The Iranian origin, favoured by Sir B. Burton, Lassen, Spiegel,

There remains the theory that the Baloches are Iranians, and this I believe to be

the true one. Burton’s views have already been alluded to, and Lassen, Spiegel,
and Trumpp have come to the same conclusion. I shall here endeavour to show
that it is borne out by anthropological and historical inquiries, and by evidence
derived from the legends and language of the people themselves.
The Eastern Iranians are considered by modern anthropologists to be what is
generally, for want of a better name, called the Aryan race, and to be strongly
affected by that branch of the Caucasian race which has been named

Homo

Alpinus,

which extends through Central Europe and Asia Minor to the highlands

of the Hindu hush. One of the most distinguishing features of this race is its
consistent brachycephaly, and its purest examples are found among the Tajiks of
Turkestan and the Ghalchas of the Hindu Kush.

2 The Baloches seem to be an

offshoot of this race. They certainly, as I shall show further on, came into their
present locations in Mekran and on the Indian border from parts of the Iranian
plateau further to the west and north, where they would naturally have been
associated with other Iranian nomads, such as the Bakhtiaris of the present day.
They have brought with them a language of the Old Persian stock, with many
features derived from the Old Bactrian rather than the Western Persian, and have
intruded into a region which was always in ancient times regarded as part of
India, and not of Persia, and which, both before and after the Mohammedan

conquest, was peopled by Indian tribes—Rajputs, Jatts and Meds. But the

Baloches still retain their brachycephaly, although Afghans to the north, Indians
to the east, and Arabs to the south and on the Persian Gulf are all dolichocephalic.