises and all the others follow his example. Their wild, bold
faces glow coppery-red in the light of the fire. They consider petty
thieving a base occupation, but raiding and pillaging an honourable
sport, and boast of the number of slaves they have captured in their
day.

"Mount," commands the chieftain in a subdued voice. Muskets are thrown
over the shoulder and rattle against the hanging powder-horn and the
leather bag for bullets, flint, steel, and tinder. Daggers are thrust
into belts, and the men mount without examining the saddle-girths and
bridles, for all has been carefully made ready beforehand. The spear is
secured in front of the saddle. "In the name of Allah," calls out Shah
Sevar, and the party rides off through the night at a steady pace.

The path they follow is well known and the stars serve as guides. Day
breaks, the sun rises, and the shadows of the dromedaries point towards
Bam over the hard yellow sand where not a shrub grows. Not a word has
been spoken during the night, but when the first seventy miles have been
traversed the chief says, "We will rest a while at the Spring of White
Water." On arriving at the spring they refill their water-skins and let
the dromedaries drink. Then they go up into the neighbouring hills and
wait till the hot hours of the day are over. They never encamp at the
springs, for there they are likely to meet with other people.

At dusk they are in the saddle again. They ride harder than during the
first night and travel till they come to a salt spring. The third night
the dromedaries begin to breathe more heavily, and when the sun rises
flecks of white froth hang from their trembling lips. They are not tired
but only a little winded, and they press on through clouds of dust
without their riders having to urge them.

Now the party leaves behind it the last desert path, which is only once
in a while used by a caravan, and beyond it is a perfect wilderness of
hardened salt-impregnated mud. Nothing living can be seen, not even a
stray raven or vulture which might warn the people in Bam of their
danger. Without rest the robber band pushes on all day, as silent as the
desert, the only sounds being the long-drawn breathing of the
dromedaries and the rasping sound of their foot-pads on the ground. When
the reflection of the evening sky lies in purple shades over the desert,
they have only ten or twelve miles more to go.

Shah Sevar pulls up his dromedary and orders a halt in muffled tones,
as though he feared that his voice might be heard in Bam. With a hissing
noise the riders make their animals kneel and lie down, and then they
spring out of the saddle, and tie the end of the cord round the
dromedaries' forelegs to prevent the animals from getting up and making
a noise and thus spoiling the plan. All are tired out and stretch
themselves on the ground. Some sleep, others are kept awake by
excitement, while four riders go scouting in different directions. Bam
itself cannot be seen, but the hill is visible at the foot of which the
town stands. The men long for night and the cover of darkness.

The day has been calm and hot, but now the evening is cool and the
shadows dense. A faint breeze comes from the north, and Shah Sevar
smiles. If the wind were from the east, he would be obliged to make a
detour in order not to rouse the dogs of the town. It is now nine
o'clock and in an hour the people of Bam will be asleep. The men have
finished their meal, and have wrapped up the remainder of the dates,
cheese, and bread in their bundles and tied them upon the dromedaries.

"Shall we empty the waterskins so as to make the loads lighter for the
attack?" asks a Baluchi.

"No," answers Shah Sevar; "keep all the water that is left, for we may
not be able to fill the skins in the town before our retreat."

"It is time," he says; "have your weapons ready." They mount again and
ride slowly towards the town.

"As soon as anything suspicious occurs I shall quicken my pace and you
must follow. You three with the baggage camels keep in the rear."

The robbers gaze in front like eagles on their prey, and the outlines of
the hill gradually rise higher above the western horizon. Now only three
miles remain, and their sight, sharpened by an outdoor life,
distinguishes the gardens of Bam. They draw near. The bark of a dog is
heard, another joins in--all the dogs of the town are barking; they have
winded the dromedaries.

"Come on," shouts the chief. With encouraging cries the dromedaries are
urged forward; their heads almost touch the ground; they race along
while froth and dust fly about them. The dogs bark furiously and some of
them have already come out to meet the dromedaries. Now the wild chase
reaches the entrance to the town. Cries of despair are heard as the
inhabitants are wakened; and women and wailing children escape towards
the hill. The time is too short for any organised defence. There is no
one to take the command. The unfortunate inhabitants run over one
another like scared chickens and the riders are upon them. Shah Sevar
sits erect on his dromedary and leads the assault. Some jump down and
seize three men, twelve women, and six children, who are hastily bound
and put in charge of two Baluchis, while others quickly search some
houses close at hand. They come out again with two youths who have made
a useless resistance, a couple of sacks of grain, some household goods,
and all the silver they could find.

"How many slaves?" roars Shah Sevar.

"Twenty-three," is answered from several directions.

