1 MEKRAN. . 51
2 of the population are much addicted to intoxication, produced
3 by the use of a fermented beverage obtained from dates. The
4 ‘women are represented as very ugly; they are also vary dissolute
5 in their habits, and both sexes impair their constitutions and
6 abridge their lives by excesses. The arms generally in use are
7 the matchlock, sword, shield, and knife. The number of men
8 bearing arms is computed by Grant’ at 25,000, and if they be 7ss9.
9 assumed to be in the proportion of one to eight to the entire
10 population, an estimate thus obtained will make the total num-
11 ber of inhabitants 200,000, being at the rate of two to the square
12 mile.
13 Mekran is divided into a great number of petty districts, the
14 fluctuating extent and limits of which depend altogether on the
15 comparative power of the respective tribes to maintain their
16 possessions. Those in the south-west are partially subject to
17 the Imam of Muscat; those in the north-west, to Persia. The i
18 rest of Mekran had been under the influence of the Khans of
19 Kelat for above two hundred years® previously to the accession ata Persia,
20 of Nusseer Khan, who, about the middle of the eighteenth cen- “~~
21 tury, in consequence of a treaty with Ahmed Shah Durani,9 (Eiph Ace. of
22 obtained undisputed possession of it. The Khans of Kelat have uae
23 made scarcely an effort to maintain their claim to sovereignty,! ' Masson, Kalat,
24 and the country is in a state of independence—consequently in ee
25 a state of confusion, which is thus described by Pottinger ;2— ?07.
26 ‘* All is now anarchy and bloodshed; each district hes its own
27 system of revenge, and travellers or merchants can only move
28 from one part of the country to another when accompanied by
29 an armed party sufficiently strong to repel attack.” ,
30 Mekran is important in a military point of view, as containing |
31 two routes practicable for the march of ep army from Persia to
32 India, The more northern lies among the mountains, at the
33 distance of about a hundred miles from the coast. It is well
34 Supplied with water, and abundance of dates and cattle may tel
35 obtained, but the road is in many places impassable for artillery.
36 The other road lies along the sea-coast, by Jask and Chobar, to
37 Kurrachee, over the level country between the sea and the moun-
38 tains. Grant? says, ‘‘In the part of it that I travelled I expe- *538.
39 rienced no. want of water, except in a small tract of forty miles,
40 between Shirahan and Serik, where the water is soon dried up in
41 the wells; but this is of less consequence, as they are numerous.
42 E2