The McDonogh farm school, about 12 m. N.W., with a farm of 835 acres, a printing-office, and carpenter and machine shops prepares poor boys to enter any college in the country. The institution owes its origin to a bequest left by John McDonogh. Among the professional schools are the university of Maryland and Baltimore University--each of which offers courses in law, medicine and dentistry--the Baltimore Medical College, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Woman's Medical College, the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, the Maryland College of Pharmacy (since 1904 part of the university of Maryland), the Baltimore Law School, St Joseph's Seminary and St Mary's Seminary, which, established by the Society of St Sulpice in 1791, is said to be the oldest Catholic theological seminary in the United States. The city also has a Polytechnic Institute, as well as high schools for white and for coloured pupils. The principal libraries are those of Johns Hopkins University, Peabody Institute, Maryland Historical Society, and the Bar Association; and the Enoch Pratt, the New Mercantile, and Maryland Diocesan (Protestant Episcopal).
The charitable institutions of Baltimore are numerous. Several such institutions supported wholly or in part by the state of Maryland (_q.v._) are located here, and besides these there are scores of others. A representative list includes:-- the Charity Organization Society, the primary object of which is to organize the work of the others; the Baltimore Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor, which seeks to discourage indiscriminate alms-giving; the Bay View asylum or city poorhouse; the Children's Aid Society; the Thomas Wilson Fuel-Saving Society, for furnishing coal at low rates; the Woman's Industrial Exchange, for assisting women in need to support themselves; Johns Hopkins hospital, noted for the excellence of its equipment especially for heating and ventilating; Saint Joseph's general hospital; hospital for the women of Maryland of Baltimore city; nursery and child's hospital; Baltimore eye, ear and throat charity hospital; Maryland hospital for the insane; the Sheppard asylum, intended especially for the cure of the insane; the Sheppard and Enoch Pratt hospital; the Baltimore orphan asylum; Saint Vincent's infant asylum; the Thomas Wilson sanatorium for children, intended for children under three years of age, who are suffering from disease, during the warm summer months; the Free Summer Excursion Society, for affording a change of air to the indigent sick; home for the incurables; homes for the aged; homes for friendless children; institutions for the blind; and institutions for the deaf and dumb.
Water for the city taken from Jones's Falls and Gunpowder river a few miles N. of the city limits, is brought through tunnels, and is stored in eight reservoirs having an aggregate capacity of 2275 million gallons. The whole system is owned by the municipality and can furnish about 300 million gallons daily. After the fire $10,000,000 was appropriated for a new sewage system (begun 1906). In 1900 the Maryland legislature empowered the city to borrow $1,350,000 to establish a municipal lighting plant, but in 1909 private concerns still supplied the streets with light.
_Commerce_.--The harbour, which consists of three parts, is excellent. Its entrance at Fort McHenry is a channel 600 ft. wide, with a minimum draft (1907) of 31 ft. of water. The depth is continued with an increased width for a mile and a quarter to near Fells' Point, where the width is contracted to one-fourth of a mile with a depth of 16 ft. Above this entrance it widens into an ellipse a mile long, half a mile broad and 15 ft. deep. The third or inner harbour has a depth of 14 ft. and penetrates far into the city. Vessels of the largest class can lie at the Locust Point wharves and Canton, and vessels of 4000 tons can use the inner harbour W.
of the mouth of Jones's Falls. By 1905 $5,000,000 had been appropriated since the great fire for new docks. In 1908 the city ranked fourth among the Atlantic ports of the United States in the amount of its exports ($82,113,496), and fourth in the amount of its imports ($23,722,045).
[v.03 p.0289] That Baltimore has grown rapidly as a manufacturing city since 1880 is seen from the fact that in that year there were but 3683 manufacturing establishments, with a total annual product valued at $78,417,304, as compared with 6359 establishments (of which 2274 were under the factory system) in 1900 producing commodities valued at $161,249,240 ($135,107,626 under the factory system); in 1905 there were 2163 establishments under the factory system with a total annual product valued at $151,546,580, an increase of 12.2% in the five years. The city ranked eighth among the manufacturing centres of the United States, as regards the value of products, in the three successive censuses of 1880, 1890 and 1900.
In 1905 it was ninth. Baltimore is noted particularly as the most important centre in the United States of the canning and preserving industry. The output in 1905 ($5,981,541) of the city's establishments for the canning and preserving of fruits and vegetables was 7.7% of that of the whole United States; in 1900 it had been 15% of the country's total. What seems to have been the first oyster-canning establishment in America was built in Baltimore (by a Thomas Kensett) in 1820, and oyster-canning as a distinct industry on a permanent footing was begun here in 1850. The term "cove oysters," now applied to canned oysters everywhere, was originally applied to the oysters found in the coves on the W. side of the Chesapeake Bay, above the mouth of the Potomac. Up to 1900, after which year oyster canneries began to be built in the southern states, especially in Mississippi, Baltimore was the centre of the oyster-canning industry.
Baltimore is also a well-known centre for the manufacture of clothing, in which in 1905 ($22,684,656) it ranked fourth among the cities of the United States; for cigar and cigarette-making (1905, $4,360,366); for the manufacture of foundry and machine shop products (1905, $6,572,925), of tinware (1905, $5,705,980), of shirts (1905, $5,710,783), of cotton-duck (the output of sail-duck being about three-fourths of the total for the United States), bricks (about 150,000,000 annually), and fertilizers; it also manufactures furniture, malt liquors, and confectionery, and many other commodities in smaller amounts. The markets, especially the Lexington market, are noted for the abundance and great variety of their produce. The proximity of coal-mines, the abundance and variety of food supplies furnished by the state, the great quantity and variety of the city's manufactured goods, the excellent shipping facilities, and the consequent low cost of living, are prominent features of the physical life of the city.
