KALAT, the capital of Baluchistan, situated in 29 deg. 2' N. and 66 deg.
35' E., about 6780 ft. above sea-level, 88 m. from Quetta. The town
gives its name also to a native state with an area, including Makran and
Kharan, of 71,593 m. and a population (1901) of 470,336. The word Kalat
is derived from _kala_--a fortress; and Kalat is the most picturesque
fortress in the Baluch highlands. It crowns a low hill, round the base
of which clusters the closely built mass of flat-roofed mud houses which
form the insignificant town. A _miri_ or citadel, having an imposing
appearance, dominates the town, and contains within its walls the palace
of the khan. It was in an upper room of this residence that Mehrab Khan,
ruler of Baluchistan, was killed during the storming of the town and
citadel by the British troops at the close of the first Afghan War in
1839. In 1901 it had a population of only 2000. The valleys immediately
surrounding the fortress are well cultivated and thickly inhabited, in
spite of their elevation and the extremes of temperature to which they
are exposed. Recent surveys of Baluchistan have determined the position
of Hozdar or Khozdar (27 deg. 48' N., 66 deg. 38' E.) to be about 50 m.
S. of Kalat. Khozdar was the former capital of Baluchistan, and is as
directly connected with the southern branches of the Mulla Pass as Kalat
is with the northern, the Mulla being the ancient trade route to Gandava
(Kandabe) and Sind. In spite of the rugged and barren nature of the
mountain districts of the Kalat highlands, the main routes through them
(concentrating on Khozdar rather than on Kalat) are comparatively easy.
The old "Pathan vat," the trade highway between Kalat and Karachi by the
Hab valley, passes through Khozdar. From Khozdar another route strikes a
little west of south to Wad, and then passes easily into Las Bela. This
is the "Kohan vat." A third route runs to Nal, and leads to the head of
the Kolwa valley (meeting with no great physical obstruction), and then
strikes into the open high road to Persia. Some of the valleys about
Kalat (Mastang, for instance) are wide and fertile, full of thriving
villages and strikingly picturesque; and in spite of the great
preponderance of mountain wilderness (a wilderness which is, however, in
many parts well adapted for the pasturage of sheep) existing in the
Sarawan lowlands almost equally with the Jalawan highlands, it is not
difficult to understand the importance which the province of Kalat,
anciently called Turan (or Tubaran), maintained in the eyes of medieval
Arab geographers (see BALUCHISTAN). New light has been thrown on the
history of Kalat by the translation of an unpublished manuscript
obtained at Tatta by Mr Tate, of the Indian Survey Department, who has
added thereto notes from the Tufhat-ul-Kiram, for the use of which he
was indebted to Khan Sahib Rasul Baksh, mukhtiardar of Tatta. According
to these authorities, the family of the khans of Kalat is of Arabic
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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