"That is enough; pack up." The slaves and the stolen goods are bound
fast on dromedaries. "Quick, quick," shouts the chief. "Back the way we
came." In the hurry and confusion some of the animals get entangled in
one another's ropes. "Back! Back!" The chieftain's practised eye has
detected a party of armed men coming up. Three shots are heard in the
darkness, and Shah Sevar falls backwards out of the saddle, while his
dromedary starts and flies off into the desert. The rider's left foot is
caught fast in the stirrup and his head drags in the dust. A bullet has
entered his forehead, but the blood is staunched by the dust of the
road. His foot slips out of the stirrup, and the "Riding King" lies dead
as a stone outside Bam.

Another robber is severely wounded and is cut to pieces by the townsmen.
Bam has waked up. The entangled dromedaries with their burdens of slaves
and goods are captured, but the rest of the party, twelve riders with
ten baggage camels, have vanished in the darkness, pursued by some
infuriated dogs. Sixteen of the inhabitants of the town are missing. The
whole thing has taken place in half an hour. Bam sleeps no more this
night.

Now the dromedaries are urged on to the uttermost; they have double
loads to carry, but they travel as quickly as they came. The kidnapped
children cease to cry, and fall asleep with weariness and the violent
swaying motion. The party rides all night and all the next day without
stopping, and the robbers often look round to see if they are pursued.
They rest for the first time at the salt spring, posting a look-out on
an adjacent mound. They eat and drink without losing a minute, and get
ready for the rest of the ride. The captives are paralysed with fright;
the young women are half choked with weeping, and a little lad in a
tattered shirt goes about crying vainly for his mother. The eyes of the
captives are blindfolded with white bandages that they may not notice
the way they are travelling and try later to escape back to Bam. Then
the headlong ride is resumed, and after eight days the troop of riders
is back at home with their booty, but without their chief.

Innumerable raids of this kind have scourged eastern Persia, and in the
same way Turkomans have devastated Khorasan in the north-east. On the
eastern frontier it is the Kurds who are the robbers. In this disturbed
frontier region there is not a town without its small primitive mud fort
or outlook tower.

SCORPIONS

On running dromedaries we now ride on eastwards through northern
Baluchistan. Dry, burnt-up desert tracts, scantily clothed with
thistles and shrubs, moving dunes of fine yellow sand, low hill ridges
disintegrated by alternate heat and cold--such is the country where a
few nomads wander about with their flocks, and the stranger often
wonders how the animals find a living. In certain valleys, however,
there is pasture and also water, and sometimes belts of thriving
tamarisks are passed, and bushes of saxaul with green leafy branches,
hard wood, and roots which penetrate down to the moisture beneath the
surface.

The great caravan road we are following is, however, exceedingly
desolate. Only at the stations is water to be found, and even that is
brackish; but the worst trial is the heat, which now, at the end of
April, becomes more oppressive every day. The temperature rises nearly
up to 105-1/2 deg. in the shade, and to ride full in the face of the
sun is like thrusting one's head into a blazing furnace. When there is
a wind we are all right, and the sand whirls like yellow ghosts over
the heated ground. But when the air is calm the outlines of the hills
seem to quiver in the heat, and the barrel of a gun which has been out
in the sun blisters the hands on being touched. In the height of the
summer the Baluchis wrap strips of felt round their stirrup-irons to
protect the dromedaries from burns on the flanks.

This region is one of the hottest in the world. The sun stands so high
at mid-day that the shadows of the dromedaries disappear beneath them.
You long for sunset, when the shadows lengthen out and the worst of the
heat is over. It is not really cool even at night, when, moreover, you
are plagued with whole swarms of gnats.

Baluchistan and Persia abound with scorpions, which are indeed to be
found in all the hot regions of the five continents. About two hundred
species have been distinguished. Some are quite small, others six inches
long. Some are dark-brown, others reddish, and others again
straw-yellow, as in Baluchistan. The body consists of a head and thorax
without joints, and a hinder part of seven articulated rings, besides
six tail rings. The last ring, the thirteenth, contains two poison
glands and is furnished with a sting as fine as a needle. The poison is
a fluid clear as water.

Scorpions live in rotten tree-trunks, under stones, on walls, and as
they like warmth they often enter houses and huts, and creep into
clothes and beds.

The scorpion leaves his dark den at night and sets out on the hunt. He
holds his tail turned up over his back, in order to keep his sting from
injury and to be ready at once for attack or defence. When he meets with
a desirable victim, such as a large spider, he darts quickly forward,
seizes it with his claws, which are like those of crabs, raises it above
his head in order to examine it with his eyes, which are turned upwards,
and gives it the death-stroke with his sting. Then he sucks up the
softer parts and grinds the harder between his jaws.