_Government_.--Although the charter under which Baltimore is governed came into effect as late as 1898, it is only the second one for the city, the first one having been in force for 101 years. The mayor is now elected for a term of four years; he must be at least twenty-five years of age and must have property in the city valued at $2000 or more, on which he shall have paid taxes for two years preceding his election. Great responsibility is centred upon him by giving him power to appoint the heads of departments and sub-departments, subject to the approval of the second branch of the council, and permitting him to remove at pleasure for six months after an appointment; in appointing a board or commission, however, he is required to choose the members from more than one political party. He has five days in which to veto an ordinance, and an affirmative vote of three-fourths of the members of each branch of the council is required to pass an ordinance over his veto. The council, constituting the legislative department, consists of two branches. The first branch is composed of one member from each ward, elected for a term of four years; the second branch of two members from each of four districts, and a president elected by the city at large, all for a term of four years; a property qualification is prescribed for members of each branch. All municipal officers are elected in May in order to separate municipal from state and national elections. No street franchise can be granted for a longer term than twenty-five years, and the right to regulate the exercise of each and every franchise is reserved to the mayor and council. A board of estimate, composed of the mayor, the city solicitor, the comptroller, the president of the second branch of the city council, and the president of the board of public improvements, has control over appropriations, the council having power to decrease the amount of any item but not to enlarge it. To create a debt for any purpose other than to meet a temporary deficiency, the mayor and council must first obtain the consent of both the state legislature and the city electorate. The department of education is intrusted to an unsalaried board of nine commissioners, appointed by the mayor with the approval of the second branch of the council for a term of six years, three retiring every two years. This board appoints a superintendent, six or more assistant superintendents, and the teachers of the high schools and the Polytechnic Institute, also the other teachers, but only according to the superintendent's recommendation on the basis of merit.
_History_.--Baltimore was named in honour of the Lords Baltimore, the founders of the province of Maryland, but no settlement was made here until nearly 100 years after the planting of the colony; meanwhile at least two other town-sites, on which it was hoped permanent towns might be established, had received the same name, but nothing came of either.
Finally, however, while the provincial legislature was still engaged in the practice of directing places to be laid out for towns, where, as events proved there was nothing to give these towns more than a mere paper existence, that body in 1729 directed seven commissioners to purchase 60 acres of land on the N. side of the Patapsco and lay it out in sixty equal lots as the town of Baltimore. Three years later, at the instance of the same body, Jones-Town (Old Town) was laid out on the opposite side of Jones's Falls, and in 1745 these two towns were consolidated. About the same time the resources of the interior, for which Baltimore was to become a trade centre, were being rapidly developed by the Germans. Prior to 1752, in which year there were only twenty-five houses with two hundred inhabitants, the growth of the city had indeed been slow; but only a year or two later wheat loaded in its harbour was for the first time shipped to Scotland; during the war between the French and the English at this time some of the unfortunate Acadians found new homes here; in 1767 Baltimore was made the county seat; by the beginning of the War of Independence its population had grown to 6755; and in 1780 it was made a port of entry. The city early became an important shipping centre; during both the War of Independence and the War of 1812 many privateers were sent out from it, and in the interval between these wars, the ship-owners of Baltimore had their share in the world's carrying trade, the "Baltimore clippers" becoming famous. In 1797 Baltimore received its first charter, having been governed until then from Annapolis and through commissions with very limited powers; at the same time the Fells' Point settlement, founded about 1730 by William Fells, a ship carpenter, was annexed. During the War of Independence, the Continental Congress, frightened from Philadelphia in 1776, sat for several weeks in a hall in W. Baltimore Street near Liberty Street; during the same war also fortifications were first erected on the site of the present Fort McHenry. This fort effectively protected the city in 1814 when attacked by the British, and it was during the attack that Francis Scott Key, detained on one of the British attacking vessels, composed the "Star Spangled Banner." In 1860 all three of the candidates opposed to Lincoln--Douglas, Breckinridge and Bell--were nominated here, and here in 1864 President Lincoln was nominated for a second term. The city has been the meeting-place of other important conventions, and is sometimes called "The Convention City." At the outbreak of the Civil War on the 19th of April 1861, the Sixth Massachusetts regiment, while passing through Baltimore, was attacked by a mob and several men were killed on both sides; in the following month the city was subjected to military rule and so continued until the close of the war. From 1856 to 1860 Baltimore was under the control of the American or Know-Nothing party, and suffered greatly from election riots and other disorders, until as a remedy the control of the police system was taken from the mayor and council and exercised by the state government. Soon after the Civil War a Democratic "machine" got firm control of the city, [v.03 p.0290] and although a struggle to overthrow the machine was begun in earnest in 1875 by a coalition of the reform element of the Democratic party with the Republican party, it was not till 1895 that the coalition won its first decisive victory at the polls. Even then the efforts of the Republican mayor were at first thwarted by the council, which passed an ordinance over his veto, taking from him the power of appointment and vesting it in themselves; the Maryland court of appeals, however, soon decided that the council had exceeded its powers, and an important outcome of the reform movement was the new charter of 1898.
Annexations of suburban territory in 1888 and 1890 greatly increased the area of the city.
AUTHORITIES.--J. H. Hollander, _Guide to the City of Baltimore_ (Baltimore, 1893); T. P. Thomas, "The City Government of Baltimore" (in _Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science_, Baltimore, 1896); St G. L. Sioussat, "Baltimore, the Monumental City" (in L. P. Powell, _Historic Towns of the Southern States_, New York, 1900); J. T. Scharf, _Chronicles of Baltimore_ (Baltimore, 1874).
BALTZAR, THOMAS (_c._ 1630-1663), German violinist, was born at Lubeck. He visited England in 1656 and made a great impression on Evelyn and Anthony Wood. In 1661 he was appointed leader of the king's famous band of twenty-four violins, but his intemperate habits cut short his career within two years. Nothing like his violin-playing had ever been heard in England before, and in all probability the instrumental music of Henry Purcell owes much to its influence.
