18

INDIA

Traversing this northern section of Baluchistan from
the head of the Peshin Valley to the Gomal River is the
valley of the Zhob. The gradual (and surprising) development
 of this valley since its first introduction to the domain
of practical Indian geography and politics ; the extraordinary
 resources possessed by its scarred and broken
slopes, which presented not many years ago an aspect
of barren, wind-swept desolation, tempered only by a
tew uneven patches of rice cultivation—all this is matter of
modern history. Its future, as offering a line of direct
railway communication between Lahore and Quetta, is
matter of present discussion. We must leave the Zhob
and its ancient Kakur (Pathan) inhabitants to turn to the
central uplands of Peshin and Quetta, which divide
Northern Baluchistan from Kalat and the south.
A glance at the map will show that the Sind-Peshin
Railway cuts Baluchistan into two divisions, and that it
occupies a peculiarly well-balanced and central position
with regard to the two sections of the province which it
divides. The Kachhi, or flat, alluvial plain of Kach Gandava
(which may justly be termed desert in all that central
part of it occupied by the railway, and which is annually
subject to flooding by the spill waters of the Indus) carries
the line almost to the heart of the province ere it touches
the hills at the debouchment of the Bolan and the Nari
streams. Here the railway divides. One branch follows
the line of Harnai and Nari drainage upwards from the
plains to the valley of Peshin ; and the other, only lately
diverted from the lower part of the old Bolan route to the
valley of Mashkaf, reunites with the Bolan line at Mach,
and finds more direct access to Quetta without touching
the Peshin. Both lines will be lasting monuments of
skilful engineering, but probably the Mashkaf development
 of the Bolan route will prove of the greatest
practical value in the long run.
The Harnai and the Bolan together introduce a special
system of hydrography for central Baluchistan, The
valley of Peshin and the plain of Quetta form a central
¢glevation which parts the long lines of lateral drainage