the women
hastily shut up all the tents, and a picturesque old fellow stalked me
about, seeming to become extremely anxious when I was photographing, a
proceeding which he did not quite understand. A young man on a camel was
coming towards us singing, and inside one of the tents I heard a great
commotion evidently caused by the approaching voice. An old woman, in
fact, peeped out from a fissure and gave a powerful squeak. She leapt out
excitedly, nearly tearing down the whole tent in the process, and, crying
bitter tears, rushed with extended arms towards the camel man.

The young fellow having hastily dismounted, a most touching scene of
motherly affection ensued, for, as the old man explained to me, he was
her son. The poor shrivelled creature threw her arms around his neck and
kissed him fondly, first on one cheek and then upon the other, after
which, having affectionately taken his face between her hands, she
impressed another long, long kiss in the middle of his forehead. She
caressed him to her heart's content, the boy looking quite pathetically
graceful and reverent under the circumstances. A similar treatment was
meted out to him by his sisters, and they all shed tears of delight at
seeing one another. Family affection, as well as affection among
tribesmen, is indeed extraordinarily effusive and genuine among Beluch of
all classes.

The women I saw at this camp wore a sort of long shirt with a sash, and
had broad bead and shell bracelets round their wrists.

Mahommed Raza-chah was 3,820 feet above sea level, and the track from
this point went south east (to 110 deg. bearings magnetic). There was a
_duffadar_ in charge of two stations with four _sawars_ and four camels.
It was all one could do upon this road to find anything of some interest,
barring the geological formation of the country and the movement of the
sand, which rather began to pall upon one after months of nothing else,
and when one came across a patch of tamarisk trees a little taller than
usual one could not take one's eyes off them, they seemed such
interesting objects in the monotonous marches.

Twelve miles from Mahommed Raza, tamarisks seemed to flourish, for water
was to be found some twenty feet below the surface. A well had been bored
for the use of caravans, and the water was quite good. The track was
somewhat undulating in this portion of the journey, rising, however, to
no greater elevation than 100 feet, but quite steep enough for c