AN ADVENTURER VISITS BALOCHISTAN IN 1934.

AN ADVENTURER VISITS BALOCHISTAN IN 1934.

Passage to India

He left Persia, he wrote, “totally weaned from the most basic ideas of civilization and culture.” But he pushed on into his first real taste of a ferocious ocean and the romance of Britain’s fading colonial empire in India. Just across the border, Speck beached his kayak on a deserted strip of sand below the stark, gray cliffs of the Makran Coastal Range.

A British immigration agent noted in his passport, “Mr. Speck, Oskar Walter arrived today by sea in a rubber skiff, Nov. 19, 1934.” He had arrived in Baluchistan, the far-western frontier of British India and today a barren border province of Pakistan. Speck was downcast. It looked as bleak as Persia.

Then he did a double take. Framed against the cliffs stood a magnificent tent with a triumphal gateway of colored flags at the entrance. Two maharajas in regal silken splendor stood outside, attended by a large and equally splendid retinue, Speck wrote later. He learned they were the Khan of Kalat, a powerful city-state, and the hereditary lord of Las Bela, another principality near Karachi. They had arranged a shooting party that day for Sir Norman Carter, the top British official in Baluchistan.

Via: Rehana Rehman