Beyond this he could no longer pursue his march along the coast in order to keep in touch with the fleet. The huge barrier of the Malan range, which abutted direct on the sea, stopped his way. There was no goat track in those days, such as, after infinite difficulty, helped the telegraph line over. He was consequently forced into the interior. Taking the only route that was possible, he followed up the Hingol till he could turn the Malan by the first available pass westward. Nothing here, we are told, has altered since his days. The magnificent peaks and mountains which surround the sacred shrine of Hinglaz are “everlasting hills,” and it was through these that he proceeded to make his way. The windings of the Hingol river he followed for 40 miles up to its junction with the Parkan. The bed of this stream leads westward from the Hingol, and skirts the north of the Taloi range. Alexander had thus for the first time a chance of turning the Malan block, and directing his march westward to the sea. He therefore pushed his way through this low valley, which was flanked by the Taloi hills, that rose on his left to a height of 2000 feet. All the region at their base was a wilderness of sandy hillocks and scanty grass-covered waste, which could afford his troops no supplies and no shelter from the fierce autumn heat. All the miseries of his retreat, which are so graphically depicted by his historians, were concentrated into the distance between the Hingol and the point where he regained the coast. The Parkan route should have led him to the river Basol, but having lost his way, he must have emerged near the harbour of Pasnî, almost on the line of the present telegraph. The distance from the Hingol to Pasnî our author estimates at about 200 miles; but in Curzon’s well-known map of Persia it appears as if only 150.