It is a fact worthy of record, that those mouths of the Indus, which are least favoured by the fresh water, are most accessible to large vessels from the sea; for they are more free from sand banks, which the river water, rushing with violence, never fails to raise. Thus the Buggaur, which I have just represented as full of shallows, has a deep and clear stream below Darajee to the sea. The Hoogly branch of the Ganges is, I believe, navigable from a similar cause.
Individual mouths.
I shall now proceed to describe the several mouths with their harbours, depth of water, together with such other facts as have fallen under notice.
The Pittee.
Beginning from the westward, we have the Pittee mouth, an embouchure of the Buggaur, that falls into what may be called the bay of Curachee. It has no bar; but a large sand bank, together with an island outside, prevent a direct passage into it from the sea, and narrow the channel to about half a mile at its mouth. At low water its width is even less than 500 yards: proceeding upwards, it contracts to 160, but the general width is 300. At the shallowest part of the Pittee there was a depth of nine feet at low water, and the tide rose nine feet more at full moon. At high water there is every where a depth of two fathoms to Darajee, and more frequently five and six, sometimes seven and eight. Where two branches meet, the water is invariably deep. At a distance of six miles up the Pittee there is a rock stretching across the river: it has nine feet of water on it at low tide. The general course of the Pittee for the last thirty miles is W.N.W., but it enters the sea by a channel due south. The Pittee is exceedingly crooked, and consists of a succession of short turnings, in the most opposite directions; even from south to north the water from one angle is thrust upon another, which leaves this river alternately deep on both sides. Where the banks are steep, there will the channel be found; and, again, where they gradually meet the water, shallows invariably exist. This, however, may be remarked of all rivers which flow over a flat country. There is no fresh water in the Pittee nearer than thirty miles from the sea: the brushwood on its banks is very dense, and for fifteen miles up presses close in upon the river. We navigated this branch to that extent, and crossed it in two places higher up, at Darajee and Bohaur, where it had two fathoms’ water.
Pieteeanee.
The Pieteeanee quits the Pittee about twenty miles from the sea, which it enters below the latitude of 24° 20´. It is narrower than the Pittee, and in every respect an inferior branch; for there are sand banks in its mouth, which overlap each other, and render the navigation intricate and dangerous. We found it to have a depth of six feet on its bar at low tide, and fifteen at full; but when once in its channel, there were three fathoms’ water. At its mouth it is but 300 yards wide, and higher up it contracts even to fifty; but it has the same depth of water every where till it joins the Pittee. The Pieteeanee runs north-easterly into the land, and from its shorter course the tide makes sooner than in the Pittee, which presented the singular circumstance of one branch running up, and the other down, at the same time.
Inferior creeks.
Connected with these two mouths of the Indus, there are three inferior creeks, called Koodee, