existence.

[Sidenote: Southern.]

South-west of the dividing railway lies the great block of Southern
Baluchistan. Within this area the drainage generally trends south and west,
either to the Arabian Sea or to the central swamps of Lora and Mashkel. The
Hab river, which forms the boundary west of Karachi; the Purali (the
ancient _Arabus_), which drains the low-lying flats of Las Bela; the Hingol
(the ancient _Tomerus_) and the Dasht, which drain Makran, are all
considerable streams, draining into the Arabian Sea and forming important
arteries in the network of internal communication. An exception to the
general rule is found in the Mulla, which carries the floods of the Kalat
highlands into the Gandava basin and forms one of the most important of the
ancient highways from the Indus plains to Kandahar. The fortress of Kalat
is situated about midway between the sources of the Bolan and the Mulla,
near a small tributary of the Lora (the river of Pishin and Quetta), about
6800 ft. above sea-level, on the western edge of a cultivated plain in the
very midst of hills. (See KALAT.) To the north are the long sweeping lines
of the Sarawan ridges, enclosing narrow fertile valleys, and passing away
to the south-west to the edge of the Kharan desert. East and south are the
rugged bands of Jalawan, amongst which the Mulla rises, and through which
it breaks in a series of magnificent defiles in order to reach the Gandava
plain. Routes which converge on Kalat from the south pass for the most part
through narrow wooded valleys, enclosed between steep ridges of denuded
hills, and, following the general strike of these ridges, they run from
valley to valley with easy grades. Kalat is the "hub" or centre, from which
radiate the Bolan, the Mulla and the southern Lora affluents; but the Lora
drains also the Pishin valley on the north; the two systems uniting in
Shorawak, to lose themselves in the desert and swamps to the west of
Nushki, on the road to Seistan. Sixty miles south of Kalat, and beyond the
Mulla sources, commences another remarkable hydrographic system which
includes all southern and south-western Baluchistan. To the west lies the
Kharan desert, with intermittent river channels enclosed and often lost in
sand-waves ere they reach the Mashkel swamps on the far borders of Persia.
To the south-west are the long sweeping valleys of Rakshan and Panjgur,
which, curving northwards, likewise discharge their drainage into the
Mashkel.