In Afghanistan, with its province of Balochistan, both included in the country of Khorassan, are the original Tajiks of Persian origin, the Afghans or Pukhtúns (the dominant race), and the Hazárah of Tartar invasions, together with Kazzilbash Mughals, and Uzbaks and Turks of various tribes, Hindkis and Kashmiris, and others of Indian origin, all in the northern tracts. In the southern are Brahoe and Baloch, of different origin and diverse speech; the Dihwár or Tajik, of Persian race and tongue, and a mixture of different tribes, such as Jats of Sind, Hindus of Shikárpúr, and a few mongrel tribes of nobody knows where. In our passage through the Brahoe country I collected the material for a concise grammar and vocabulary of that language. It will be found in the Appendix. I had hoped to have been able to add similar grammars and vocabularies of the Baloch and Sistan dialects; but the adverse circumstances of our sojourn in these countries prevented my acquiring a sufficient knowledge of their languages, and I find that the data collected are much too scanty to permit of my making the attempt, though, from what I did gather, I believe both are closely allied to the Persian. CHAPTER I. We left Multán by the morning train on the 26th December 1871, and after a ride of near an hour, alighted at Sher Sháh Ghát on the river bank. Here we took leave of our kind host, Colonel Stuart Graham, Commissioner of the Division, and embarked on board the river steamer _Outram_. By noon we had loosed our moorings, and the _Outram_, wedged in between two unwieldy flats lashed to her one on either side, was fairly started down-stream of the river Chenáb. We had hardly proceeded two hours when we were brought to a stand-still by “something” wrong with the engine. Whatever this mysterious “something” may have been, it necessitated our mooring alongside the river bank for the rest of the day. A stout plank thrown across from one of the flats served to communicate with the shore, which is here a dead level of loose sand, evidently a recent deposit by floods. The banks here are very low, so too is the stream between them at this season, as we soon discovered, to the no small trial of our patience. They—the banks—are of loose sand, flush with the general surface of the plain as far as the eye can reach on either side. They are perpetually sucking up moisture from the stream washing them, and then, becoming overweighted, subside into the river, to be restored again in the succeeding year’s floods.