BOLAN, a pass in Saharawan in Baluchistan, 64 miles long, leading through the Hala Mts. from Kutchi to Dasht-i-be-Daulat. It is a succession of valleys, bounded by mountains. The road is good over the bed of the torrent, from which large stones can be removed. It is better adapted for camels than horses or wheeled conveyances. It is the principal route for the traffic from Sind to Afghanistan. In 1838, the British Indian army, 13,030 strong, and Shah Shuja's army, 6070 strong, with 40,000 followers, marched through this pass. The water of the Bolan or Kahl river disappears in the shingle at Ab-i-gum, to reappear lower down. The British Indian army again, in the war of 1878-79, marched through the Bolan to Kandahar. The entrance is 800 feet ; Ab-i gum, 2540 ; crest, 5793 feet. Dr. Hunter says 8500 feet. Average ascent, 90 feet per mile.
The Bolan, with the Modlla pass far to the south, are the only practicable routes intersecting the great chain of mountains, defining, on the east, the low countries of Kutch Gandava and the valley of the Indus ; while westward it supports the elevated regions of Kalat and Saharawan. There
are many other passes over the chain, but all of them from the east have a steep and difficult ascent, and conduct to the brink of the plateau or table-lands. Such are the passes of Takari and Nagow between the Bolan and Moolla routes, and there are others to the N. of the Bolan. This pass is particularly important, as occurring in the direct line of communication between Sind and the neighbouring countries, with Kandahar and Khorasan. It also constitutes, in this direction, the boundarybetween the Sard Sair and Germ Sair. The natives say that all below the pass is Hind, and that all above it is Khorasan. This distinction is in great measure warranted, not only because the pass separates very different races from each other, speaking various dialects, but that it marks the line of a complete change of climate, and natural productions.—Masson's Journeys, i. p. 338.