All these ancient cities eastwards from Makran are associated with one very interesting feature. Somewhat apart from the deserted and hardly recognizable ruins of the cities are groups of remarkable tombs, constructed of stone, and carved with a most minute beauty of design, which is so well preserved as to appear almost fresh from the hands of the sculptor. These tombs are locally known as "Khalmati."
Invariably placed on rising ground, with a fair command of the surrounding landscape, they are the most conspicuous witnesses yet remaining of the nature of the Saracenic style of decorative art which must have beautified those early cities. The cities themselves have long since passed away, but these stone records of dead citizens still remain to illustrate, if but with a feeble light, one of the darkest periods in the history of Indian architecture. These remains are most likely Khalmati (_not_ Karmati) and belong to an Arab race who were once strong in Sind and who came from the Makran coast at Khalmat. The Karmatians were not builders.
We have so far only dealt with that route to India which combined a coasting voyage in Arab ships with an overland journey which was obviously performed on a camel, or the days' stages could never have been accomplished. But the number of cities in Western Makran and Kirman which still exist under their mediæval names, and which are thickly surrounded with evidences of their former wealth and greatness, certifies to a former trade through Persia to India which could have been nowise inferior to that from the shores of Arabia or Egypt. Indeed, the overland route to India through Persia and Makran was probably one of the best trodden trade routes that the world has ever seen. It is almost unnecessary to enumerate such names as Darak, Bih, Band, Kasrkand, Asfaka, and Fahalfahra (all of which are to be found in Ibn Haukal's map), and to point out that they are represented in modern geography by Dizak, Geh, Binth, Kasrkand, Asfaka, and Bahu Kalat. Degenerated and narrowed as they now are, there are still evidences written large enough in surrounding ruins to satisfy the investigator of the reality and greatness of their past; whilst the present nature of the routes which connect them by river and mountain is enough to prove that they never could have been of small account in the Arab geographical system. One city in this part of Makran is, I confess, something of a riddle to me still. Rasak is ever spoken of by Arab geographers as the city of "schismatics." There is, indeed, a Rasak on the Sarbaz River road to Bampur, which might be strained to fit the position assigned it in Arab geography; but it is now a small and insignificant village, and apparently could never have been otherwise. There is no room there for a city of such world-wide fame as the ancient headquarters of heresy must have been--a city which served usefully as a link between the heretics of Persia and those of Sind.