Sonmiani was a more important port a century ago than it is now that Karachi has absorbed the trade of the Indus coast; but even then the mud flats which render the village so unapproachable from the coast were in process of formation, and it was only with favourable conditions of tide that this wretched and long overlooked little seaport could be reached. Sonmiani, however, may yet again rise to distinction, for it is a notable fact that the facility for reaching the interior of Baluchistan and the Afghan frontier by this route, which facility decided its selection by Christie and Pottinger, is no less nowadays than it was then. The explanation of it lies in the fact that the route practically turns the frontier hills. It follows the extraordinary alignment of their innumerable folds, passing between them from valley to valley instead of breaking crudely across the backbone of the system, and slips gently into the flat places of the plateau land which stretch from Kharan to Kandahar. The more obvious reason which presented itself to these early explorers was doubtless the avoidance of the independent buffer land of Sind. They experienced little difficulty, in spite of many warnings of the dangers in front of them, when they left Sonmiani for Bela. At Bela they interviewed an interesting and picturesque personality in the person of the Jam, and were closely questioned about the English and their proceedings. Apparently the Jam was prepared to accept their description of things European generally, until they ventured to describe a 100-gun warship and its equipment. Such an astounding creation he was unable to believe in, and he frankly said so. From Bela the great northern high-road led to the old capital, Khozdar, through a district infested with Brahui robbers; but there was no better alternative, and the two officers followed it. On the whole, the Brahui tribespeople treated them well, and there was no serious collision. Khozdar was an important centre in those days, with eight hundred houses, and certain Hindu merchants from Shikarpur drove a thriving business there. Nothing was more extraordinary in the palmy days of Sind than the widespread commercial interests of Shikarpur. Credit could be obtained at almost all the chief towns of Central Asia through the Shikarpur merchants, and it was by draft, or "hundi," on Hindu bankers far and wide that travellers were able to keep themselves supplied with cash as they journeyed through these long stages.