"But take care of Malak; he is a bad man--a very bad man." A rough and tedious journey of two days over deep sandy desert, varied by an occasional salt marsh, brought us to Beila, the seat of government of the Djam, or chief of the province of Las Beila, eighty miles due north of Sonmiani.

With a feeling of relief I sighted the dirty, dilapidated city, with its mud huts and tawdry pink and green banners surmounting the palace and fort.

The Baluch camel is not the easiest animal in existence, and I had, for the first few hours of the march, experienced all the miseries of _mal de mer_ brought on by a blazing sun and the rolling, unsteady gait of my ship of the desert.
Though awkward in his paces, the Baluch camel is swift.

They are small and better looking than most; nor do their coats present so much the appearance of a "doormat with the mange," as those of the animals of other countries.

We had as yet passed but two villages--three or four low shapeless huts, almost hidden in rock and scrub by the side of the caravan-track, which, as far as Beila, is pretty clearly defined.
There had been nothing else to break the dull, dead monotony of sand and swamp, not a sign of human life, and but one well (at Outhal) of rather brackish water.
On the second day one of the escort had pointed out a dry rocky bed as the river Purali, which is one of the largest in Baluchistan, but, like all the others, quite dry the greater portion of the year.