hide.
It moves about the country in packs, carrying off deer and sheep. Its
method of descending precipices and steep hillsides is curious, each
animal fixing its teeth in the tail of another, thus forming a kind of
chain.
The plain of Mangachar is situated nearly 6000 feet above sea-level,
and is well cultivated with wheat, lucerne, and tobacco. The
village itself is neatly laid out, and contains about three hundred
inhabitants. The different aspects of the country north and south of
Kelat are striking. We had now done with deserts for good, for at
night lights were seen twinkling all over the plain, while in the
daytime large tracts of well-cultivated land continually met the eye.
Between Mangachar and Mastung a hot wind arose, which made the eyes
smart, and dried up the skin like a blast from a furnace. One's hair
felt as it does in the hottest room of a Turkish bath, with the
unpleasant addition of being filled with fine gritty sand. "I hope
this may not end in a juloh," said Kamoo, anxiously. This, my
interpreter proceeded to explain, is a hot poisonous wind peculiar to
these districts, and perhaps the greatest danger run by travellers in
Baluchistan. The warm breeze, as Kamoo called it, that we experienced
was, though almost unbearable, not dangerous, while the dreaded juloh
has slain its hundreds of victims. Cook, the traveller, who has given
this subject much attention, has come to the conclusion that it is
caused by the generation in the atmosphere of a highly concentrated
form of ozone, by some intensely marked electrical condition. As
evidence of its effect in destroying every green thing on its course,
and in being frequently fatal to human life, he cites the following
well-authenticated cases, which, not having encountered the
death-dealing blast myself, I place before the reader:--
(1) In the year 1851, during one of the hot months, certain officers
of the Sind Horse were sleeping at night on the roof of General
Jacob's house at Jacobabad. They were awakened by a sensation of
suffocation and an exceedingly hot and oppressive feeling in the air,
while at the same time a very powerful smell of sulphur was noticed.
On the following morning a number of trees in the garden were found to
be withered in a very remarkable manner. It looked as if a current of
fire, about two yards in breadth, had passed through the garden in a
perfectly straight line, singeing and destroying every green thing in
its course.
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