Baloch wandering and pastoral life

The Baloches are nomads by instinct, and still prefer the wandering and pastoral

life wherever it is possible, but the population tends more and more to become

fixed as cultivation extends. But town life does not suit them, and although the

Tumandar has in every case a fixed residence, it never becomes the nucleus of a
Baloch town. Where the chief has selected an already existing town with a non-
Baloch population of Hindu traders and Indian Mohammedan artizans, this
population continues much as it was before. Few Baloches live in the towns ;
they prefer the open country. Their villages are collections of mud or stone huts,
and in the mountains, where the population is still nomadic, a village or

halk

consists of a number of little enclosures 3 or 4 feet high, built of loose stones. On
these a temporary roof is spread, generally composed of matting (thaghard)
made of the leaves of the phish (

Chamerops Ritchieana); and when the community

moves to another grazing ground, the roof is carried off, and the walls left
standing for another occupation. Often recesses or ledges in cliffs are utilized,
and no walls are necessary. Their wealth consists in camels, cattle, sheep, and
goats, and their life is absolutely primitive and uncivilized. Yet the arts of carpetmaking
and embroidery flourish among them, and lead one to compare them to
the Turkoman tribes, with whom they must at some time in their history have
been in contact. Robbers they were and to some extent still are; to be a successful
leader in raids and cattle-theft was a title to esteem, and

Rahzan or highwayman

was a title of honour.
Such are the Baloches, and they have been described so often and with so much
detail by so many travellers and frontier officers from Pottinger, Perrier, and
Masson to Sir T. Holdich and Major Molesworth Sykes, that it is unnecessary for
me to go into further details. What I wish to consider now is the question of the
origin and history of this remarkable race, what their position is among the races
of mankind, and how they came to occupy the countries where they now dwell.