'Military Report of the Nushki-Chagai-Western Sinjarani Country' [‎20v] (45/302)

ahead with my riding camels as far as possible so as to pick out the
track for the main camp which was following. I was told there
was a very difficult bit ahead through sand and I was anxious to
accomplish as much of this as possible before dark, as the moon did
not rise till 1 a. m. The sand-hills commenced at about the 8th
mile and about 2 miles beyond this I collected a la'ga quantity of
luel and made a bonfire and then rode on. A couple of miles
beyond this I repeated this process and then went on again. Unfor
tunately it had become dark by now and we could only advance
very slowly. After proceeding a little way we found ourselves in
deep sand amongst sand-hills and it was evident we were right off
the track. Ihe guide, however, seemed pretty confident that it
would be alright and we should soon get on to the track again,
and so we blundered on for about another mile. At this point,
however, I refused to go any further, as we were in a terrible mess,
and, had the main camp followed in our tracks, which it was likely
they would do, they could never have been extricated from the
jumble of sand-hills. We therefore decided to retrace our steps, but
it was so dark we could not see to do this and so just followed a
general line. Fortunately after a while we saw the glow of one
of the bonfires we had previously lighted, and by marching on this
by sheer good luck we found ourselves, in due course, on the track
again. As it was no good attempting to go on further, then in the
dark we it another fire and decided to halt till the main camp came
up, which they did very soon afterwards. On explaining the mess
Aye had got into to the two guides with the main camp, we learnt
the pleasing intelligence that, had we attempted to continue in our
previous track across the sand-hills, we should never have got out
of them, as they continued in that direction for miles. It appears
that at spot where we got off the track if, instead of goim* into
the sand-hills, we had followed the bed of a nala known as the
Katcho nala which comes down from the hills between Kirtaka
and Maki, we should have met with no difficulties at all and the
track thenceforth right away to Kirtaka would have been very easy
going. With the assistance of a lantern, which I was able to
supply to the guides, they were able to get on to this track and,
beyond the fatigue of a long march, there were no further difficul-
Ues along the route, and the head of our party eventually reached
Kirtaka the next morning about 6-15 a.m., the rear-guard coming
in at about 8 o'clock. The total distance from Zirreh to Kirtaka
could not have been less than about 32 miles. The men were
exhausted when they got in, and, as I have already stated, I do not
think, under the circumstances, they could have accomplished the
distance without the assistance of the spare camels.
“The sum total of these remarks is that I do not think the
route is a sat a one to march along except by day or by bright
moonlight, and then only Avith good guides. The water at Zirreh,-
in its present condition, is about as bad as it can be and, as the
arches from Bupr-i-Khusta are very long, viz., 30, 26 and