[Illustration: SKETCH MAP OF ANCIENT & MEDIÆVAL MAKRAN TO ILLUSTRATE PAPER BY COL. T. H. HOLDICH.]
From the sun-swept Arabian Sea a long line of white shore, with a ceaseless surf breaking on it, appears to edge it on the north. This is backed by other long lines of level-topped hills, seldom rising to conspicuous peaks or altitudes, but just stretched out in long grey and purple lines with a prominent feature here and there to serve as a useful landmark to mariners. Now and then when the shoreline is indented, the hills actually face the sea and there are clean-cut scarped cliffs presenting a square face to the waves. At such points the deep rifted mountains of the interior either extend an arm to the ocean, as at Malan, or it may be that a narrow band of ancient ridge leaves jagged sections of its length above sea-level, parallel to the coast-line, and that between it and the hills of the interior is a sandy isthmus with sea indentation forming harbours on either side. This country, for a width of about 100 miles, is called Makran. It is the southernmost region of Southern Baluchistan, a country geologically of recent formation, with a coastal uplift from the sea-bottom of soft white sand strata capped here and there by laterite. Such a formation lends itself to quaint curiosities in hill structure. A protecting cap may preserve a pinnacle of soft rock, whilst all around it the persistence of weather action has cut away the soil. Gigantic cap-crowned pillars and pedestals are balanced in fantastic array about the mountain slopes; deep cuttings and gorges are formed by denudation, and from the gullies so fashioned amongst these hills there may tower up a scarped cliff edge for thousands of feet, with successive strata so well defined that it possesses all the appearance of massive masonry construction.
The sea which beats with unceasing surf on the shores of Makran is full of the wonders of the deep. From the dead silent flat surface, such as comes with an autumn calm, monstrous fish suddenly shoot out for 15 or 20 feet into the air and fall with a resounding slap almost amounting to a detonation. Whales still disport themselves close inshore, and frighten no one. It is easy, however, to understand the terror with which they inspired the Greek sailors of Nearkhos in their open Indian-built boats as they wormed their way along the coast. Occasionally a whale becomes involved with the cable of the Indo-Persian telegraph line and loops himself into it, with fatal results. There are islands off the shore, cut out from the mainland. Some of them are in process of disappearance, when they will add their quota to the bar which makes approach to the Makran shores so generally difficult; others, more remote, bid fair to last as the final remnants of a long-ago submerged ridge through ages yet to come; and one regrets that the day of their enchantment has passed. Of such is that island of Haftala, Hashtala, Nuhsala (it is difficult to account for the variety of Persian numerals which are associated with its name), which is called Nosala by Nearkhos and said by him to be sacred to the sun. In the days of the Greeks it was enveloped in a haze of mystery and tradition. The Karaks who made of this island a base for their depredations, finally drew down upon themselves the wrath of the Arabs, and this led incidentally to one of the most successful invasions of India that have ever been conducted by sea and land.