Behold the harbour tower, Which God has shown us.
The country is God’s, By God we came.
As we discovered the mosques of Sehwun, the boatmen in their joy beat a drum, and chanted many of these verses, which had a pleasing sound on passing the base of the Lukkee mountains, that present a rocky buttress to the Indus on approaching Sehwun.
Sehwun, its antiquity.
The town of Sehwun stands on a rising ground, at the verge of a swamp, two miles from the Indus, close to a branch of that river called Arul, which flows from Larkhanu. It has a population of about 10,000 souls, and is commanded on the north side by a singular castle or mound of earth. Sehwun is sometimes called Sewistan, and is a place of antiquity. There are many ruined mosques and tombs which surround it, and proclaim its former wealth; but it has gradually gone to decay since it ceased to be the residence of a governor, who here held his court in the days of Moghul splendour. As it stands near the Lukkee mountains, I believe it may be fixed on as the city of Sambus, Raja of the Indian mountaineers, mentioned by Alexander. The Sindomanni cannot refer to the inhabitants of Lower Sinde, which is always called Pattala, and its ruler the “prince of the Pattalans.” Sindee is the modern term for the aboriginal inhabitants.
Pilgrimage of Sehwun.
Sehwun has considerable celebrity and sanctity from the tomb of a holy saint of Khorasan, by name Lal Shah Baz, who was interred here about 600 years ago. The shrine stands in the centre of the town, and rests under a lofty dome at one end of a quadrangular building, which is handsomely ornamented by blue painted slabs, like Dutch tiles, that give it a rich appearance. A cloth of gold, with two other successive palls of red silk, are suspended over the sepulchre, and on the walls which surround it are inscribed in large Arabic letters the praises of the deceased, and extracts from the Koran. Ostrich eggs, peacocks’ feathers, beads, flowers, &c. complete the furniture of this holy spot; and pigeons, the emblems of peace, are encouraged to perch on the cloths which shade the remains of departed virtue. The miracles of Lal Shah Baz are endless, if you believe the people. The Indus is subject to his commands, and no vessel dares to pass his shrine without making a propitiatory offering at his tomb. Thousands of pilgrims flock to the consecrated spot, and the monarchs of Cabool and India have often visited the sanctuary. The drums which proclaim the majesty of the saint are a gift from the renowned persecutor Alla-o-deen, who reigned A.D. 1242; and the gate, which is of silver, attests the homage and devotion of a deceased Ameer of Sinde. The needy are daily supplied with food from the charity of the stranger; but the universal bounty has corrupted the manners of the inhabitants, who are a worthless and indolent set of men. The Hindoo joins with the Mahommedan in his veneration of the saint, and artfully insinuates “Lal” to be a Hindoo name, and that the Mahommedans have associated with the faith of their prophet the god of an infidel creed. A tiger, once the tenant of the neighbouring hills, partakes of the general bounty in a cage near the tomb.
Castle of Sehwun, its antiquity.
By far the most singular building at Sehwun, and perhaps on the Indus, is the ruined castle which overlooks the town, and is in all probability as old as the age of the Greeks. It consists of a mound of earth sixty feet high, and surrounded from the very ground by a brick wall. The shape of the castle is oval, about 1200 feet long by 750 in diameter. The interior presents a heap of ruins, and is strewed with broken pieces of pottery and brick. The gateway is on the town side, and has been arched: a section through it proves the whole mound to be artificial. At a distance this castle resembles the drawings of the Mujilebe tower at Babylon, described by Mr. Rich in his interesting Memoir.
The natives afford no satisfactory account of this ruin, attributing it to the age of Budur-ool-Jamal, a fairy, whose agency is referred to in every thing ancient or wonderful in Sinde. It is to be observed, that the Arul river passes close to this castle; and we are informed by Quintus Curtius that, in the territories of Sabus Raja, (which I imagine refers to Sehwun,) “Alexander took the strongest city by a tunnel formed by his miners.” A ruin of such magnitude, standing, as it therefore does, on such a site, would authorise our fixing on it as the very city “where the barbarians, untaught in engineering, were confounded when their enemies appeared, almost in the middle of the city, rising from a subterraneous passage of which no trace was previously seen.” So strong a position would not, in all probability, be neglected in after-times; and in the reign of the Emperor Humaioon, A.D. 1541, we find that monarch unable to capture Sehwun, from which he fled on his disastrous journey to Omercote. His son Acbar also invested Sehwun for seven months, and after its capture seems to have dismantled it. There are many coins found in the castle of Sehwun; but among thirty I could find no trace of the Greek alphabet. They were Mahommedan coins of the sovereigns of Delhi.