he Harnai route to Quetta,
but the seams are thin and the quality poor. A somewhat thick and viscid
form of mineral oil is met with at Khattan in the Marri country; and
petroleum of excellent quality has been found in the Sherani hills and
probably occurs in other portions of the Suliman Range. Sulphur has long
been worked on a small scale in the Koh-i-Sultan, the largest of the
volcanoes of western Baluchistan.

_Races._--Within the Baluchistan half of the desert are to be found
scattered tribes of nomads, called Rekis (or desert people), the Mohamadani
being the most numerous. They are probably of Arab origin. This central
desert is the Kir, Kej, Katz or Kash Kaian of Arabic medieval geography and
a part of the ancient Kaiani kingdom; the prefix Kej or Kach always
denoting low-level flats or valleys, in contradistinction to mountains or
hills. The Mohamadani nomads occupy the central mountain region, to the
south of which lie the Mashkel and Kharan deserts, inhabited by a people of
quite different origin, who possess something approaching to historical
records. These are the Naushirwanis, a purely Persian race, who passed into
Baluchistan within historic times, although the exact date is uncertain.
The Naushirwanis appear to be identical with the Tahuki or Tahukani who are
found in Perso-Baluchistan. (A place Taoce is mentioned by Nearchus, by
Strabo and by Ptolemy.) They are a fine manly race of people, in many
respects superior to their modern compatriots of Iran. Between the
Naushirwanis of the Kharan desert and Mashkel, and the fish-eating
population of the coast, enclosed in the narrow valleys of the Rakshan and
Kej tributaries, or about the sources of the Hingol, are tribes
innumerable, remnants of races which may be recognized in the works of
Herodotus, or may be traced in the records of recent immigration. Equally
scattered through the whole country, and almost everywhere recognizable, is
the underlying Persian population (Tajik), which is sometimes represented
by a locally dominant tribe, but more frequently by the agricultural slave
and bondsman of the general community. Such are the Dehwars or Dehkans, and
the Durzadas (_Derusiaei_ of Herod. i. 125), who extend all through Makran,
and, as slaves, are called Nakibs. The Arabs have naturally left their mark
most strongly impressed on the ethnography of Baluchistan. All Rind tribes
claim to be of Arab origin and of Koraish extraction. As the Arabs occupied
all