h of Gwarjak, though we must in that distance
have crossed at least fifteen dry river-beds, varying from twenty to
eighty yards in width.

Travelling in the daytime soon became impossible, on account of the
heat, as we proceeded further inland. A start was therefore generally
made before it was light, and by 11 a.m. the day's work was over,
tents pitched, camels turned loose, and a halt made till three or four
the next morning. Though the sun at midday was, with the total absence
of shade, dangerously powerful, and converted the interior of our
canvas tents into the semblance of an oven, there was little to
complain of as regards weather. The nights were deliciously cool, and
the pleasantest part of, the twenty-four hours was perhaps that from
8 till 10 a.m., when, dinner over and camp-fires lit, the Baluchis
enlivened the caravan with song and dance. Baluch music is, though
wild and mournful, pleasing. Some of the escort had fine voices,
and sang to the accompaniment of a low, soft pipe, their favourite
instrument. Gerome was in great request on these occasions, and,
under the influence of some fiery raki, of which he seemed to have an
unlimited stock, would have trolled out "Matoushka Volga" and weird
Cossack ditties till the stars were paling, if not suppressed. As
it was, one got little enough rest, what with the heat and flies at
midday, and, at the halt about 8 a.m., the shouting, hammering of
tent-pegs, and braying of camels that went on till the sun was high in
the heavens.

There is a so-called town or village, Jhow (situated about twenty
miles east of Noundra), in a sparsely cultivated plain of the same
name. Barley and wheat are grown by means of irrigation from the Jhow
river, which in the wet season is of considerable size. I had expected
to find, at Jhow, some semblance of a town or village, as the Wazir
of Beila had told me that the place contained a population of four or
five hundred, and it is plainly marked on all Government maps. But I
had yet to learn that a Baluch "town," or even village, of forty or
fifty inhabitants often extends over a tract of country many miles
in extent. The "town" of Jhow, for instance, is spread over a plain
thirty-five miles long by fourteen broad, in little clusters of from
two to six houses. A few tiny patches of green peeping out of the
yellow sand and brushwood, a wreath of grey smoke rising lazily here
and there at long intervals over the plain, a few camels and goat