The affairs of Balochistan had for some time been in an unsettled state, owing to differences that had arisen between the ruling chief and some of his most powerful feudal barons. Matters had grown worse, and, at the time of our arrival here, several of the tribal chiefs were in open rebellion, and had taken the field against the Khán of Calát, over whose troops, it appears, they had gained the advantage in more than one encounter. Owing to these disturbances, the direct and ordinary route through Balochistan by the Bolán Pass was closed. There were two alternative routes, namely, that by Tal Chhotiyálí, to the north of the Bolán, and that by the Míloh Pass to its south. The first is described as an easy road, and has the advantage of leading direct into the Peshín valley; moreover, it is a route hitherto untraversed by Europeans. But these advantages and desiderata were annulled and counterbalanced, as far as we were concerned, by the perilous nature of the route in the vicinity of Mount Chapper, occupied by the lawless and savage tribe of Kákarr, notorious robbers, who are restrained by the fear of neither God nor devil, and much less of man. The Míloh Pass route, although nearly a hundred and ninety miles longer than that by the Bolán, was consequently, thanks to the sound judgment of Sir William Merewether (for which we subsequently found good reason to be grateful), decided on as the road for us to proceed by. Our camp having gone ahead at daylight, under escort of two native commissioned officers and forty troopers of the Sindh Irregular Horse, we set out from the hospitable mansion of Sir William Merewether, Commissioner of Sindh, at nine o’clock in the morning of the 8th January 1872, and clearing the station, presently entered on a vast desert plain. At about three miles we crossed the line of the British frontier, and at two miles more reached Mumal, the first habitation in the territory of the Khán of Calát or Kelat. It is a collection of eighteen or twenty mean hovels, the occupants of which were the personification of poverty and wretchedness. Here we bade adieu to Captain R. G. Sandeman, Deputy Commissioner of Dera Gházi, who, with a party of Mazári horsemen, accompanied us thus far, and mounting our camels, set out at a swinging trot across the desert towards Barshori, thirty miles distant, turning our backs upon civilisation, and hurrying into the regions of discord and barbarism. We were accompanied by Pír Ján, son of Muhammad Khán, the Khán of Calát’s agent at Jacobabad, and eight of his horsemen.