'Military Report of the Nushki-Chagai-Western Sinjarani Country' [‎10v] (25/302)

8
The M or jin
river.
The Scrap
JNala.
The Me ehkel
riyer.
, 1° of its large drainage area there is very liftle water in
it, and that is salt and undrinkable. It is covered with a saline
deposit and is probably the ancient bed of an inland lake.
During heavy rain the floods which rush down the Mathkel river
cover the surface of the hamun with water.
Jn appearance it greatly resembles the Rann of Kachh ; but
the salt which covers the latter is mueh purer and whiter in ap
pearance. In the eastern part of the hamun there is a place where
salt is rudely gathered by breaking the surface crust and selecting
those fragments that contain least earth. This spot is sacred in
the eyes of the people, being under the immediate protection of the
saint called Shall Sultan. It is the great centre from which the
people of the country to the west obtain their supplies of salt.
Into, or in the direction of, this hamun runs the drainage of all
the surrounding country. It forms the basin of all the drainage
of the Koh-i Sultan and Malik Nam ranges on the north, the
chief affluent being the Morjin nala, the natural continuation of
the Bulo river, which lost itself in the Dalbandin plain ; after receiv
ing the drainage of the Gat-i-Barote and hills to the north the
•M<>rjin flows into the Morjin hamun. The overflow from the Mor
jin hamun (or dann as it is sometimes called) escapes by the Meshki
rivei to the Hamun-i-Mashkel. Its bed is dry except when in
flood which clears in a few hours. Water can, however, be found in
most places in its bed, and in the beds of its numerous affluents by
digging to a depth of 13 to 15 feet.
On the east from the Kharan hills only one nala runs in the
direction of the hamun, viz., the Sorap river which rises at Kadoizonk
and flows for 30 miles in a south-westerly direction when its bed
becomes obliterated by moving sand-dunes. It probably runs under
ground to the hamun.
' Water runs for 2 or 3 miles below Sorap springs, but it is
decidedly brackish.
From the south comes the drainage of the Koh-i-Sianeh range
a laig'R number of nalas, and through the range flows the Mashkel
river, which rising in the op-lying valleys o£ flic Sarhad, forces its
way through the Sahz-i-Koh by the Tank-i-Grawag, and then
after flowing in a north-east direction through a fairly broad
vallev, some 9 miles wide, again forces its way through the Siahan
umi kunaren ranges by a defile similar to the first, called theTank-
i-Zoratti, and entering the sandy Mashkel plain meets the B.bi
Lori Kaur about 28| miles from Zoratti. Just before it enters the
great Mashkel hamun the whole bed has a width of about 13
miles divided into several small surface channels, the largest of
which is called tho Kuhnador and has water iu it.
This river is of some military importance, as the highway from
Panjgur to Seistan lies along it. There appears to be at all times
an abundant supply of water in its bed, or under its surface, and
both the bed and the banks are in many places well covered with
fuel and camel-grazing. * « ™ *
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