'A Grandfather's Tale: Memoirs being mainly concerned with service in the Indian Army and the Indian Political Service in India and the Persian Gulf from 1932-1947' [‎38r] (75/118)

the children down there in the cold weather, but leave them in Quetta for
the time being. We had had two good years in Quetta, six months at the
Staff College and eighteen months in my time as Assistant Political Agent A mid-ranking political representative (equivalent to a Consul) from the diplomatic corps of the Government of India or one of its subordinate provincial governments, in charge of a Political Agency. ,
and I was now ready for a change, and the semi-independence of the new post
attracted me. Mekran was a huge area, roughly half the size of England,
covering the whole of Southern Baluchistan, with Persia on the West, the
Arabian Sea on the South and the Kirthar range of mountains on the East.
Karachi in Sind Province was the meanest big port, four hundred miles away
by sea. My headquarters were at Panjgur, sometimes known as Isai Kalat,
which was three hundred and twenty-six miles South of Quetta and two hundred
or so north of the sea coast, but only fifteen from the Persian Border.
I left Quetta by lorry on the morning of July 30th and got to Kalat,
the capital of the State of the same name, in time to have lunch with the
Khan (Ruler) and Ramsay, a Political Officer seconded to the State as
Wazi-i-Azam (i.e. P.M.). This was my first meeting with the Khan and went
off very pleasantly. Later, after tea with the Ramsays, I went on to a
place called Surab where I spent the night. The road was nothing but a
rough track and next day as the valley opened out leaving the higher hills
behind us and a vast empty plain in front, it felt almost as if one was
going over the edge of the world. The road was a bit tricky in parts due to
recent heavy rain but we managed to reach Panjgur by the evening of the
31st July. This was good going, as I had been told the journey from Quetta
was usually reckoned to take three days.
It was just as well that we got through when we did as the next day
there was more heavy rain and for the next three and a half weeks we were
completely cut off. The average annual rainfall in Mekran was three to five
inches, but we had fifteen inches in the first week I was there, and the
normally dry river bed of the Rakhshan River, half a mile across, had thirty
feet of water in it. The banks were so dry and crumbling before the rain
came that they were washed away by the flood, and two hundred feet tall palm
trees fell down like matchsticks and were swept away downstream. What made
matters worse was that the dates on the surviving trees, of which there were
enormous numbers, rotted on the trees. Normally the local people depended
on sending the date crop up country in exchange for grain and other provisions.
This meant that in addition to washed out roads and collapsing Levy Corps
barracks, I had a near famine on my hands. In the end we managed to get
sufficient extra supplies sent down from Quetta at Government expense to
avert disaster, but it was a drastic introduction to life in Mekran. The
barracks at Pan§gur were built of mud brick and they were so dry that when
the torrential rains came they dissolved into mud and had to be completely
rebuilt.
Our own house, which had originally been the Levy Corps Mess, survived
more or less intact, though one night I was woken up by having a cataract
of water descending on to my bed from a hole in the roof, but that was soon
remedied. Apart from this I was very favourably impressed by the nouse.
It was quite large, in fact after years of living in tents and temporary huts
it seemed almost palatial, and in addition to our living quarters it
contained my offices and orderly room. It was reasonably furnished and