I followed on a pony borrowed of
the telegraph clerk. My costume was, if not becoming, at any rate
original: high boots, flannel trousers, and shirt, an evening
dress-coat, and astrakhan cap. Gerome's wardrobe being even less
presentable, I deemed it prudent to leave him behind. The Beila men
brought up the rear of the procession some distance from the Afghans,
who, to my anxiety, never ceased scoffing and jeering at them the
whole way. Every moment I expected to hear the crack of a pistol-shot,
followed by a general _melee_. Arrived at the Mastung Gate, we
dismounted, and, leaving our horses in charge of the guard, slowly
proceeded up the steep narrow streets to the citadel.

The entrance to Kelat is not imposing. There had been a good deal
of rain, and the streets of the lower part of the town were perfect
quagmires of mud nearly knee-deep. It was more like crawling into
a dark passage than entering a city. Many of the thoroughfares are
entirely covered over with wooden beams plastered with mud, which
entirely exclude light, and give them more the appearance of
subterranean passages than streets. The upper part of the town is the
cleanest, for the simple reason that all filth and sewage runs down
open gutters cut in the centre of the steep alleys, until it reaches
the level of the plain. There is no provision made for its escape.
It is allowed to collect in great pools, which in long-continued wet
weather often flood the houses and drive their wretched inhabitants
into the open, to live as best they may, further up the hill.

Kelat is, for this reason only, very unhealthy. Small-pox, typhoid, and
typhus are never absent, though, curiously enough, cholera visitations
are rare. The filthy habits of the inhabitants have, apparently, a
good deal to do with the high death rate. I saw, while walking up
the hill, a native fill a cup from an open drain and drink it off,
although the smell was unbearable, the liquid of a dark-brown colour.
A very common and--in the absence of medical treatment--fatal disease
among the inhabitants of the suburbs (chiefly Afghans) is stone in
the bladder, the water here, though pure and clear in the suburbs,
containing a large quantity of lime.

The bazaar, through which we passed on our way to the Mir, does not
seem a very busy one. Although not a public or religious holiday,
many of the stalls were closed. Kelat was once the great channel for
merchandise from Kandahar and Cabul to India, bu