Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 19, 2025
The caravan consisted of eighteen camels, four Baluchis, Kamoo, and Gerôme, with an escort of ten soldiers of the Djam of Beïla, smart-looking, well-built fellows in red tunics, white baggy trousers, and dark-blue turbans. Each man, armed with a Snider rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition, was mounted on a rough, wiry-looking pony.
A request to be permitted to ascend the hill and visit the fort was met by an emphatic refusal. I then, as a last resource, inquired, through Kamoo, if my hospitable host had any objection to my walking through the village. "If you like," was the reply; "but I will not be responsible for your safety. This is not Kelát. The English are not our masters. We care nothing for them."
It was only when I had prevailed upon him to take a cigar that my visitor became more at his ease. Having lit his cheroot, he took a long pull and passed it on to one of his followers, who repeated the performance. When it had gone the round twice it was thrown away; and Chengiz, turning to Kamoo, gravely asked if I wished for anything before he retired for the night.
This, my interpreter proceeded to explain, is a hot poisonous wind peculiar to these districts, and perhaps the greatest danger run by travellers in Baluchistán. The warm breeze, as Kamoo called it, that we experienced was, though almost unbearable, not dangerous, while the dreaded juloh has slain its hundreds of victims.
Shouts of "Kamoo!" from the crowd brought a tall, good-looking native, clad in white, out of an adjacent hut, who, I was relieved to find, was the interpreter destined to accompany us to Kelát. The camels and escort were, he said, ready for a start on the morrow, if necessary. In the mean time there was a bare but clean Government bungalow at our disposal, and in this we were soon settled.
"The chief wishes you to know he has twenty more like this," said Kamoo, pointing to Malak's villainous-looking suite. "Tell him I am very glad to hear it," was my reply, politely meant, but which seemed to unduly exasperate the King of Gwarjak. Brushing past me, he burst into the tent, followed by his men, and seated himself on my only camp-stool.
Between Mangachar and Mastung a hot wind arose, which made the eyes smart, and dried up the skin like a blast from a furnace. One's hair felt as it does in the hottest room of a Turkish bath, with the unpleasant addition of being filled with fine gritty sand. "I hope this may not end in a juloh," said Kamoo, anxiously.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking