ROAD THROUGH BALUCHISTAN 329
north-eastwards, the air is quite calm, and we hurry our pace to get a feeling of draught. It is so still that we can hold a burning candle in the hand. At one o'clock (2 513 feet) it is 103.8° in the shade ; we feel as if we were travelling in an oven, and our sight is blurred. The great heat has taken us by surprise and we have not much to expect from the coming days. The rest for breakfast is a short relief to the monotony of the day. But it is not particularly refreshing. A cloak is spread over the ground, which is burning hot, and we might as well be sitting on a hearth. The water is flat and its unpleasant taste comes out. But, at any rate, it goes down with the help of cakes and jam, and then we can perspire.
We are at the bungalow of Trato (2 549 feet). Its well is 8.14 feet deep and the water has a temperature of 72.3°. At seven o'clock it begins to blow hard from north-north-west, but at nine o'clock the temperature is still 81.3° In the bath it is 73°, but in the bungalow I am almost suffocated by the dry, close heat, and therefore I have my bed carried out into the wind and lie almost naked to keep cool. The wind is variable, and long before midnight it is calm again, and I am attacked by gnats and have to creep under the rug. Steps should have been built up to the roof of the station-house, where one would be in summer more exposed to the wind, and raised a little above the heated ground.
Why do not Englishmen travel with motors on this Trade Route ? They could drive a swift untrammelled course from Nushki to Robat in a few days.
It is blazing hot shortly after sunrise. No clouds, no breeze, but a light haze hovering over the earth. In the southern heaven the sun mounts up so high that the mist cannot modify its heat. Only the landscape becomes indistinct and the small hills in the distance disappear.
Grey, barren, and dreary ! One can hardly imagine a more God-forsaken wilderness than this. After two hours we cross a poor belt of steppe, where greyish-green grasshoppers sit in clusters on every shrub, and when we disturb them hop away. Gadflies persecute the dromedaries and stinging flies irritate and tickle their noses, so that they are
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