Scottish Geographical Magazine

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A ride from Quetta to Loralai

Lieutenant‐Colonel A. C. Yate

To cite this article: Lieutenant‐Colonel A. C. Yate (1906) A ride from Quetta to Loralai, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 22:9, 453-459, DOI: 10.1080/00369220608733664

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00369220608733664

Published online: 27 Feb 2008.

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Download by: [La Trobe University] Date: 01 June 2016, At: 14:47 THE SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE.

A RIDE FROM QUETTA TO LORALAI. By Lieutenant-Colonel A. C. YATE.

BALUCHISTAN is a wide word. I am not prepared at the present moment to express it in terms of European states, which is a popular and effective way of setting forth the vast area (often area et prceterea nihil, for the population is scant) of some of these Oriental provinces of ours. It extends east and west from the Punjab to the Persian frontier, and north and south from Afghanistan to the sea. It is ruled by a Chief Commissioner. It was made by Sir Kobert Sandeman, the first Chief Commissioner. Baluchistan must be written about by sections. It is too large to be treated of as a whole in a brief paper. I am tempted to write of the Quetta-Loralai road section, for I think that of all it is the most beauti- ful and picturesque. My wife and I had occasion in June 1896 to visit Quetta, and after a pleasant stay there, a ride along the extended belt of fortifications, and a delightful run in a trolley through the Khojak tunnel to Chaman, we made up our minds to conclude our trip with a

Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 14:47 01 June 2016 ride from Quetta via Kach and Ziarat to Loralai. Whenever strangers hear the name Loralai, it carries their thoughts away to the Lurlei of the Ehine, and they instinctively remark," What a pretty name!" I have always felt a curious interest in the origin of this name. It was quite unknown till the Indian Government founded the cantonment now so called. A most reliable authority assures me that the founder of Baluchistan was asked to provide a name for the new cantonment, and suggested "Loralai." A name is nothing if not appropriate. "Loralai" is appropriate. "Lora" means "a river- bed," "lai" means "tamarisk." Dry stony torrent-beds overgrown with tamarisk are a marked feature in the Loralai landscape. But let us leave Loralai for the present (it should be the Omega and not the Alpha of this short sketch), and revert to our ride there from Quetta. VOL. XXII. 2 K 454 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE

We had two horses and half a dozen mules for the carriage of our- selves, servants, and baggage. As luck would have it (possibly the syces, i.e. grooms, knew more about it than luck did) my wife's Arab was found seriously lame thirty-six hours before we had to start. How- ever, a transport mule-tonga kindly lent us and a pony picked up at the last moment pulled us out of that pinch. A tonga is a low two-wheeled cart with seats for two in front (one the driver) and two behind. The seats are arranged to hold baggage. It is drawn by two ponies or mules. The feature of tonga harness is the iron bar which passes over the ponies' withers and links them. This harness is strong and serviceable,

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The houss of the Officer Commandiag the troops of the Khan of Kalat, Baluchistan. Taken at Kalat in 1904. and admits of rapid changes of animals. The tonga is used on all the Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 14:47 01 June 2016 government postal roads in India, e.g. between Kalka and Simla, Gauhati and Shillong (Assam), etc. We started to time, sent the two horses, pony, and mules ahead on the afternoon of the 28th June, and start- ing ourselves in the tonga at daybreak on the 29th, overtook the advanced party twenty miles out at nine o'clock. Our road ran west, first for seven or eight miles across the stony Quetta plain, then up and up for another six or seven, following the course of ravines and spurs amid the lower slopes of Takatu, one of the highest peaks (over 11,000 feet) near Quetta, and skirting the rear of the right or south-west flank of the Quetta defences. At Sarakulla the summit of the pass is approached. Gandak, where we overtook our horses and servants, and breakfasted, was a good four miles (all down .hill) west of the head of the pass. A A RIDE FROM QUETTA TO LORALAI. 455

