30

INDIA

route is the natural connection, in spite of its physical
disadvantages, and it undoubtedly once possessed more
importance than it does at present; but the most obvious,
because the most direct and the easiest, connection
between Southern Afghanistan and. the plains of Sind
passing through Baluchistan is the one which, in two
branches, is now occupied by the line of the Sind-Peshin
Railway, connecting Jacobabad with Quetta.
Greatest of all the medieval cities of the Indus Valley
was Multan. There were other great cities which have
left nothing but a shadowy outline of their greatness on
the spaces where they once stood ; but Multan, which still
lives, was ever the greatest trade centre of Western India.
[ts magnificent buildings and fabulous wealth; its mosques
and its far-famed idol (which seems to have survived the
introduction of the mosques); its spacious streets and
gardens ; its “sarais,” and all the many seductions which
gladden the heart of the weary traveller, placed Multan
without a rival as the capital of Western India and the
objective of every great caravan road which followed the
Indus. There must have been a direct highway from
Kalat and Quetta to Multan, a road to link Southern
Afghanistan with India, very much straighter than that
which followed the Bolan or Nari rivers into the plains.
Such a route is found in the Sakki Sarwar, which
takes its name from a ziarat, or shrine, at the foot of the
hills opposite Dera Ghazi Khan, and which is the route
probably followed by Nadir Shah in the eighteenth century
 when he withdrew his victorious army from Delhi.
A modification of the old route now connects Dera Ghazi
Khan with Quetta and Peshin, and it is the only highroad
crossing the border which is of any great importance
between the Bolan and the Gomal.
North of the Sakki Sarwar, between that pass and the
Gomal, the Sulimani Hills (long supposed to be impenetrable
 from India) are practically riddled with intersecting
tracks and passes of various degrees of difficulty, not one
of which is, however, important, except as affording access
to the border hills in case of military or political necessity.