'Travels in Beloochistan and Sinde; accompanied by a geographical and historical account of those countries, with a map.' [‎319] (361/476)

11
HISTORY OF BELOOCHISTAN. 329
quently induce me to revert to them, in order to discriminate with
greater precision.
The seasons ot the two mountainous provinces of Jhalawan and
Sarawan are, like those of European countries, divided into spring,
summer, autumn, and winter. The former is usually supposed to
commence between the middle and end of February, and continues
two months, or perhaps longer, a circumstance which rests entirely
on the forwardness, or otherwise, of the season. The summer lasts
till the beginning of August, and the autumn then follows, until the
cold, or a fall of snow, announces the arrival of winter, an event"'
that commonly happens in October ; that portion of the year is, con
sequently, accounted much longer than any of the others. * The
heat is at no time unpleasantly great, unless it may be a few days at
the close of summer; but, on the other hand, the cold is intense
during the winter, and attended by a north-easterly wind, that blow
ing without intermission, and sometimes with extreme violence, not
only throughout that season, but the spring months, brings with it
heavy falls of snow, sleet, and rain, and it may also be remarked as a
thing rather unusual in Europe, that here the very hardest frosts are
experienced during the height of these winds, which appear to be the
only periodically prevailing ones in these provinces.
Captain Christie and I were at Kelat, from the 9th of February
till the 6th of March, 1810, and towards the latter end of our sojourn
there the natives were in daily hopes of a fall of rain, which was to
them the harbinger of spring, and expected to last for three weeks
or a month; this is the only annual fall they have, but, in addition
* None of the natives of Beloochistan seem to be aware, that any unerring principle
can be laid down, to mark the commencement of the seasons, which they contend must
depend on the state of the weather, a mode of calculation that renders it a mere accident
whether any two years correspond. In February, 1811, it snowed incessantly for fifteen
days in the vicinity of Kelat, and the frost set in early in October following: so that re
jecting the winter, the other three seasons of that year agreeable to the Belooche theory,
did not include more than seven months and a few days,