INDIA

that these headlands represent a series of great natural
breakwaters which give to Makran her only seaports, and it
is from the harbours afforded by them that all routes northward
 into the interior of Southern Baluchistan diverge.
It is at the remote stations of the Indo-Persian telegraph
system which are established at these points on the eoast that
the only European occupation of Makran at present exists.
The port of Gwadur is exceptional. Gwadur is a dependency
 of Muscat, and is not subject to Baluch authority.'
The appearance of arid, sun-dried desolation that
marks the coast scenery of Makran when viewed from the
sea, largely disappears inland. There is a scanty vegetation,
 consisting chiefly of coarse grass and tamarisk,
wherever there is water to support it. Near Sonmiani
Bay, on the southern littoral of the Las Bela State, there
are still the mangrove swamps which attracted the attention
 of the historians of Nearkhos 300 years B.C. and
which now flourish in the neighbourhood of Karachi.
Many of the spices which were so prominent in the
ancient coast trade of the Arabian Sea may yet be found
between the Hingol River and Karachi; the palms of
Gwadur have now extended to the inland valleys, but
the Gwadur myrtle has disappeared for ever. Passing
inland from any of the coast ports, as the track winds
through the intricacies of the closely massed system of
inferior and barren ridges which intervene between the
coast and the lateral palm-filled valleys of the interior,
there are signs of a far more general occupation of the
country in medieval times than exists at present. There
are the remains of terraced fields on the hill-sides with
partially destroyed revetments, whilst here and there a
few clumps of palms amongst the prevailing growth of
tamarisk and scrub betoken a former period of careful
cultivation. But taken as a whole, the words of the old
Arab traveller and geographer, Ibn Haukel, who describes
Makran as “a vast country, mostly desert,” may be
accepted as a fair indication of the physical characteristics
of that country even to this day.
I Written in 1809. There is a change in the telegraph system impending.