main arteries of the general drainage system; but the most important features of the country are the long lateral valleys between the ridges, the streams of which feed the main rivers. These are often 8 or 10 miles in width, with a flat alluvial bottom, and one may ride for mile after mile along the open plain with clay or sand spread out on either hand, and nothing but the distant wall of the hills flanking the long and endless route. Some of these valleys are filled with a luxuriance of palm growth (the dates of Panjgur, for instance, being famous), and it is this remarkable feature of long, lateral valleys which, through all the ages, has made of Makran an avenue of approach to India from the west. The more important ranges lie to the north, facing the deserts of Central Baluchistan. It is in the solid phalanx of the coastal band of hills that the most marked adherence to the gridiron, or ridge and furrow formation, is to be found. Exceptionally, out of this banded system arises some great mountain block forming a separate feature, such as is the massive crag-crowned cliff-lined block of Malan, west of one of the most important rivers of Makran (the Hingol), to which reference has already been made. From it an arm stretches southwards to the sea, and forms a square-headed obstruction to traffic along the coast, which almost defeated the efforts of the Indo-Persian telegraph constructors when they essayed to carry a line across it, and did entirely defeat the intentions of Alexander the Great to conduct his army within sight of his Indus-built fleet. It is within the folds of this mountain group that lies hidden that most ancient shrine of Indo-Persian worship, to which we have already referred in the story of Alexander's retreat.