In addition to the steamers of the flotilla there are 380 native-owned craft engaged in trading along the lower and middle reaches of the stream. These vessels conduct a very flourishing trade in various native commodities—fruit, vegetables, wood, live stock, cotton goods and such minor manufactures as may be required among the native villages. The boats used in this traffic are of rough native workmanship, capacious and damp, but in their way serviceable enough.
Their dimensions are:
| Length. | Beam. | Depth. |
| 50 feet | 18 feet | 4 feet |
Photo, Olufsen
THE SHRINE OF HAZRAT ALI
Each boat can accommodate 150 passengers, twenty mounted men, and stow twenty tons of cargo—an estimate which strains their capacity to its utmost limit. In design these craft, flat-bottomed, with a draught of 18 inches and 2½ feet of gunwale above the water, are constructed of square logs of willow or mulberry, 6 feet in length, peeled, clipped into shape and clamped together with iron pins. The craft trade principally on the lower reaches of the river although there is nothing to prevent them, save the difficulty of the task, from venturing further up-stream. In this respect a few of the better class do manage to reach Patta Hissar, whence large floats of timber are despatched to Charjui. The existence of this trade at Patta Hissar is characteristic of the middle reaches of the stream, where white poplar, willows and mulberry trees grow in profusion. The presence of the timber encourages native shipping to tie up to the trees, the several little colonies of vessels thus laid up imparting to the appearance of the river an amount of life and animation not always borne out by actual traffic.