BA-LUBA, a Bantu negroid race with several subdivisions; one of the most important and cultivated peoples of Central Africa. They are distributed over eight degrees of longitude between Lakes Tanganyika, Mweru and Bangweulu in the east, and the Kasai in the west. In the east, where they are found in the greatest racial purity, they founded the states of Katanga, Urua and Uguha; in the west they have intermixed to some extent with the Ba-Kete aborigines, whom they have partially dispossessed, dividing them into two portions, one to the north, the other to the south.
To the western Ba-Luba the name Ba-Shilange has been given. With the Ba-Luba are connected the founders of the great Lunda empire--now divided between Belgian Congo and Angola--ruled by a monarch entitled Muata Yanvo (Jamvo). The westward movement of the Ba-Luba took place in comparatively recent times, the end of the 18th century or the beginning of the 19th.
Shortly afterwards a chief named Kalamba Mukenge founded a large state.
There followed in 1870 a remarkable politico-religious revolution, the result of which was the establishment of a cult of hemp-smoking, connected with a secret society termed _Bena Riamba_; the members of this abandoned their old fetish worship and adopted a form of communism of which the central idea was the blood-brotherhood of all the members. Towards the east hemp-smoking becomes less common.
The Ba-Luba practise circumcision and scar-tattooing is common; tooth-filing is very frequent in the east, though in the west it is comparatively rare; the fashion of dressing the hair is very varied and often extremely fantastic. Their houses, which are built by the women, are rectangular; on the Lulua, however, pile-houses, square in shape, are found. They are an agricultural people, but work in the fields is relegated to the women and slaves; the men are admirable craftsmen and are renowned for their wood-carving, cloth-weaving and iron-work. In the west, bows and arrows are the chief weapons, in the east spears principally are used. The old form of religion still obtains in the east, which was untouched by the communistic movement mentioned, and charms of all sorts, as well as carved anthropomorphic figures, are extremely common. The Ba-Luba are a fine race physically and seem very prosperous, though in the extreme west considerable deterioration, physical, moral and cultural, has taken place.
BALUCHISTAN, a country within the borders of British India which, like Afghanistan, derives its name from its dominant race of inhabitants. It extends from the Gomal river to the Arabian Sea, and from the borders of Persia and Afghanistan to those of the Punjab and Sind. It is divided into two main divisions, British Baluchistan, which is a portion of British India under the chief commissioner, and the foreign territories under the administration or superintendence of the same officer as agent to the governor-general. The former portion, with an area of 9403 sq. m., consists principally of tracts ceded to the British government by Afghanistan under the treaty of Gandamak (1879), and formally declared to be part of British India in 1887. The second class comprises three subdivisions, namely areas directly administered, native states and tribal areas. The directly-administered districts include areas acquired in various ways.
Some portions are held on lease from the khan of Kalat; while others are tribal areas in which it has been decided for various reasons that revenue shall be taken. They include the whole of the Zhob and Chagai political agencies, the eastern portion of the Quetta tahsil and other tracts, among which may be mentioned the Bolan Pass, comprising 36,401 sq. m. in all. The whole of the northern boundary, with the north-eastern corner and the railway which traverses Baluchistan through Quetta up to New Chaman on the Afghan-Baluch frontier, is therefore in one form or other under direct British control. The remainder of the territory (79,382 sq. m.) belongs to the native states of Kalat (including Makran and Kharan) and Las Bela.
Tribal areas, in the possession of the Marri and Bugti tribes, cover 7129 sq. m.
Baluchistan as a whole is a sparsely populated tract covering a larger area than any Indian province save Burma, Madras and Bengal. Three hundred miles of its mountain walls facing the Indus are south of the railway from the Indus to Quetta, and about 250 north of it. The railway with the passes and plains about it, and the dominant hills which surround Quetta, divide Baluchistan into two distinct parts. North of the railway line, hedged in between Afghanistan and the plains of the Indus, stretch the long ridges of rough but picturesque highlands, which embrace the central ranges of the Suliman system (the prehistoric home of the Pathan highlander), where vegetation is often alpine, and the climate clear and bracing and subject to no great extremes of temperature. The average breadth of this northern Pathan district is 150 m., but it narrows to less than 100 m. on the line of the Gomal, and expands to more than 200 m. on the line of the railway.
Here all the main drainage either runs northwards to the Gomal, passing through the uplands that lie west of the Suliman Range; or it gathers locally in narrow lateral valleys at the back of these mountains and then bursts directly eastwards through the limestone axis of the hills, making for the Indus by the shortest transverse route. South of the railway lies a square block of territory, measuring roughly 300 m. by 300, primarily the home of the Brahui and the Baluch; but within that block are included almost every conceivable phase of climate and representatives of half the great races of Asia. Here, throughout the elevated highlands of the Kalat plateau which are called Jalawan, the drainage gathers into channels which cut deep gorges in the hills, and passes eastwards into the plains of Sind.
Beyond and south of the hydrographical area of the Jalawan highlands the rivers and streams of the hills either run in long straight lines to the Arabian Sea, north of Karachi, or, curving gradually westwards, they disappear in the inland swamps which form so prominent a feature in this part of south-west Asia. A narrow width of the coast districts collects its waters for discharge into the Arabian Sea direct. This section includes Makran. Baluchistan thus becomes naturally divided into two districts, north and south, by an intervening space which contains the Sind-Pishin railway. This intervening space comprises the wedge-shaped desert of Kach Gandava (Gandava), which is thrust westwards from the Indus as a deep indentation into the mountains, and, above it, the central uplands which figure on the map as "British Baluchistan"--where lies Quetta. All Baluchistan has now been surveyed. From the great Indus series of triangles bases have been selected at intervals which have supported minor chains of triangulation reaching into the heart of the country. These again have been connected by links of more or less regularity, so that, if the Baluchistan triangulation lacks the rigid accuracy of a "first [v.03 p.0291] class"
system, it at least supports good topography on geographical scales.
