nd
tents--Beluch hospitality--Villages.

Let us take a walk through the fast growing city of Nushki. Half a dozen
years ago there was next to nothing here, but now we have a beautiful
_Tashil_--a large walled enclosure, with a portico all round inside and
circular towers at the four corners. The actual Tashil office, occupying
the north-east corner, has a most business-like appearance, with handsome
iron despatch-boxes, clocks that mark each a different time, but look
most imposing all the same, and folio-documents folded in two and
carefully arranged in piles upon the floor by the side of wise-looking
clerks squatting in their midst. The Tashildar himself, Sardar Mahommed
Yuzaf Khan Popalzai, is a much respected man of Afghan birth, of the
Bamezi Popalzai Durranis, or descendants of the tribe reigning in Cabul
before Mahommed Zeis took the throne, when his ancestors and the Saddo
Zeis were forcibly banished from the country.

[Illustration: The New City of Nushki. (overlooking the Tashil
Buildings.)]

The Tashildar, a most intelligent officer, seems to understand the Beluch
chiefs thoroughly, treats them with extreme consideration--in private
life dealing with them as honoured guests, and politically as Government
subjects who must adhere to their loyalty to the King.

There are also within the Tashil wall a post and telegraph office and a
treasury, a neat little red brick building, with strong iron gates and
huge padlocks. Prisons are on either side of the treasury, so that one
single sentry may keep an eye on both the prisoners and the local
Government funds.

When I visited the place an old man in chains was squatting in the sun
outside his cell. I inquired what crime he had committed. His daughter,
they said, was betrothed to a young man, and at the time appointed for
the marriage the old man did not bring the girl to the bridegroom as
stipulated. He had consequently already been here in prison for two
months to pay for his folly, and would possibly have to remain some
months longer, for, according to Beluch law--which is in force here--such
a crime deserves severe punishment.

Another prisoner--a cattle lifter--had a most hideously criminal head.
Prisoners were very well cared for, had nice clean cells given them, and
were provided with plenty of food and blankets.

The Tashil establishment consisted of one Tashildar, one _Sarishtedar_
(clerk who reads papers), one Judicial _Moharrir_, one _Kanungo_