'Military Report of the Nushki-Chagai-Western Sinjarani Country' [‎8r] (20/302)

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desert, leaving only a few scattered outlying hills rising like hdaods
from the sea of sand.
Near its border, the sand-hills are pretty thickly sprinkled
with hushes and vegetation. The hollows often hold patches of
alluvial soil which can be and are cultivated in favorable seasons.
This region of half desert is said to stretch from 5 to 10 miles
inwards, and affords pasturage to numerous flocks of sheep and herds
of camels. Wells are fairly numerous though at long distances
apart.
The tribes, to whose country the desert is contiguous, value it
greatly and resort to it in winter. It also affords harbourage to
broken clans and wild robbers who have no other home, and to
numerous Baluch and Brahui nomads.
It is said that several hundred families with all their flocks
and herds are sometimes dependent on a single well; they leave
the sand deserts for the three hottest months in the year, but even
then go no further than its edge.
The shifting sands of which the desert is composed are blown
into ridges varying from 100 to as much as 5U0 feet in height.
These ridges run parallel to one another in broken billows with, an
apparent general direction of north-north-west to south-south
east.
The slopes on the windward side are gentle; those to leeward
are about 45°. The ridges are liable to shift their position and
would therefore prove a serious obstacle to the construction of a
telegraph wire, or any permanent road. One storm might obliter
ate the track completely unless some methods, such as that used by
the Russians on their Trans-Caspian railway for checking the drift
ing of the sand, were adopted.
From recent observation and enquiry it would appear that
the rate of advance of the sand in the direction of the prevailing
wind, that is, towards the south-east, where it is unchecked by
rivers or other obstructions, is about 2 feet io the year. It is not
likely that the average progress of the desert along its whole
border would be more than 50 or 60 yards in a century.
Mountains.
The general lie of the hills follows that of the Makran system;
that is to sav, the chain of hills is twisted from the north and
south line of the hills of Northern Baluchistan to one running
nearly east and west; but, as the Persian boundary is reached, the
hills again curve northwards, and thus a vast irregular semi-circle,
conforming more or less to the curve of the Helmand river, is form
ed, with the Khwaja Amran range at the eastern point and the
Persian Plang Koh at the western extremity.
Commencing from the east the first hills met with are the great The
ranges of the Brahuik system, which is a prolongation, southwards, range,
of the Takht-i-Suliman mountains. The term “ Brahuik ” has been
assigned to this mountain system owing to the inhabitants being
Brahuis. The western fall of the Brahuik hills appears to be a
prolongation, southwards, of the Khwaja Amran mountains, and.
3 /
Sarlat