The young ones, which are active as soon as they are born, are like the
old ones from the first day, but are light-coloured and soft. They crawl
about their mother's back and legs and do not leave her body for some
time. When that happens the mother dies, having meanwhile wasted away.

The sting of large scorpions is dangerous even to human beings. Cases
have been known of a man dying in great agony twelve hours after being
stung. Others get cramp, fever, and pains before they begin to recover.
A man who has often been stung becomes at last insensible to the poison.

Many a time I have found scorpions in Asiatic huts, in my tent, on my
bed, and under my boxes, but I have never been stung by one. On the
other hand, it has been the fate of many of my servants, and they told
me that it was difficult to find out where the scorpion had stung them,
for their bodies sweated and burned equally intensely all over. In
Eastern Turkestan it is the practice to catch the scorpion which has
stung a man and crush him into a paste, which is laid over the puncture
made by the sting. But whether this is a real cure I do not know.

THE INDUS

After travelling 1500 miles on camels and dromedaries, the whistle of an
engine sounds like the sweetest music to the ear. At Nushki (see map, p.
132), the furthermost station of the Indian railway, I took leave of my
Baluchi servants, stepped into a train, and was carried past the
garrison town of Quetta south-eastwards to the Indus. Here we find that
one branch of the railway follows the river closely on its western bank
to Karachi, one of the principal seaports of British India. Our train,
however, carries us northwards along the eastern bank to Rawalpindi, an
important military station near the borders of Kashmir.

[Illustration: MAP OF NORTHERN INDIA, SHOWING RIVERS AND MOUNTAIN RANGES.]

In the large roomy compartment it is as warm as it was lately in
Baluchistan, or nearly 107 deg. To shade the railway carriages from the
burning sun overhead, they are provided with a kind of wooden cover with
flaps falling down half over the windows. The glass is not white, as in
European carriage windows, but dark blue or green, otherwise the
reflexion of the sunlight from the ground would be too dazzling. On
either side two windows have, instead of glass, a lattice of root
fibres which are kept wet automatically night and day. Outside the
window is a ventilator, which, set in action by the motion of the train,
forces a rapid current of air through the wet network of fibres. Thereby
the air is cooled some eighteen or twenty degrees, and it is pleasant to
sit partly undressed in the draught.

Look a moment at the map. South of the Himalayas the Indian peninsula
forms an inverted triangle, the apex of which juts out into the Indian
Ocean like a tooth, but the northern part, at the base, is broad. Here
flow the three large rivers of India, the Indus, the Ganges, and the
Bramaputra. The last mentioned waters the plains of Assam at the eastern
angle of the triangle. On the banks of the Ganges stands a swarm of
famous large towns, some of which we shall visit when we return from
Tibet. The Ganges and Bramaputra have a delta in common, through which
their waters pass by innumerable arms out into the Bay of Bengal.

At the western angle of the triangle the Indus streams down to the
Arabian Sea. The sources of the Indus and Bramaputra lie close to each
other, up in Tibet, and the Himalayas are set like an immense jewel
between the glistening silver threads of the two rivers. On the west the
Indus cuts through a valley as much as 10,000 feet deep, and on the east
the Bramaputra makes its way down to the lowlands through a deep-cut
cleft not less wild and awesome.

The Indus has several tributaries. In foaming waterfalls and roaring
rapids they rush down from the mountains to meet their lord. The largest
of them is called the Sutlej, and the lowlands through which it flows
are called the Punjab, a Persian word signifying "five waters." The
Indus has thirteen mouths scattered along 150 miles of coast, and the
whole river is 2000 miles long, or somewhat longer than the Danube.

In the month of July, 325 years before the birth of Christ, Aristotle's
pupil, Alexander, King of Macedonia, floated down the Indus with a fleet
of newly built ships and reached Pattala, where the arms of the delta
diverge. He found the town deserted, for the inhabitants had fled
inland, so he sent light troops after them to tell them that they might
return in peace to their homes. A fortress was erected at the town, and
several wharves on the river bank.

He turned over great schemes in his mind. Had he not at twenty years of
age taken over the government of the little country of Macedonia, and
subdued the people of Thrace, Illyria, and Greece? Had he not led his
troops over the Hellespont, defeated the Persians, and conquered the
countries of Asia Minor, Lycia, Cappadocia, and Phrygia, where with a
blow of his sword he had severed the Gordian knot, a token of supremacy
over Asia? At Issus, on the rectangular bay facing Cyprus, he had
inflicted a crushing defeat on the great King of Persia, Darius
Codomannus, who with the united forces of his kingdom had come to meet
him. At Damascus he captured all the Persian war funds, and afterwards
took the famous commercial towns of the Phoenicians, Tyre and Sidon.
Palestine fell, and Jerusalem with the holy places. On the coast of
Egypt he founded Alexandria, which now, after a lapse of 2240 years, is
still a flourishing city. He marched through the Libyan desert to the
oasis of Zeus Ammon, where the priests, after the old Pharaonic custom,
consecrated him "Son of Ammon."

