Their Dress, A Loose Divided
Skirt Of Thin Red Stuff, And Short Jacket, With Tight-Fitting Sleeves,
Open At The Breast, Showed Off Their Slight Graceful Figures And
Small, Well-Shaped Hands And Feet To Perfection.
Chengiz, pointing to
the group, smiled and addressed me in a facetious tone.
"He wants to
know if you think them pretty," said my interpreter; but I thought it
best to maintain a dignified silence. The chief of Sonmiani was, for a
Mohammedan, singularly lax.
A kind of rough pottery is made at Sonmiani, and this is the only
industry. Some of the water-jars were neatly and gracefully fashioned,
of a delicate grey-green colour; others red, with rude yellow devices
painted on them. The clay is porous, and keeps the water deliciously
cool.
By four o'clock next morning all was ready for a start. The caravan
consisted of eighteen camels, four Baluchis, Kamoo, and Gerome,
with an escort of ten soldiers of the Djam of Beila, smart-looking,
well-built fellows in red tunics, white baggy trousers, and dark-blue
turbans. Each man, armed with a Snider rifle and twenty rounds of
ammunition, was mounted on a rough, wiry-looking pony. As we were
starting, Chengiz Khan rode up on a splendid camel, and announced his
intention of accompanying us the first stage, one of eighteen miles,
to Shekh-Raj.
Here the honest fellow bade us good-bye. "The sahib will not forget me
when he gets to India," he said, on leaving, thereby implying that he
wished to be well reported to the Indian Government. "But take care of
Malak; he is a bad man - a very bad man."
A rough and tedious journey of two days over deep sandy desert,
varied by an occasional salt marsh, brought us to Beila, the seat of
government of the Djam, or chief of the province of Las Beila, eighty
miles due north of Sonmiani. With a feeling of relief I sighted the
dirty, dilapidated city, with its mud huts and tawdry pink and green
banners surmounting the palace and fort. The Baluch camel is not the
easiest animal in existence, and I had, for the first few hours of the
march, experienced all the miseries of _mal de mer_ brought on by a
blazing sun and the rolling, unsteady gait of my ship of the desert.
Though awkward in his paces, the Baluch camel is swift. They are small
and better looking than most; nor do their coats present so much the
appearance of a "doormat with the mange," as those of the animals of
other countries. We had as yet passed but two villages - three or four
low shapeless huts, almost hidden in rock and scrub by the side of
the caravan-track, which, as far as Beila, is pretty clearly defined.
There had been nothing else to break the dull, dead monotony of sand
and swamp, not a sign of human life, and but one well (at Outhal) of
rather brackish water.
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