little low bungalow with a corrugated iron roof and tiny rooms, and the air shut out by the encircling hills—such was Gandak. It is ungrateful to carp at a shelter that was, after all, only too welcome in the heat of the last days of June; but we were very glad when 3 P.M. arrived and we judged we might mount (the tonga was sent back from Jandak) and ride on to Kach, nine or ten miles further. The direct rays of the sun tempered by a breeze were less trying than the still heat in closed rooms under an iron roof. This was the only day during our march that we really felt the heat. The average elevation of the road from Quetta to Loralaiis probably over 6000 feet; and that elevation secures in summer almost invariably, cool nights and bearably hot days. Of course we avoided riding, as a rule, between 10 A.M. and 3 P.M. The fourteen miles of country from Sarakullah to Kach bore on it Nature's brand of barrenness. High up were the bare rocks, while lower down on the slopes and in the ravines were massed in fantastic conglomeration what looks like Earth's dross, cast out by her own volcanic action as being too sterile or too poisonous to retain—a dross of many colours, red, brown, white, grey, slate, etc. All reflected forcibly the sun's rays. At Kach (a station on the Sind-Pishin railway) we found ourselves at a place which I had scarcely seen and never stopped at since August 1880. On that occasion, the night after my regiment passed through it, 2000Pathans attacked and rushed the little fort held by about 200 native infantry, and were with difficulty repulsed. From Kach to Ziarat the road winds through a wild mountainous country, the distance being between thirty and thirty-five miles. To the left or north the village of Amadun appears, picturesquely perched on the slopes of a side valley. On the right or south is the great dark mass of the Pil mountain, sparsely studded with junipers, whose twisted gnarled trunks and boughs fill one with wonder at the freaks and vagaries of Nature's handiwork. I know no such trees elsewhere except in Dora's illustrations of Dante's Inferno. These junipers (or " pencil cedars," as some call them) look the very victims of some sylvan demon. Their grim, weird forms, no two alike, disport themselves in tens of thousands on the mountains around Ziarat. The Pil rift and lake are other queer freaks of nature. The rift cuts through the great Pil mountain from the village of Kawas across to the well-known Chappar rift on the Sind-Pishin railway. The Pil lake is probably Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 14:47 01 June 2016 the result of a landslip or some seismic disturbance, which has dammed the natural channel of the Pil river. The Cyclopean magnitude of Nature's works in these rifts of Baluchistan is what fills eye and mind with wonder. Every traveller who visits Quetta has seen how Sir James Browne and his staff of Koyal Engineers carried the railway through the Chappar rift. I was with a brigade that marched through it in August 1880. It is only two miles long or so, but it took us all day to get our camels and baggage through it. Ziarat is the hill-station of, and is some 2300 feet higher than, Quetta. Its great charm is that, in a country where natural vegetation is scant, it is abundantly wooded. Its real name is Gwashki, but it has been rechristened by some one Ziarat, and Ziarat it will remain. I 156 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE. wish I could depict the charm of its mountain scenery, the ravines luxuriant in all European vegetation, the wild cherry-trees, and currant and gooseberry bushes, the grand view of the appalling cliffs of Khalipat, (a mountain over 11,000 feet high), the queer "potholes" in the ravines where the explorer is brought to a sudden standstill with a sort of dry devil's caldron below him and perpendicular cliffs on either side above. The most striking of these " potholes " (waterfalls in raintime) is in " Lady Sandeman's Tangi " (gully or rift). The Pathans told us that only one man was ever known to have climbed from bottom' to top of it. To us such a feat seemed a sheer impossibility; but one or two of the Pathans with their bare, prehensile feet, showed us how part of the

Pathan Levy Sowar. ascent could be made. Just before we reached Ziarat, the biggest flood

Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 14:47 01 June 2016 known for years had swept the valley clean; gardens and polo-ground, and the dam and ditch that were to protect them from flood, all went in an hour or two. As we marched up the valley to Chotair we saw ample traces of the flood in crops laid level with the ground and half-buried in mud deposit. I look upon the ride from Ziarat to Chotair as a pleasant experience not easily to be equalled even in countries famed for fine scenery. In Baluchistan it is unique. "Wood and water, and mountain and glen, and all beauties of vegetation combine to form a panoramic picture sixteen miles in length. It is as pure and real a pleasure to ride along this road, as it is to—let us say, traverse the Killiecrankie or Brenner passes. Six miles out of Ziarat near the top of the " Kotal" (kotal = " head of the pass") is a perfect stretch of wood and sward, an ideal site for a A RIDE FROM QUETTA TO LORALAI. 457

cantonment. Polo, cricket, football, all on turf, suggest themselves. But—always a but—there is little or no water. This is the true " Ziarat," which means " Mohammedan shrine or place of worship and pilgrimage." The saintly ascetic who chose this spot to live and die in evidently held that Nature's own beautiful temples are made to worship in. He was no " Stylites." Crossing the head of the Kotal the road winds down a steep, wooded ravine, with a beautiful clear burn below (more often heard than seen) running and leaping along amid the rocks and boulders that centuries have laid bare or shed from above. There is game around, both large and small. The " markhor " (a mountain goat), on the stiffest peaks, the " uriyal " on more accessible heights, the " mum " bear, and for small game " chikor "• and " sisi," two species of hill partridge. Of the human inhabitants of the country I will say little more than that they are mostly Pathans, and the Pathans to be appreciated must be actually seen. Kawas, however, is held and cultivated by a Persian settlement, who retain to this day their ancestral ways and habits. The Kawas valley is a model of cultivation, the village clustering on and around a hillock in the midst, in a way that recalls to mind villages I have seen in Persia or, even more so, the European towns or townlets of the feudal period. Chotair, when you get there, is charming, with a stream of the most delicious water bubbling out close to the traveller's bungalow. Behind, just over the hill, is Shirin, the head village of the Wanechi Pathans, and thence runs a longish hill-path via Pui to Loralai. We had to abide by the regular road. Strolling about under the junipers at Chotair, I met the Wanechi chief coming in from Shirin. He had a Martini or Snider carbine in his hand. We had a little talk together, and finally he asked if I could put him in the way of getting some ammunition for his carbine, as he had none. I could not oblige him myself. I thought if Government considered him a suitable person to own such a carbine, it should also give him some ammunition for it. Shirin, Pui, and Sinjawi (our next stage) produce in much perfec- tion the one good fruit (besides the melon) that this country possesses, viz. the grape. From Chotair to Sinjawi is a long stretch—twenty- four miles. We broke the back of it by going out six miles in the evening, camping by some water, and doing the remaining eighteen

Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 14:47 01 June 2016 miles the next morning. With Chotair we leave all the beautiful vegetation. The road descends to a level of some 5500 feet above the sea-level, and for twelve or thirteen miles between Wani and Eejora not a drop of water is seen; in short, the beauty of the ride is almost at an end. I say almost, because the fresh greenness of the Smalan and Sinjawi cultivation relieves the eye, and the myrtle groves there are, as far as I know, unequalled. These groves are charming at all seasons, but in June and July, when the blossom is at its best, they surpass themselves. The trees grow 25 feet high, and intertwine into dense groves, covering each an acre or more. I have seen nothing like it elsewhere. Sinjawi is an important centre. Through it passes the high road from Harnai (a station on the Sind-Pishin line) to Loralai, and roads come in from Ziarat and Thal-Chotiali, as well as one or two 458 SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE.

hill-paths from the south. Its importance as a centre led to the con- struction of a fort there at a considerable outlay. At present a few policemen hold that fort. The twenty miles of road from Sinjawi to Loralai, beyond a certain wild picturesqueness, possess little interest. At least I, who have ridden Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 14:47 01 June 2016

Defile on the road between Hurnai and Loralai.

it a dozen times, think so. I only count the milestones and wish for the end. Loralai is one of those frontier stations grown up in the last twenty years. A cavalry and infantry regiment, and a mountain battery (all native) was the garrison allotted to it. At first it knew no ladies, but ere long they crept in. They always creep in ; and who would wish to keep them out ? They established themselves at the Malakand Pass in 1895, almost before Chitral was relieved. We welcomed them to Mandalay some time before Burma could be called " pacified." When A RIDE FROM QUETTA TO LORALAI. 459

we recall what our women suffered and did during the evil days at Kabul in 1841-2, and during the siege of Lucknow in 1857, we can do no less than welcome them whenever and wherever they come to share our frontier life. When I first saw Loralai, the fireplaces that warmed the tents of the garrison (all were in tents for a year or so till barracks were built) were still standing. That first year a Bengal cavalry regiment lost some fifteen per cent, of its strength by pneu- monia. It chanced that some disrespect had been shown to the local Ziarat or Mohammedan shrine by this corps, and native opinion firmly held that this epidemic was the saint's revenge. The sanctity of these and similar places is, in our eyes perhaps, a superstition, but in those of Mohammedans a hallowed and binding truth, and no one can disregard this with impunity. By this hang some curious and sad tales difficult to explain.

BATHYMETRICAL SURVEY OF THE FRESH-WATER LOCHS OF .1

Under the Direction of Sir JOHN MURRAY, K.C.B., F.R.S., D.Sc, etc., and LAURENCE PULLAR, F.R.S.E.

PART XI.—THE LOCHS OF THE BEAULY BASIN. THE Beauly basin is an important and extensive one, extending across almost the entire width of Scotland, from Beauly firth on the east coast to within about 4 miles from the shores of Loch Duich, and about 6 miles from the shores of Loch Carron, on the west coast. The basin is situated in a very mountainous district, many of the peaks in the central and western part of the basin exceeding 3000 feet, and some of them approaching 4000 feet, in height, while on proceeding eastward towards the outlet of the basin the land becomes gradually less elevated. On the southern boundary of the basin are Tigh Mor (3222 feet), Sgurr nan Conbhairean (3634 feet),Garbh Leac (3673 feet), Sgurr nan Ceath- ramhan (3614 feet), Ciste Dhubh (3218 feet), Carn Fuaraloch (3241 feet), and Sgurr a' Bhealaich Dheirg (3378 feet); on the western Downloaded by [La Trobe University] at 14:47 01 June 2016 boundary (Ben Attow), 3383 feet, Sgurr nan Ceathreamh- nan (3771 feet), Lurg Mhor (3234 feet), and Sgurr Choinnich (3260 feet); on the northern boundary Sgurr a' Chaoruinn (3452 feet),Bidean an Eoin Deirg (3430 feet), Maoile Lunndaidh (3294 feet), Sgurr Fhuar- Thuill (3439 feet), Sgorr a' Choir-Ghlais (3552 feet), and Sgiirr Ruadh (3254 feet); while in the central part of the basin are Craig Dhubh (3102 feet), Sgurr na Lapaich (3773 feet), An Riabhachan (3696 feet), Beinn.Fhionnlaidh (3294 feet), (Mam Soul, 3862 feet), Carn Eige (3877 feet), Tom a' Choinich (3646 feet), a second peak named Sgurr na Lapaich (3401 feet), and Tuill Creagach (3452 feet).

1 Abbreviated from article, with maps, in Geographical Journal for June 1906.