He traveled widely across the Indian subcontinent, and accounts about him are found in some form in several places including Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Punjab, Sindh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Nepal, Assam, Bengal, Kathiawar(Gujarat), Maharashtra, Karnataka, and even Sri Lanka.
In the 19th century and prior to World War I, the Bombay Sappers served in Arabia, Persia, Abyssinia, China, Somaliland; in India fought in the Mysore, Maratha and Anglo-Sikh Wars; fought in the aftermath of the Mutiny in Mhow, Jhansi, Saugor and Kathiawar and many times over in the Punjab, North West Frontier Province and Afghanistan.
Educated at Haileybury and at Trinity College, Cambridge, he joined the Indian Civil Service in 1927 and served in Punjab, Rajputana, Kathiawar, Baluchistan, Central India, Tibet and the Persian Gulf.
Kathiarbar-Gir dry deciduous forests cover the eastern portion of the state, extending into adjacent portions of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, with a pocket on the peak of Girnar in the central Kathiawar.
Originally they resided in Bikaner, whence they migrated and founded the state of Kathiawar, which takes its name from the Kathia tribe, and is in modern day Gujerat State of India.
This Hashmat Khan was appointed as a garrison commander of Khambhat in Kathiawar, by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb.
In 1946 he moved to Saurashtra as a private tutor and from 1948 to 1963 till his death, he was the Principal of the Rajkumar College, Rajkot, a school founded and run by the Princely Order of Kathiawar.
The large Kathiawar peninsula consisted of some prominent Princely States of India like the Baroda State, Nawanagar State, Bhavnagar State, Wadhwan, Porbandar, Idar, Dhrangadhra State, Rajpipla, Cambay, Gondal, Morvi, Wankaner, Baria, Dharampur, Dhrol, Limbdi, Rajkot, Palitana, Sachin and many others.