[Sidenote: Northern.]
From Domandi, at the junction of the Gomal and Kundar rivers, the boundary between Baluchistan and Afghanistan follows the Kundar stream for about 40 m. to the south-west. It then leaves the river and diverges northwards, so as to include a section of the plain country stretching away towards Lake Ab-i-Istada, before returning to the skirts of the hills. After about 100 m. of this divergence it strikes the Kadanai river, turning the northern spurs of the Toba plateau (the base of the Kwaja Amran (Kojak) Range), and winds through the open plains west of the Kojak. Here, however, the boundary does not follow the river. It deserts it for the western edge of the Toba plateau (8000 ft. high at this point), till it nears the little railway station of New Chaman. It then descends to the plains, returns again to the hills 40 m. south of Chaman, and thenceforward is defined by hill ranges southwards to Nushki. The eastern boundary of this northern section of Baluchistan is the "red line" at the foot of the frontier hills, which defines the border of British India. This part of Baluchistan thus presents a buffer system of independent tribes between the British frontier and Afghanistan. But the independence of the Pathan people south of the Gomal is not as the independence of the Pathans (Waziris, Afridis, &c.) who live north of it. It is true that the Indian government interferes as little with the internal jurisdiction of the tribal chiefs amongst the Pathans of the Suliman Range as it does with that of the northern chiefs; but the occupation of a line of posts on the Zhob river, which flanks that range almost from end to end on the west, places the doors of communication with Afghanistan in British hands, and gives command of their hills. It thus tends to the maintenance of peace and order on the southern frontier to a degree that does not exist in the north.
The central range of the Suliman hills is the dominant feature in the geography of northern Baluchistan. The central line or axis of the range lies a little east of the meridian of 70 E., and it is geologically composed of one or more great folds of the Cretaceous series. Towards the northern extremity of the range occur a group of peaks, which together form an oblong block or "massif" amongst the neighbouring ridges known as "Kaisargarh" amongst the Sherani clansmen who occupy it; and as the "Takht-i-Suliman" (Solomon's throne), generally, on the frontier, from the fact of a celebrated shrine of that name existing near its southern abutment. The massif of the Takht is a high tableland (about 8000 ft. above sea-level), bounded on its eastern and western edges by high, rugged and steep parallel ridges. The western ridge culminates on the north in the peak of Kaisargarh (11,300 ft.), and the eastern in a block, or detached headland, on the south, where rests the immortal "zirat" or shrine (11,070 ft.). This tableland is formed by a huge cap of coral limestone, estimated by Griesbach at from 4000 to 5000 ft. in thickness. At each end the tableland is rent by gorges which deepen, amidst stupendous precipices, to the channel of the Draband or "Gat" on the north, and of the Dhana on the south. These two channels carry the rush of mountain streams from the western slopes of the massif right across the axis of the mountains and through the intervening barrier of minor ridges to the plains of the Indus.
The plateau is covered with a fairly thick growth of the chilghosa or "edible" pine, and a sprinkling of juniper, on the higher slopes. It was ascended and surveyed for the first time in 1883.
From the summit of the Kaisargarh peak a magnificent view is obtained which practically embraces the whole width of northern Baluchistan. Westwards, looking towards Afghanistan, line upon line of broken jagged ridges and ranges, folds in the Cretaceous series overlaid by coarse sandstones and shales, follow each other in order, preserving their approximate parallelism until they touch the borders of Baluchistan. Immediately on the west of the Kaisargarh there towers the Shingarh Mountain, a geological repetition of the Kaisargarh ridge, black with pines towards the summit and crowned with crags of coral limestone. Beyond it are the grey outlines of the close-packed ridges which enclose the lower reaches of the Zhob and the Kundar. As they pass away southwards this grid-iron formation strikes with a gentle curve westwards, the narrow enclosed valleys widening out towards the sources of the rivers, where ages of denudation have worn down the folds and filled up the hollows with fruitful soil, until at last they touch the central water-divide, the key of the whole system, on the Quetta plateau. Thus the upper parts of the Zhob valley are comparatively open and fertile, with flourishing villages, and a cultivation which has been greatly developed under British rule, and are bounded by long, sweeping, gentle spurs clothed with wild olive woods containing trees of immense size. The lower reaches of the Zhob and Kundar are hemmed in by rugged limestone walls, serrated and banded with deep clefts and gorges, a wilderness of stony desolation. Looking eastwards from the Kaisargarh, one can again count the backs of innumerable minor ridges, smaller wrinkles or folds formed during a process of upheaval of the Suliman Mountains, at the close of a great volcanic epoch which has hardly yet ceased to give evidence of its existence. On the outside edge, facing the Indus plains, is a more strictly regular, but higher and more rugged, ridge of hills which marks the Siwaliks. The Baluch Siwaliks afford us strange glimpses into a recent geological past, when the same gigantic mammals roamed along the foot of these wild hills as once inhabited the tangled forests below the Himalaya. Between the Takht Mountain and the Siwaliks, the intervening belt of ridge and furrow has been greatly denuded by transverse drainage--a system of drainage which we now know to have existed before the formation of the hills, and to have continued to cut through them as they gradually rose above the plain level. Where this intervening band is not covered by recent gravel deposits, it exhibits beds of limestone, clays and sandstone with fossils, which, in age, range from the Lower Eocene to the Miocene.
