tood a curious high natural stone pillar.

By moonlight, but with clouds fast gathering and threatening rain, we
eventually reached Mushki-Chah at about ten in the evening, having
travelled some 36 miles. The distance by road from Sahib Chah would have
been 28 miles 660 yards. Here we found the remainder of my caravan which
had arrived some hours previously.

CHAPTER XXXIII

Mushki-Chah--A Ziarat--Beluch dwellings--The Beluch and the
camera--Characteristics of Beluch--Three wells of good water at
Kundi--The Kuh-i-Sultan and the "Spear of the Sultan"--A big
Ziarat at Kundi--Nineteen hours on the saddle--Tretoh--Cold
wind--Parallel rows of sand barchans--Startling effect of
mirage--Chah Sandan--Brahui salutation--Belind Khan and his good
points--A respected officer--Praying at the Ziarat.

Mushki-Chah (3,570 feet) is rather more interesting than other stations
we had passed, because of the greater number of Beluch one saw about.
Here, too, however, one's sojourning had to be curtailed, for unluckily
the water was not only brackish--to which one does not object so
much--but had a sulphurous taste, with a sickening smell--not dissimilar
from that of an old-fashioned hospital ward, when the windows have not
been opened for several days. Otherwise it had no drawback.

There were four filthy pools from which water was obtainable and which
reminded us of a previous experience at Girdi in Sistan. The water of one
well had a nasty green coating on the surface; the second was of a deep
yellow colour. The other two wells were slightly cleaner but they, too,
were of a suspicious colour--that of strong tea. A cluster of a dozen
palm trees or so had grown near this water, and a little way beyond on a
sand and gravel bank was a Ziarat with a low surrounding wall of black
stones.

The Ziarat was of an ovoid shape, it just missed being circular, about 18
feet long and 16 feet broad. An entrance had been made to the east and a
sort of altar constructed to the west by north west--which is about the
accurate direction of Mecca from this spot. A high pole on which flew
red, white, and blue rags was fixed into the altar. The altar--if one may
call it so--was a mass of blocks of beautifully coloured marble. Some
pieces resembled the best Sienna marble, others were capriciously
streaked in white and dark brown; other large pieces were quite
transparent and resembled large blocks of camphor or ice