‘The strategic importance of the Euphrates valley railway’ [‎57] (138/204)

( 57 )
Baluchistan in 1810, was for nearly half a century
the great, almost the only, authority on that country;
but within the last ten or fifteen years it has been
opened out by more recent explorers. Shortly
before Pottinger wrote, the country was under the
rule of a single powerful chief, a nominal tributary
to the Afghan king, as he once had been to Persia ;
but in the hands of his son and successor the despot
ism gradually waned; many petty chiefs threw off
allegiance, and the confederacy, which had been a
strong one so long as its component parts were held
firmly together, fell to pieces when the grip relaxed,
and the master influence was gone. The boundaries
of Baluchistan may still be considered to be Af
ghanistan north, the sea south, India and Persia
east and west respectively, and the whole area not
less than 1G0,000 square miles; but a line must be
run down the centre to mark off the later acquisi
tions of Persia; and to find the country which still
belongs to the Brahui Khan of to-day, we must
look east of the meridian 02°, instead of 58°, accord
ing to the position given by all except the newest
maps.
This last-mentioned territory touches our Indian
frontier from the plains above Shikarpur in Sind,
along the mountain ranges called Hala, to the sea
west of Karachi. It is in parts very mountainous,
in parts very desert. The maritime tracts between
Karachi and the Persian frontier include the country