He passed eastwards into Asia, crossed the Euphrates, defeated Darius
again at the Tigris, and reduced proud Babylon and Shushan, where 150
years previously King Ahasuerus, who reigned "from India even unto
Ethiopia over an hundred and seven and twenty provinces," made a feast
for his lords and "shewed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the
honour of his excellent majesty." Then he advanced to Persepolis and set
on fire the palace of the Great King to show that the old empire had
passed away. Pursuing Darius through Ispahan and Hamadan, he afterwards
turned aside into Bactria, the present Russian Central Asia, and marched
northwards to the Syr-darya and the land of the Scythians. Thence, with
an army of more than a hundred thousand men, he proceeded southwards and
conquered the Punjab and subdued all the people living west of the
Indus.

Now he had come to Pattala, and he thought of the victories he had
gained and the countries he had annexed. He had appointed everywhere
Greeks and Macedonians to rule in conjunction with the native princes
and satraps.[10] The great empire must be knit together into a solid
unity, and Babylon was to be its capital. Only in the west there was
still an enormous gap to be conquered, the desert through which we have
lately wandered on the way from Teheran through Tebbes and Seistan and
Baluchistan.

In order to reduce the people living here he despatched a part of his
host by a northerly route through Seistan to north Persia. He himself
led forty thousand men along the coast. Twelve thousand men were to sail
and row the newly-built ships along the coast of the Arabian Sea,
through the Straits of Hormuz, and along the northern coast of the
Persian Gulf to the mouth of the Euphrates. No Greek had ever navigated
this sea before, and with the vessels of the period the enterprise was a
most dangerous one, as absolutely nothing was known about the coast to
be followed. But it was necessary, for Alexander wished to secure for
himself the command of the sea route between the mouths of the Euphrates
and Indus, so as to connect the western and eastern parts of his
kingdom. It was to supply the fleet with provisions and water that he
chose for himself the dangerous desert route along the coast. Of the
40,000 men who accompanied him on this march, no less than 30,000 died
of thirst! The high admiral, Nearchus of Crete, performed his task with
brilliant success. His voyage was one of the most remarkable ever
achieved on the oceans of the globe. The chart he compiled is so exact
that it may be used at the present day, though the coast has since then
undergone changes in some places and has been further silted up with
sand and made shallower.

Alexander would not let his fleet start on its adventurous voyage before
he was himself convinced of the navigability of the Indus and had
acquainted himself with the aspect of the great ocean. Accordingly he
sailed down the western arm of the Indus with the swiftest vessels of
the fleet--thirty-oared boats, and small triremes, or vessels whereon
the 150 naked oarsmen sat on three tiers of benches above one another
with oars of different lengths projecting through port-holes in the
hull. The vessels were protected by troops which followed them on the
bank.

In the midst of summer, when the river is at its highest level and
overflows the banks for miles, it is no pleasure excursion to steer
ungainly boats between banks of sand and silt without pilots. On the
second day a strong southerly storm arose, and the dangerous waves in
the whirlpools of the current capsized many vessels and damaged others.
Alexander made for the bank to look for fishermen who might act as
pilots, and under their guidance he continued his voyage. The river
became wider and wider, and the fresh salt breeze from the ocean became
ever more perceptible; but the wind increased, for the south-west
monsoon was at its height. The grey turbid water rose in higher billows
and made rowing difficult, for the oars either did not touch the water
or dipped too deeply into it. It was the flood tide running up from the
sea which impeded their progress, but the ebb and flow of the sea was
new to them. Eventually Alexander sought the shelter of a creek, and the
vessels were dragged ashore. Then came the ebb, and the water fell as
though it were sucked out into the sea. The boats were left high and
dry, and many of them sank deep in the mud. Astonished and bewildered,
Alexander and his men could get neither forward nor backward. They had
just made preparations to get the ships afloat, when the tide returned
and lifted them.

Now they went farther down-stream and came in contact with the raging
surf of the monsoon, which advances in light-green foam-crowned waves
far into the mouth and changes the colour of the river water. The
collision of the Indus current with the rising tide fills the fairway
with whirlpools and eddies, which are exceedingly dangerous even for the
best of vessels of the present day. Several ships were lost, some being
thrown up on the banks, while others dashed together and went to pieces.

After they had taken note of the regular rise and fall of the tide, they
could avoid danger, and the fleet arrived safely at an island where
shelter could be obtained by the shore and where fresh water was
abundant. From here the foaming, roaring surf at the very mouth of the
Indus could be seen, and above the rolling breakers appeared the level
horizon of the ocean.

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