is the patron saint of Beluch
robbers. Hence these mountains have a reputation as a robber resort. The
Sultan Mountains abound in the assafoetida plant, and in the summer
months traders come in numbers from Afghanistan to collect it."

I was in a great hurry to return to England, and could not afford the
detour entailed by going near enough to photograph the "Spear." Besides,
Major MacMahon gives a capital photograph of it in the _Royal
Geographical Society's Journal_.

At Kundi, a big Ziarat, with many trunks of tamarisk trees, some 10 feet
high, supporting bleached horns, has been erected to the Kuh-i-Sultan.
Hundreds of beautiful pieces of marble and alabaster of all sizes,
colours and shapes have been deposited here, as usual, but the sand is
fast covering the whole Ziarat.

From Kundi the track, which has come in a south-east-east (120 deg. b.m.)
direction, now turned sharply to north-east (60 deg. b.m.). Ten high mud and
stone _neshans_--or _Tejia_ (cairns) as they are called by the
Beluch--have been erected to warn the traveller. Four curious mounds with
tufts of high tamarisk trees upon them are to be seen at Kundi. There is
fair grazing for camels all along. One is specially attracted by the
peculiar stones corroded into all sorts of shapes, strewn all over the
ground.

We made a double march on that day, and--barring the quaint Sultan
Mountains which we saw all along--had but a very flat uninteresting
country all round.

We arrived during the evening at Tretoh, having been nineteen hours on
the saddle. It was bitterly cold at night, the drop in the temperature
being very great immediately after the sun went down. At this station,
too, the water tasted very bad--almost undrinkable--but was not
necessarily unwholesome. We were glad to get into the thana and light up
a big fire in the centre of one of the mud rooms, but no sooner had we
done this than it got so hot that I had to find a cooler abode in the new
bungalow in course of construction, which had not yet a roof.

It was always a marvel to me how the natives could stand the great heat
in the rooms with no draught for the smoke and heat to get away. It
positively roasted one alive, but my men seemed to revel in it. On the
other hand they suffered from the cold to a degree that was also
unaccountable to me. On many occasions I have heard my camel-driver moan
from pain in his frozen toes and fingers, but, true enough, when out in
the open desert the wi