escort, black-bearded Baluchis, are very obliging and attentive, and communicate unbidden what they know about the roads and country. Round the frontier pillar numbered 40 one of them drew a ring with his ramrod, and when I asked what it meant, he answered that two of our men had stopped at the last village to buy wheaten flour, and the ring in the ground was to show them the way we had taken, which was determined by opportunities of obtaining water.
These Baluchis look well and picturesque in their loose, becoming, national costume ; light underclothes, wide trousers, often rolled up so that the legs are bare, no stockings, white coat with wide sleeves, a bulky girdle, and a cap on the head, round which a white turban is wound. They are, then, all white from top to toe. And now that it is decidedly cold rather than warm they wear large white felt cloaks, often hanging down to the feet. Their rifles they carry easily and gracefully by belts over the shoulder, and they are always supple, light, and easy in their movements.
Terribly monotonous is this landscape ! An endless succession of ravines across the terrace plateau. The only relief is afforded by the frontier pillars, so the monotony may be imagined. They are about z o feet high, truncated pyramids of white-plastered brick ; but now the plaster has fallen off most of them, and forms a white ring round the base. When it remains the column is visible from a long distance ; otherwise it is swallowed up in the grey tone of the landscape. In other respects the columns are in very good condition.
At Nos. 35 and 34 we pass the Rud-i-Kadin, an old bed of the Hilmend, with a high and large terrace on the right bank and a very small one on the left. Between Nos. 33 and 32 we turn at right angles from the rah-i-mil or " road of the marks," and pass through a singular winding, narrow, and fantastic ravine of clay between rounded domes, cones, and pyramids—perfect houses, towers, and walls, between which still narrower ravines run in from the sides, all dry and barren. Among this chaos of domes, cupolas, and blocks some frequently rise above the rest, 5o to 65 feet,
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