The course of the Chambal, not reckoning the minor sinuosities, is upwards of five hundred miles;[1.45] and along its banks specimens of nearly every race now existing in India may be found: Sondis, Chandarawats, Sesodias, Haras, Gaur, Jadon, Sakarwal, Gujar, Jat,[1.46] Tuar, Chauhan, Bhadauria, Kachhwaha, Sengar, Bundela; each in associations of various magnitudes, from the substantive state of the little republic communes between the Chambal and Kuwari[1.47] [17]. =The Western Desert.=—Having thus sketched the central portion of Rajasthan, or that eastward of the Aravalli, I shall give a rapid general[1.48] view of that to the west, conducting the reader over the ‘Thal ka Tiba,’ or ‘sand hills’ of the desert, to the valley of the Indus. =The Luni River.=—Let the reader again take post on Abu, by which he may be saved a painful journey over the Thal.[1.49] The most interesting object in this arid ‘region of death’ is the ‘salt river,’ the Luni, with its many arms falling from the Aravalli to enrich the best portion of the principality of Jodhpur, and distinctly marking the line of that extensive plain of ever-shifting sand, termed in Hindu geography Marusthali, corrupted to Marwar. The Luni, from its sources, the sacred lakes of Pushkar and Ajmer, and the more remote arm from Parbatsar to its embouchure in the great western salt marsh, the Rann, has a course of more than three hundred miles. In the term Eirinon of the historians of Alexander, we have the corruption of the word Ran or Rann,[1.50] still used to describe that extensive fen formed by the deposits of the Luni, and the equally saturated saline streams from the southern desert of Dhat. It is one hundred and fifty miles in length; and where broadest, from Bhuj to Baliari, about seventy:[1.51] in which direction the caravans cross, having as a place of halt an insulated oasis in this mediterranean salt marsh. In the dry season, nothing meets the eye but an extensive and glaring sheet of salt, spread over its insidious surface, full of dangerous quicksands: and in the rains it is a dirty saline solution, up to the camels’ girths in many places. The little oasis, the Khari Kaba, furnishes pasture for this useful animal and rest for the traveller pursuing his journey to either bank. =The Mirage.=—It is on the desiccated borders[1.52] of this vast salt marsh that the illusory phenomenon, the mirage, presents its fantastic appearance, pleasing to all but the wearied traveller, who sees a haven of rest in the embattled towers, the peaceful hamlet,[1.53] [18] or shady grove, to which he hastens in vain; receding as he advances, till “the sun in his might,” dissipating these “cloud-capp’d towers,” reveals the vanity of his pursuit.