Beyond the Siwaliks, still looking eastwards, are the sand waves of the Indus plain; a yellow sea broken here and there with the shadow of village orchards and the sheen of cultivation, extending to the long black sinuous line which denotes the fringe of trees bordering the Indus. Such is the scene which Solomon is said to have invited his Indian bride to gaze upon for the last time, as they rested on the crags of the southern buttress of the Takht--where his shrine exists to this day. To that shrine thousands of pilgrims, Mahommedans and Hindus alike, resort on their yearly pilgrimages, in spite of its dangerous approach. All this country, so far, is independent Baluchistan within the jurisdiction of the Baluchistan Agency, with the exception of certain clans of the Sheranis on the eastern slopes of the Takht-i-Suliman, north of the Vihowa, who are under the North-West Frontier Province administration. Wedged in between the railway and the Indus, but still north of the railway, is a curious mass of rough mountain country, which forms the southern abutment of the Suliman system. The strike of the main ridges forming that system is almost due north and south till it touches 30 N. lat. Here it assumes a westerly curve, till it points north-west, and finally merges into the broad band of mountains which hedge in the Quetta and Pishin uplands on the north and east.
At this point, as might be expected, are some of the grandest peaks and precipices in Baluchistan. Khalifat on the east of Quetta, flanking the Harnai loop of the Sind-Pishin railway; Takatu to the north; Chahiltan (Chiltan) on the south-west; and the great square-headed Murdar to the south--all overlook the pretty cantonment from heights which range from 10,500 to 11,500 ft. Lying in the midst of them, on an open plain formed by the high-level tributaries of the Lora (which have also raised the Pishin valley to the north), 5500 ft. above the sea, is Quetta. The mass of twisted flexures, the curved wrinkles that end the Suliman system, is occupied by true Baluchis, the Marri and Bugti sections of the great Rind confederation of tribes owning an Arabic origin. There are no Pathans here.
To the north of them are the Bozdars, another Rind clan; and these Rind tribes form the exception to the general rule of Pathan occupation of northern Baluchistan. Amongst the Pathans, the Kakars and Dumars of Pishin, with the Mando Khel of Zhob, are the most prominent tribal divisions.
[Sidenote: Central.]
The curved recession of the Suliman Ranges to the north-west leaves a space of flat alluvial desert to the south, which forms a sort of inlet or bay striking into the Baluchistan mountain system. The point of this desert inlet receives the drainage of two local basins, the Bolan and the Nari.
Both drain south-eastwards from the central Quetta-Pishin plateau and both have served for railway alignment. Being fed by tributaries which for the most part drain narrow valleys where gradual denudation has washed bare the flat-backed slopes of limestone ridges, and which consequently send down torrents of rapidly accumulating rainfall, both these central lines of water-course are liable to terrific floods. The drainage of the Bolan and Nari finally disappears in the irrigated flats of the alluvial bay (Kach Gandava), which extends 130 m. from the Indus to Sibi at the foot of the hills, and which offers (in spite of periodic Indus floods) an opportunity for railway approach to Baluchistan such as occurs nowhere else on the frontier. Kach Gandava, whilst its agricultural development has in no way receded, is now rivalled by many of the valleys of the highlands. Its climate debars it from European occupation. It is a land of dust-storms and poisonous winds; a land where the thermometer never sinks below 100 F. in summer, and drops below freezing-point in winter; where there is a deadly monotony of dust-coloured scenery for the greater part of the year, with the minimum of rain and the maximum of heat. The Quetta and Pishin plateau to which it leads is the central dominant water-divide of Baluchistan and the base of the Kandahar highway.
[Sidenote: British.]
An irregularly-shaped block of upland territory, which includes all the upper Lora tributaries, and the Toba plateau beyond them; resting on the Kwaja Amran (Kojak) Range (with an advanced loop to include the Chaman railway terminus) on the west; reaching south through Shorarud to Nushki; including the basins of the Bolan and Nari as far as Sibi to the south-east; stretching out an arm to embrace the Thal Chotiali valley on the east, and following the main water-divide between the Zhob and Lora on the north, is called British Baluchistan. It is leased from Kalat, and forms a distinctive province, being brought under the ordinary forms of civil administration in British India. Beyond it, north and south, lies independent Baluchistan, which is under British political control. Its administrative staff is usually composed of military officers. The degree of independence enjoyed by the various districts of Baluchistan may be said to vary in direct proportion to their [v.03 p.0292] distance from Quetta.
No part of Baluchistan is beyond the reach of the political officer, but there are many parts where he is not often seen. The climate of British Baluchistan is dry and bracing--even exhilarating--but the extremes of temperature lead to the development of fever in very severe forms. On the whole it is favourable to European existence.
[Sidenote: Southern.]
South-west of the dividing railway lies the great block of Southern Baluchistan. Within this area the drainage generally trends south and west, either to the Arabian Sea or to the central swamps of Lora and Mashkel. The Hab river, which forms the boundary west of Karachi; the Purali (the ancient _Arabus_), which drains the low-lying flats of Las Bela; the Hingol (the ancient _Tomerus_) and the Dasht, which drain Makran, are all considerable streams, draining into the Arabian Sea and forming important arteries in the network of internal communication. An exception to the general rule is found in the Mulla, which carries the floods of the Kalat highlands into the Gandava basin and forms one of the most important of the ancient highways from the Indus plains to Kandahar. The fortress of Kalat is situated about midway between the sources of the Bolan and the Mulla, near a small tributary of the Lora (the river of Pishin and Quetta), about 6800 ft. above sea-level, on the western edge of a cultivated plain in the very midst of hills. (See KALAT.) To the north are the long sweeping lines of the Sarawan ridges, enclosing narrow fertile valleys, and passing away to the south-west to the edge of the Kharan desert. East and south are the rugged bands of Jalawan, amongst which the Mulla rises, and through which it breaks in a series of magnificent defiles in order to reach the Gandava plain. Routes which converge on Kalat from the south pass for the most part through narrow wooded valleys, enclosed between steep ridges of denuded hills, and, following the general strike of these ridges, they run from valley to valley with easy grades. Kalat is the "hub" or centre, from which radiate the Bolan, the Mulla and the southern Lora affluents; but the Lora drains also the Pishin valley on the north; the two systems uniting in Shorawak, to lose themselves in the desert and swamps to the west of Nushki, on the road to Seistan. Sixty miles south of Kalat, and beyond the Mulla sources, commences another remarkable hydrographic system which includes all southern and south-western Baluchistan. To the west lies the Kharan desert, with intermittent river channels enclosed and often lost in sand-waves ere they reach the Mashkel swamps on the far borders of Persia.
