nes and plastered with mud. The channel between the two chambers
is filled entirely with stones, and the upper chamber entirely with
earth.

Some few of the graves I saw had fallen through, but most were in
excellent preservation and appeared to be well looked after by the
people. That the Beluch are provident people we had palpable proof in
this cemetery, where one saw several graves ready for likely future
occupants.

Another Mesjid, a circular one seven feet in diameter, was further to be
noticed to the north-east of the graveyard. It had yellow marble pillars
of sugar-loaf and cylindrical shapes and was enclosed by a neat stone
wall.

A Beluch marriage is a practical business transaction by which a girl
fetches more or less money, camels or horses, according to her personal
charms, beauty, and social position. Beluch women, when young, are not at
all bad-looking with well-cut features and languid eyes full of animal
magnetism like the Persian, and they seem shy and modest enough. The
Beluch men have great respect for them, and treat them with
consideration, although--like all Orientals--they let women do all the
hard work, which keeps the women happy.

A marriage ceremony in Beluchistan bears, of course, much resemblance to
the usual Mussulman form, such as we have seen in Persia, with variations
and adaptations to suit the customs and circumstances of the people.

A good wife costs a lot of money in Beluchistan, although occasionally,
in such cases as when a man has been murdered, a wife can be obtained on
the cheap. The murderer, instead of paying a lump sum in cash, settles
his account by handing over his daughter as a wife to the murdered man's
son. Bad debts and no assets can also be settled in a similar manner if
the debtor has sufficient daughters to make the balance right.

Under normal circumstances, however, the girl is actually bought up, the
sum becoming her property in case of divorce. When the marriage ceremony
takes place and the relations and friends have collected, the first step
is for the bridegroom to hand over the purchase sum, either in cash,
camels, or sheep. A great meal is then prepared, when the men sit in a
semicircle with the bridegroom in the centre. Enormous quantities of food
are consumed, such as rice saturated with _ghi_ (butter), piles of
_chapatis_ (bread) and sheep meat. A man who pays four or five hundred
rupees for a wife is expected to kill at least twenty or thirty sheep