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Updated: May 10, 2025
The first day's work after Noundra was rough, so much so that the camels could scarcely struggle through the deep sand, or surmount the steep, pathless ridges of slippery rock that barred our progress every two or three miles.
I was not, on the whole, sorry to leave Gwarjak. But one European, Colonel M of the Indian service, had visited Gwarjak for fifteen years prior to my visit. My road thither from Noundra has never been traversed save by natives, and it was, perhaps, more by good luck than good management that we came through successfully.
I should add that the so-called roads of Baluchistán are nothing more than narrow, beaten paths, as often as not entirely obliterated by swamp or brushwood. Beyond Noundra, where we left the main track to strike northwards for Gwarjak, there was absolutely nothing to guide us but occasional landmarks by day and the stars at night.
With the exception of the Lakh Pass leading over a chain of hills about eighteen miles due west of Beïla, the road to Noundra was as flat as a billiard-table.
There was absolutely no shade not a tree of any kind visible from the day we left Beïla till our arrival at Dhaïra about midday on the 31st of March. Scarcity of water was our greatest difficulty. At Noundra it had been salt and brackish; at Kanéro we searched in vain for a well.
Noundra, which was reached on the 30th of March, was a mere repetition of Jhow. Neither houses nor natives were visible, though we passed occasional patches of cultivated ground. About five miles west of this we left the beaten track and struck out due north for Gwarjak, which, according to my calculation, lay about seventy miles distant.
Barring the intense monotony, the journey was not altogether unenjoyable. To reach Noundra it took us five days. This may appear slow work, but quicker progress is next to impossible in a country where, even on the regular caravan-road, the guides are constantly losing the track, and two or three hours are often wasted in regaining it.
Traffic is now, therefore, usually carried on by means of the safer trade-routes through British Sindh, whereby the saving of time is considerable, and chances of robbery much lessened. The latter track we were to follow as far as Noundra, ninety miles distant.
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