recently British;
_viz._, the country of the Biluch, and the country of the Afghans. And
here we must prepare for new terms; for hearing of _tribes_ rather than
_castes_; and for finding a polity more like that of the Jews and Arabs
than the institutions of the Brahmins.

_The Biluch._--_Biluchi-stan_ means the country of the _Biluch_, just as
_Hindo-stan_ and _Afghani-stan_ mean that of the Hindus and Afghans. It
is the south-western quarter of Persia, that is the chief area of the
tribes in question. Hence, however, they extend into Kutch Gundava,
Scinde, and Multan, and the northern parts of Gujerat. Between Kelat,
the Indus, and the sea, they are mixed with Brahui.

The Biluchi is a dialect of the Persian--sufficiently close to be
understood by a Persian proper.

There are no grounds for believing the Biluch to have been other than
the aborigines of the country which they occupy; as their advent lies
beyond the historical period; beyond the pale of admissible tradition.
We may, perhaps, be told that they came from Arabia; an origin which
their Mahometanism, their division into tribes, and their manners,
suggest; an origin, too, which their physiognomy by no means impugns.
Yet the tradition is not only unsupported, but equivocal. The _Arabia_
that it refers to is, probably, the country of the ancient _Arabitae_;
and that is neither more nor less than a part of the province of Mekran,
within--or nearly within--the present Biluch domain. Hence, they may be
_Arabite_, though not _Arabian_; or rather the old _Arabitae_ of the
_Arabius fluvius_ were Biluch.

But the Arabs are not the only members of the Semitic family with which
the Biluch have been affiliated. A multiplicity of Jewish
characteristics has been discerned. These are all the more visible from
their contrast to the manners of the Hindus. Intermediate in appearance
to the Hindu and the Persian, the Biluch "cast of feature is certainly
Jewish;"[49] his tribual divisions are equally so; whilst the Levitical
punishment of adultery by stoning, and the transmission of the widow of
a deceased brother to the brothers who survive, have been duly
recognized as Hebrew characteristics. We know what follows all this; as
surely as smoke shows fire. Levitical peculiarities suggest the
ubiquitous decad of the lost tribes of Israel. We shall soon hear of
these again.

Tribes under chiefs--hereditary succession--pride of blood--clannish
sentiments--feuds between tribe a