It is only lately that Makran has lapsed again into a mere geographical expression. Twenty years ago our maps told us nothing about it. It might have been, and was, for all practical purposes, as unexplored and unknown as the forests of Africa. Now, however, we have found that Makran is a country of great topographical interest as well as of stirring history. And when we come to the days of Arab ascendency, when Arab merchants settled in the country; when good roads with well-marked stages were established; when, fortunately for geography, certain Western commercial travellers, following, _longo intervallo_, the example of the Chinese pilgrims--men such as Ibn Haukal of Baghdad, or Istakhri of Persepolis--first set to work to reduce geographical discovery to systematic compilation, we can take their books and maps in our hands, and verify their statements as we read. It is true that they copied a good deal from each other, and that their manner of writing geographical names was obscure, and leaves a good deal to be desired--a fault, by the way, from which the maps of to-day are not entirely free--yet they are on the whole as much more accurate than the early Greek geographers as the area of their observations is more restricted. We may say that Makran and Sind are perhaps more fully treated of by Arab geographers than any other portion of the globe by the geographers who preceded them; and as their details are more perfect, so, for the most part, is the identification of those details rendered comparatively easy by the nature of the country and its physical characteristics. With the exception of the coast-line the topography of Makran to-day is the topography of Makran in Alexandrian days. This is very different indeed from the uncertain character of the Indus valley mediæval geography. There the extraordinary hydrographical changes that have taken place; the shifting of the great river itself from east to west, dependent on certain recognized natural laws; the drying up and total disappearance of ancient channels and river-beds; the formation of a delta, and the ever-varying alterations in the coast-line (due greatly to monsoon influences), leave large tracts almost unrecognizable as described in mediæval literature. Makran is, for the most part, a country of hills. Its valleys are narrow and sharply defined; its mountains only passable at certain well-known points, which must have been as definite before the Christian era as they are to-day; and it is consequently comparatively easy to follow up a clue to any main route passing through that country.