balochracehistor00damerich

26 THE BALOCH RACE
valleys, spurs, cliffs, passes, etc. The only apparently
Arabic word among these is Khaur, * a torrent bed ' (Ar.
Klior), found also in Pashto, in the form Khwar. The
common Arabic words wadl and jebel, which are to be
found from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean, never
occur away from the coast which is navigated by Arab
sailors.
History and Legend.
The first mention of the Baloches in history is found in
the Arabic Chronicles of the tenth century, the fourth
of the Hijri era ; but Firdausi, whose great poem, the
* Shahnama/ was finished in a.h. 400, refers to an earlier
period than any of these. The latter part of this poem,
relating to the Sassanians, must be regarded as mainly
historical— at least, as much so as the narratives of the
prose chronicles, such as those of Mas'udi and Tabari and
the Bauzatu's-safa, which embody quite as much legendary
matter as the * Shahnama.' The earlier part of the
' Shahnama ' is, of course, mainly mythical. The Baloches
are introduced as forming part of the armies of Kai Kaus
and Kai Khusrau ; and this means no more than that their
name occurred among others in the ballads or legends
which Firdausi drew upon. Kai Kaus is shown as em-
ploying ' the warriors of Pars and of the Koch and Baloch,
the troops of Gilan and of the plain of Saroch.' 1 The
passage describing the assembly of the warriors by Kai
Khusrau for his
2 worthy :
expedition against Afrasyab is also note-
'After Gustaham came Ashkash. . . . His army was
from the wanderers of the Koch and Baloch, intent on
war and with exalted cockscomb crests, whose back none
in the world ever saw. Nor was one of their fingers bare
2 See supra, p. 22.