~.~ ROAD THROUGH BALUCHISTAN 333
Several wells yielded good sweet water, and there are, it seems, others in the hills around where the nomads have their haunts. At some places kanats are digged after the usual Persian pattern. I was told that sometimes in winter it is so cold that men who have been caught in the icy blast have been frozen to death. The season from November to March is called bahar, because the grass is then green ; bahar is also the Persian name for spring.
On May 6 we rode over rough country between small hills and hillocks, through ravines and furrows with boulders, round which tamarisks were quite common, and often as large as a tree. The heat rose to 101.3°, and it blew briskly from the south, but it was a dry, hot, and suffocating wind. At the bungalow of Sotag (2858 feet) there was only a man and boy to look after the station, the wells were brackish, and the room full of gnats during the night.
The road to Cha-kul (3 i 69 feet) ran partly over uneven ground, where thriving tamarisks were very conspicuous with their fresh foliage, partly over open and desert land, hard ground with dark gravel.
On the night of May 7 the temperature dropped to 66.6°, and when I woke, just after four o'clock, I felt quite cool. I had been besieged by gnats in the night, and had no objection to going out into the air, where I could keep them off with an Indian cheroot. Mustapha Khan, chief of my bodyguard and general factotum, reminded me that the way was long to Dalbendin (i 9 miles) and that we must set out early. However, I need not have been in such a hurry, for when I came out it turned out that our dromedaries had made off. Scouts had been sent out, but nothing had yet been heard of them. Then Mustapha disappeared also, and I sat in an easy-chair in the verandah, reading and enjoying the cool air. The neighbourhood was silent, only dung beetles were at work, and the grasshoppers hummed everywhere.
The men did not come till nine o'clock, having found the dromedaries 6 miles off. But when one of the two which carried light loads was to be laden, he took it into his head to refuse. After a long attempt to get hold of
IIIF Color HighRes