To the south-west are the long sweeping valleys of Rakshan and Panjgur, which, curving northwards, likewise discharge their drainage into the Mashkel. Directly south are the beginnings of the meridional arteries, the Hab, the Purali and the Hingol, which end in the Arabian Sea, leaving a space of mountainous seaboard (Makran) south of the Panjgur and west of the Hingol, which is watered (so far as it is watered at all) by the long lateral Kej river and several smaller mountain streams. Thus southern Baluchistan comprises four hydrographical sections. First is the long extension from Kalat, southwards, of that inconceivably wild highland country which faces the desert of Sind, the foot of which forms the Indian frontier. This is the land of the Brahui, and the flat wall of its frontier limestone barrier is one of the most remarkable features in the configuration of the whole line of Indian borderland. For the first 60 m.
from the sea near Karachi the Hab river is the boundary of Sind, and here, across the enclosing desolation of outcropping ridges and intervening sand, a road may be found into Makran. But from the point where the boundary leaves the Hab to follow the Kirthar range not a break occurs (save one) in 150 m. of solid rock wall, rising many thousands of feet straight from the sandy plain. The one break, or gorge, which allows the Kej waters to pass, only forms a local gateway into a mass of impracticable hills. Secondly, to the west of this mountain wilderness, stretching upwards from the sea in a wedge form between the Brahui highlands and the group of towering peaks which enclose the Hingol river and abut on the sea at Malan, are the alluvial flats and delta of the Purali, forming the little province of Las Bela, the home of the Las Rajput. In this hot and thirsty corner of Baluchistan, ruled by the Jam or Cham, there is a fairly wide stretch of cultivation, nourished by the alluvial detritus of the Purali and well irrigated. In a little garden to the south of the modern town of Bela (the ancient _Armabel_) is the tomb of Sir Robert Sandeman, who spent the best part of an energetic and active life in the making of Baluchistan.
[Sidenote: Western boundary.]
The boundary between Baluchistan and Afghanistan, starting from Nushki, cuts across the Lora hamun, leaving the frontier post of Chagai to Baluchistan, and from this point to the Malik Siah Koh it is based partly on the central mountainous water-divide already referred to, and partly runs in straight lines through the desert south of the salt swamps of the Gaud-i-Zirreh. It thus passes 50 m. to the south of the Helmund, entirely shutting off that valley and the approach to Seistan between the Helmund and the Gaud-i-Zirreh (the only approach from the east in seasons of flood) from Baluchistan. But it leaves a connected line of desert route between Nushki and Seistan, which is open in all ordinary seasons, to the south, and this route has been largely developed, posts or serais having been established at intervals and wells having been dug. There is already a promising khafila traffic along it and the railway has been extended from Quetta to Nushki.
_Geology._[1]--The mountain ranges of Baluchistan consist chiefly of Cretaceous and Tertiary beds, which are thrown into a series of folds running approximately parallel to the mountain ridges. The folds are part of an extensive system arranged as if in a festoon hanging southwards between Peshawar and Mount Ararat, but with the outer folds looped up at Sibi so as to form the subsidiary festoon of the Suliman and Bugti Hills.
Outside the folds lie the horizontal deposits of the Makran coast, and within them lies the stony desert of north-western Baluchistan. In the broader depressions between the mountain ridges the beds are said to be but little disturbed. Besides the Cretaceous and Tertiary beds, Jurassic rocks are known to take a considerable part in the formation of the hills of British Baluchistan. Triassic beds lie along the south side of the upper Zhob, and _Fusulina_ limestone has also been found there. With the exception of the later Tertiary beds the deposits are mostly marine. But in the upper Cretaceous and lower Tertiary, especially in north-western Baluchistan, there is an extensive development of volcanic tuffs and conglomerates, which are probably contemporaneous with the Deccan Traps of India. Great masses of syenite and diorite were intruded during the Tertiary period, and within the curve of the folded belt a line of recent volcanic cones stretches from western Baluchistan into eastern Persia. In Baluchistan these volcanoes appear to be extinct; though the Koh-i-Tafdan, beyond the Persian frontier, still emits vapours at frequent intervals. The lavas and ashes which form these cones are mostly andesitic. Mud "volcanoes" occur upon the Makran coast, but it is doubtful whether these are in any way connected with true volcanic agencies.
So far as is known, the mineral wealth of Baluchistan is inconsiderable.
Coal has been worked in the Tertiary beds along the Harnai route to Quetta, but the seams are thin and the quality poor. A somewhat thick and viscid form of mineral oil is met with at Khattan in the Marri country; and petroleum of excellent quality has been found in the Sherani hills and probably occurs in other portions of the Suliman Range. Sulphur has long been worked on a small scale in the Koh-i-Sultan, the largest of the volcanoes of western Baluchistan.
_Races._--Within the Baluchistan half of the desert are to be found scattered tribes of nomads, called Rekis (or desert people), the Mohamadani being the most numerous. They are probably of Arab origin. This central desert is the Kir, Kej, Katz or Kash Kaian of Arabic medieval geography and a part of the ancient Kaiani kingdom; the prefix Kej or Kach always denoting low-level flats or valleys, in contradistinction to mountains or hills. The Mohamadani nomads occupy the central mountain region, to the south of which lie the Mashkel and Kharan deserts, inhabited by a people of quite different origin, who possess something approaching to historical records. These are the Naushirwanis, a purely Persian race, who passed into Baluchistan within historic times, although the exact date is uncertain.
