34
The Arabs not only held possession of all the Indus
Valley for centuries after its conquest by Muhammad
Kasim, but they had colonised Southern Baluchistan, and
turned Makrdn into an Arab dependency, long ere. that
conquest was effected. Muhammad Kasim in his advance
on India was largely dependent on the assistance afforded
by the Arab governor of Baluchistan for the facility with
which he traversed the country. Having once reached
Sind there is historical evidence to show that the original
Arab conquerors (who were recruited chiefly from Syria)
never returned to their own country. They took ¢ wives
of the people,” and as a natural consequence the Arab
tongue ceased to be spoken in the course of a few generations.
 Hardly a word of Arabic (excepting in technical
geographical expressions) is to be found in the vocabulary
of the Baluch frontier now, and little or nothing remains
of that remarkable and most successful invasion of India,
except the Semitic features of a vast majority of the Rinds,
and a tenacious clinging to traditions and genealogies
which represent every Baluch chief of importance as a
member of the prophet’s own tribe.
Roughly speaking, the Rinds (Arabs), Naoshirwanis, z.e.
the people of Kharan (Persians), and Brahuis (Dravidians),
divide Southern Baluchistan between them. Northern
Baluchistan, from Peshin to the Gomal, is in the hands of
an ancient Pushtu-speaking people, represented by many
tribes and tribal sections, of whom it is sufficient to say
that they were mostly there in the days of Herodotus,
before Alexander entered India. They are Pathans whose
origin is lost in antiquity, and it is only in deference to
political convenience that they are included within the
borders of official Baluchistan.

[INDIA

Geographical information dealing with the general configuration of
Baluchistan has been acquired within the last twenty years through the
agency of the Survey of India. Previous to the commencement of systematic
 geographical surveys in that country there was little or nothing
known which proved to be of any great use in the compilation of existing
maps. Consequently the author is indebted chiefly to his own notes for
the information contained in this chapter, so far as it deals with modern