Geographical Situation and Boundaries. BELOOCHISTAN, a country of Asia, situate on the north-west coast of the Indian peninsula. It is bounded on the north by Afghanistan and Seistan; on the west, by the Persian provinces of Kirman and Laristan; on the south, by the Indian Ocean; and, on the east, by a part of Sinde and Shikarpoor. In general, it may be said to comprehend all that space within the 25th and 30th degrees of north latitude, and the 58th and 68th degrees of east longitude; and its whole superficial extent may be computed at 550 geographical miles in length, and 300 in breadth.
History. Of the early history of this portion of the Asiatic Continent, little or nothing is known. The poverty and natural strength of the country, combined with the ferocious habits of the natives, seem to have equally repelled the friendly visits of inquisitive strangers, and the hostile incursions of invading armies. The Greeks, from whom we derive the earliest information relative to the western frontiers of India, are almost entirely silent with respect to this mountainous and inhospitable tract; and scarcely any notice of it occurs for many centuries posterior to the Macedonian invasion. Hence it is impossible to
trace the first settlement of this country; and the descent of its inhabitants can only be imperfectly ascertained by analogy and conjecture. As the natives have no written language, their historical annals are merely traditional, and therefore entitled to little credit. The Belooches ascribe their own origin to the earliest Mohammedan invaders of Persia, and are very desirous of being supposed to be of Arabian extraction; but the latter part of this supposition derives no confirmation from their features, their manners, or their language, which do not bear the slightest similitude to those of the Arabs. There can be little doubt, however, that they originally came from the westward; of which there is strong evidence in the affinity between the Beloochee and Persian languages; and their institutions, habits, and religion, seem to indicate that they are of Toorkoman lineage. It seems highly probable, indeed, that, during the frequent sanguinary revolutions to which the monarchy of the Seljukide Tartars was subject, some of these barbarians had been forced to wander over the country in quest of new settlements; and that a portion of them had found refuge in the mountainous districts of Beloochistan. But, besides the Belooches, there are other distinct tribes of inhabitants in Beloochistan, whose peculiar habits and shades of character, we shall afterwards take an opportunity of describing. These are the Brahooes, apparently a race of Tartar mountaineers, who settled at an early period in the southern parts of Asia, but whose history is extremely obscure and uninteresting; the Delhwars, clearly a Persian colony, whose original settlement cannot be traced; and the Hindoos, who appear to have been the first settlers in the upper part of the Brahooick mountains, on their being expelled from Linde, Lus, and Mukran, by the armies of the Caliphs of Bagdad. This last tribe appears to have constituted the governing party, at the earliest period of which any thing approaching to authentic information has been obtained. The Brahooes and Belooches, however, gradually spread over the country; and the Hindoo power was at length subverted by a revolution, which placed the ancestors of the present Khan of Kelat upon the throne.
The precise period at which this revolution took place, cannot be accurately ascertained; but it is probable that two centuries have not elapsed since that event. The last rajah of the Hindoo dynasty found himself compelled to call for the assistance of the mountain-shepherds, with their leader, Kumbur, in order to check the encroachments of a horde of depredators, headed by an Afghan chief, who infested the country, and even threatened to attack the seat of government. Kumbur successfully performed the service for which he had been engaged; but having, in a few years, quelled the robbers against whom he had been called in, and finding himself at the head of the only military tribe in the country, he formally deposed the rajah, and assumed the reins of government.
The history of this country, subsequently to the accession of Kumbur, is involved in the same obscurity as during the Hindoo dynasty. It would ap-