The Naushirwanis appear to be identical with the Tahuki or Tahukani who are found in Perso-Baluchistan. (A place Taoce is mentioned by Nearchus, by Strabo and by Ptolemy.) They are a fine manly race of people, in many respects superior to their modern compatriots of Iran. Between the Naushirwanis of the Kharan desert and Mashkel, and the fish-eating population of the coast, enclosed in the narrow valleys of the Rakshan and Kej tributaries, or about the sources of the Hingol, are tribes innumerable, remnants of races which may be recognized in the works of Herodotus, or may be traced in the records of recent immigration. Equally scattered through the whole country, and almost everywhere recognizable, is the underlying Persian population (Tajik), which is sometimes represented by a locally dominant tribe, but more frequently by the agricultural slave and bondsman of the general community. Such are the Dehwars or Dehkans, and the Durzadas (_Derusiaei_ of Herod. i. 125), who extend all through Makran, and, as slaves, are called Nakibs. The Arabs have naturally left their mark most strongly impressed on the ethnography of Baluchistan. All Rind tribes claim to be of Arab origin and of Koraish extraction. As the Arabs occupied all southern Baluchistan and Seistan from a very early date, and finally spread through the Sind valley, where they remained till the 12th century, their genealogical records have become much obscured and it is probable that there is not [v.03 p.0293] now a pure Arab in the country. It is as builders or engineers that they have established their most permanent records, Makran being full of the relics of their irrigation works constructed in times when the climatic conditions of Baluchistan must have been very different from what they are now. Lower Sind also contains a great wealth of architectural remains, which may be found to the west of the Indus as well as in the delta. One particular tribe (the Kalmats), who left their name on the Makran coast and subsequently dominated Bela and Sind, west of the Indus, for a considerable period, exhibit great power of artistic design in their sepulchral monuments. The Dravidian races (Brahuis), who are chiefly represented by the Kambaranis and Mingals or Mongals (the latter are doubtless of Tatar origin), spread through southern Baluchistan as well as the eastern hills, and are scattered irregularly through the mountain tracts south of Kharan. The ancient Oreitae mentioned by Arrian are probably represented by the tribe of Hot, who, as original masters of the soil, are exempt from taxation. The name Brahui is (according to Bellew) but a corruption of Ba-rohi (or "hillmen") in a language derived from Sanskrit which would represent the same term by Parva-ka. So that the [Greek: Parikanioi] (Herod, iii. 92) may be recognized as surviving in the Brahui, and in the name (Parkan) of a mountain-bred stream which is a tributary of the Hingol. Amongst other aboriginal tribes to whom reference is made by very early writers are the Boledi, who give their name to the Bolida valley, a tributary of the Kej.
The Boledi were once the ruling race of southern Baluchistan, which was originally called Boledistan, and it seems possible that this may be the real origin of the much-disputed name of the country generally. Bola was an Assyrian term for Bael or Bel, the god of the Phoenicians and Druids. The Boledi ruling family were in 1906 represented by but one living member, a lady, who was a government pensioner. The fast-diminishing Sajidis (Sajittae) and Saka (Sacae) are others of the more ancient races of Baluchistan easily recognizable in classical geography. Most recent of all are the Gitchkis. The Gitchkis derive from a Rajput adventurer who flourished in the early part of the 17th century. They are now the dominant race in Panjgur and Kej, from whence they ousted the Boledis. For three generations they remained Hindus; since then there has arisen amongst them a strange new sect called Zikari, with exceedingly loose notions of morality. The sect, however, appears to be fast merging into orthodox Mahommedanism. A Baluch (or rather Makran) race which deserves attention is that of the Gadaras, who once gave the name Gadrosia to Southern Baluchistan. According to Tate the Gadaras are now represented by Sidi half-castes--those Makrani "boys" who are so well known in the mercantile marine as stokers and firemen. It seems unlikely that this modern admixture of Asiatic and African blood represents the "Asiatic Ethiopian" of Herodotus, which was more probably a direct connexion of the Himyaritic Arab builders of "bunds" and revetments who spread eastwards from Arabia.
Bellew finds in the Gadara the Garuda (eagles) of Sanskrit, who were ever in opposition to the Naga (snakes) of Scythic origin. Southern Baluchistan affords a most interesting field for the ethnographer. It has never yet been thoroughly explored in the interests of ethnographical science.
The Baluch character is influenced by its environment as much as by its origin, so that it is impossible to select any one section of the general community as affording a satisfactory sample of popular Baluch idiosyncrasies. They are not a homogeneous race. Peoples of Arab extraction intermixed with people of Dravidian and Persian stock are all lumped together under the name of Baluch. The Marri and Bugti tribes, who occupy the most southern buttresses of the Suliman Mountains, are Rind Baluchis, almost certainly of Arab extraction. They came to Sind either with the Arab conquerors or after them, and remained there mixed up with the original Hindu inhabitants. The Arab type of Baluch extends through the whole country at intervals, and includes all the finest and best of Baluch humanity. Taking the Rind Baluch as the type opposed to the Afridi Pathan, the Baluch is easier to deal with and to control than the Pathan, owing to his tribal organization and his freedom from bigoted fanaticism or blind allegiance to his priest. The Baluch is less turbulent, less treacherous, less bloodthirsty and less fanatical than the Pathan. His frame is shorter and more spare and wiry than that of his neighbour to the north, though generations have given to him too a bold and manly bearing. It would be difficult to match the stately dignity and imposing presence of a Baluch chief of the Marri or Bugti clans. His Semitic features are those of the Bedouin and he carries himself as straight and as loftily as any Arab gentleman. Frank and open in his manners, fairly truthful, faithful to his word, temperate and enduring, and looking upon courage as the highest virtue, the true Baluch of the Derajat is a pleasant man to have dealings with. As a revenue payer he is not so satisfactory, his want of industry and the pride which looks upon manual labour as degrading making him but a poor husbandman. He is an expert rider; horse-racing is his national amusement, and the Baluch breed of horses is celebrated throughout northern India. Like the Pathan he is a bandit by tradition and descent and makes a first-rate fighting man, but he rarely enlists in the Indian army. He is nominally a Mahommedan, but is neglectful of the practices of his religion.
