ART. IV.-On Ruins in Makrán. By MAJOR MOCKLER. GWADER is a seaport on the coast of Makrán (ancient Gedrosia), and Makrán the name of the southernmost portion of the country marked Baluchistán in our maps. The derivation of the word "Makrán" is doubtful; indeed, I have never heard a satisfactory derivation. Baluchistán, viz. the country of the Baluchis, is so called from the people by whom it is now principally inhabited, who, themselves, claim to be of Arab extraction (Arabs of the Koreish tribe), stating that they were forced to emigrate, about the latter end of the seventh century, from the neighbourhood of Aleppo, in Syria, by the tyranny of the Khalif Yezid, in consequence of their having taken the part of Husain (the martyr), grandson of Muhammad; and that, passing through Persia, they eventually reached Makrán, which they gradually overran and became masters of. Their traditions are, however, meagre and unsatisfactory. They do not appear to have preserved the name of a single place through which they passed in their journey through Persia; nor have they any recollection of the people inhabiting Makrán at the time of their advent. This state of oblivion may, perhaps, be accounted for by the gradual manner of their coming into the country, viz. clan by clan at a time; but, in the lists of their ancestors, as I have received them, many names must have been omitted. So far, then, as the Baluchis are concerned, the ancient history of Makrán and of the people who inhabited it before this Arab invasion is buried in oblivion. But I think it possible that the Bráhui tribes, who now occupy the eastern portion of the country, may throw a gleam of light on this interesting subject. These tribes are of a race distinct from the Baluchis, and speak a totally different language (Kurdí or Kurdgálí), which, perhaps, belongs to the Uralo-Finnish group of Turanian languages; whereas Baluchi is an Aryan tongue and a sister language to Pahlavi, which it resembles in many respects. From the account of the passage of Alexander through Gedrosia, and of the exploration of its coasts by his admiral Nearchus, little information, regarding the people then inhabiting it, can be gleaned indeed, it may be said that absolutely nothing is known to us, with any certainty, as to its inhabitants at that time or for some centuries subsequently. Even during much later periods people have disappeared from certain localities, regarding whom nothing is known to the present occupants. As there are, however, evidences scattered, here and there, throughout the country, of states of civilization very different from that now obtaining in it, it has occurred to me that a brief description of such relics, and of any traditions connected with them, might not be altogether uninteresting, and would, perhaps, help as a guide to future inquiry. The following paper describes certain ancient remains, lately come to my notice, which I venture to think Scythian, and, not impossibly, monuments of the ancestors of the Bráhui tribes who now occupy the eastern border of Baluchistán. PART I. Last year (1875), when passing by a place about forty miles to the north-west of Gwáder, called "Sutkagên Dôr" (the burnt-up torrent),—a name given to it by the Baluchis on account of the burnt wood, ashes, etc., which permeate the soil to a considerable depth,-I noticed what appeared to me part of a wall of baked bricks sticking out of the side of a cutting made by the rain; adjacent was a clump of hills crowned with towers, which had, apparently, been once connected by a rough stone wall running along the ridges of the hills. This wall and the towers are, however, of recent construction, and built by the Baluchis; but, on 1 Plate, Fig. 1. either side of the quadrangular inclosure formed by the wall and hills, along the summit of which, part of the wall runs, is an artificial joining of one hill to another, composed of large stones, on one side some forty feet high, on the other some thirty feet above the level of the ground outside. The outer edges of these stones are all rounded off by the action of the weather, thus proving the antiquity of the structure. At Kej, the capital of Makrán, a similar work joins the hills on which the Meriee or old fort stands, but is much higher and more massive. To all such old works the Baluchis give the mythical name of Bahmani, namely, a work of Bahman (Artaxerxes Longimanus, the Macrocheir of the Greeks). The present inhabitants of this locality claim some 300 years for the time of their occupation of it, but know nothing as to who preceded them. I determined to try some day what digging would disclose; but it was not till February of the present year that I was able to put this design into execution. I naturally commenced operations by following up the brick wall, and, three feet under the soil, laid bare the walls of a small house, the length of which was probably about twenty-six feet by a little more than seventeen feet broad, built of baked bricks, and, possibly, once paved with stone; the greater part of three sides had, however, been carried away by rain, so that it is not possible to give the exact dimensions. The bricks of which it is composed measure in inches 12×6×21; the wall consisting of alternate courses of headers and stretchers, laid in a scientific manner. Its inside face is quite smooth and even; but on the outside, as is apparent from the dimensions of the bricks, the courses composed of stretchers project beyond those composed of headers: perhaps, this was considered ornamental. Mud from the plain was very sparingly used as mortar between the bricks. Only eight courses now remain; and, as the place where there was a door on the north side is quite plain from the finishing off of the wall, it appears that the floor of the house was but a few inches above the foundations of the walls. Nothing but broken and partly decomposed bricks,-some of which had |