Free The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia by Peter Hopkirk

were too fatigued to go on, so they halted for the night, sharing the remains of the water between them, but eating nothing. The following afternoon they approached the village of Kullugan, in a region known as the Makran, which was notorious for its lawlessness. Pottinger’s guide, who turned out to be married to the daughter of the Sirdar, or headman, insisted on entering the village first, explaining that it was customary with strangers in this dangerous region. Shortly afterwards he returned to say that Pottinger would be welcome, but that the Sirdar had ordered that, for his own security, he should adopt the guise of a hadji, otherwise he could not be responsible for his safety, even in his own house.
    ‘You are no longer in the Khan of Kelat’s territories,’ it was explained to him. He must not expect the same good order and security that he had enjoyed there. ‘We are now in the Makran, where every individual is a robber by caste, and where they do not hesitate to plunder brothers and neighbours.’ As a horse-dealer employed by a rich merchant in India he would be particularly vulnerable, for it would be assumed that he must be carrying money, even if it was not his own. Pottinger had been warned of Makran’s ill reputation by the Sirdar of Nushki, so he immediately assumed ‘the religious air and mien’ appropriate to his new calling.
    On entering the village he halted and dismounted by the mosque where he was formally received by the Sirdar and other elders. Later he was conducted to his lodgings, a miserable hovel with two rooms, where food was brought for him and his men. This they fell upon with gusto and gratitude, not having eaten anything for thirty hours. Buying food for their onward journey proved more difficult. Because of the drought, it was explained, food was in very short supply and its price had risen astronomically as a result. All that could be spared, therefore, were a few dates and a little barley flour from the Sirdar’s own supplies.
    Pottinger was warned that the next village on his 700-mile ride to Kerman was at war with Kullugan, its inhabitants having raided and plundered them only three weeks previously. Not only would it be suicide for him to attempt to travel there, but he would be ill-advised to proceed any further westwards without additional armed men. Indeed, his guide told him he was not prepared to proceed without such protection, offering instead to escort him back to Nushki. Pottinger reluctantly agreed to hire six more men armed with matchlocks for the next leg of their journey, and a new route, bypassing the hostile neighbour, was worked out.
    That night the village elders, including the Sirdar himself, descended on Pottinger’s lodgings to discuss with him various topics including, to his alarm, religion. For as a holy man his views were eagerly canvassed and respectfully listened to. Despite an almost total ignorance of Muslim theology, he managed to bluff his way through without inviting suspicion. Not only did he avoid making elementary mistakes, but he also settled a number of points at issue. One of these was over the nature of the sun and moon. One of the villagers maintained that they were the same. But if that was so, queried another, why was it that sometimes both could be seen simultaneously? Ah, replied the first, one was merely the reflection of the other. At this point the view of Pottinger was sought. He was now beginning to get irritated by this uninvited audience, and moreover wished to get to sleep, so he adjudicated in favour of the latter view, thus definitively settling a debate which, he feared, would have continued for some hours, the villagers having little else to do.
    The following day the Sirdar suggested that before leaving Pottinger should attend prayers at the mosque. This was, Pottinger later wrote, ‘an act of duplicity I had hitherto evaded.’ But he was given little choice, for the Sirdar came to his lodgings to collect him. ‘I