The relations of the modern Baluch with the government of India were entirely transformed by the life work of Sir Robert Sandeman. (_q.v._).
[Sidenote: Strategic interest.]
The strategical position of Great Britain in Baluchistan is a very important factor in the problem of maintaining order and good administration in the country. The ever-restless Pathan tribes of the Suliman hills are held in check by the occupation of the Zhob valley; whilst the central dominant position at Quetta safeguards the peace and security of Kalat, and of the wildest of the Baluch hills occupied by the Marris and Bugtis, no less than it bars the way to an advance upon India by way of Kandahar. Nominally all the provinces and districts of Baluchistan, with the exception of the ceded territory which we call British Baluchistan, are under the khan of Kalat, and all chiefs acknowledge him as their suzerain. But it may be doubted if this suzerainty was ever complete, or could be maintained at all but for the assistance of the British government. The Baluch is still essentially a robber and a raider (a trait which is common to all tribes), and the history of Baluchistan is nothing but a story of successful robberies, of lawless rapine and bloodshed, for which plunder and devastation were accounted a worthy and honourable return.
[Sidenote: Climate.]
Extensive changes have taken place in the climatic condition of the country--changes which are some of them so recent as to be noted by surveyors who have found the remains of forests in districts now entirely desiccated. Possibly the ordinary processes of denudation and erosion, acting on those recent deposits which overlie the harder beds of the older series, may have much to say to these climatic changes, and the wanton destruction of forests may have assisted the efforts of nature; but it is difficult to understand the widespread desiccation of large areas of the Baluch highlands, where evidences of Arab irrigation works and of cultivation still attest to a once flourishing agricultural condition, without appealing to more rapidly destructive principles for the change.
There is ample proof throughout the country of alterations of level within recent geologic periods; and there have even been compressions, resulting in a relative rise of the ground, over the crests of anticlinal folds, within historic record. "Proof that this compression is still going on was given on 20th December 1892, when a severe earthquake resulted from the sudden yielding of the earth's crust along what appears to be an old line of fault, west of the Kawaja Amran range, whereby an adjustment took place indicated by a shortening of some 2 ft. on the railway line which crossed the fault." Nor should the evidences of active volcanic agency afforded by the mud volcanoes of the coast be overlooked. It is probably to climatic changes (whatever their origin may have been), rather than to the effects of tribal disturbances, that the Arab's disappearance from the field of trade and agriculture must be attributed.
[Sidenote: Population.]
The total area of Baluchistan is 132,315 sq. m. and its population in 1901 was 914,551. The population is largely nomadic. The fact that so many as 15,000 camels have been counted in the Bolan Pass during one month of the annual Brahui migration indicates the dimensions which the movement assumes. The religion of the country is so overwhelmingly Mahommedan that out of every 100,000 inhabitants 94,403 are Mussulman, and only 4706 Hindus, while the balance is made up by Christians, Sikhs and other denominations. Out of the total number 280 in the thousand are literates.
The chief languages spoken are vernaculars of Baluchistan, Pushtu, Panjabi, Urdu and Sindhi, The [v.03 p.0294] Baluchi language belongs to the Iranian branch of the Aryan subfamily of the Indo-European family. It is divided into two main dialects which are so different that speakers of the one are almost unintelligible to speakers of the other. These two dialects are separated by the belt of Brahui and Sindhi speakers who occupy the Sarawan and Jalawan hills, and Las Bela. Owing probably to the fact that Makran was for many generations under the rule of the Persian kings, the Baluchi spoken on the west of the province, which is also called Makrani, is more largely impregnated with Persian words and expressions than the Eastern dialect. In the latter the words in use for common objects and acts are nearly all pure Baluchi, the remainder of the language being borrowed from Persian, Sindhi and Panjabi. There is no indigenous literature, but many specimens of poetry exist in which heroes and brave deeds are commemorated, and a good many of these have been collected from time to time. The philological classification of the Brahui dialect has been much disputed, but the latest enquiries, conducted by Dr G. A. Grierson, have resulted in his placing it among the Dravidian languages. It is remarkable to find in Baluchistan a Dravidian tongue, surrounded on all sides by Aryan languages, and with the next nearest branch of the same family located so far away as the Gond hills of central India. Brahui has no literature of its own, and such knowledge as we possess of it is due to European scholars, such as Bellew, Trumpp and Caldwell. Numerically the Brahuis are the strongest race in Baluchistan. They number nearly 300,000 souls. Next to them and numbering nearly 200,000 are Pathans. After this there is a drop to 80,000 mixed Baluchis and less than 40,000 Lasis (Lumris) of Las Bela. There are thirteen indigenous tribes of Pathan origin, of which the Kakars (_q.v._) are by far the most important, numbering more than 100,000 souls. They are to be found in the largest numbers in Zhob, Quetta, Pishin and Thal-Chotiali, but there are a few of them in Kalat and Chagai also. The most important Baluch tribes are the Marris, the Bughtis, the Boledis, the Domkis, the Magassis and the Rinds. Owing partly to the tribal system, and partly to the levelling effect of Islam, nothing similar to the Brahmanical system of social precedent is to be found in Baluchistan.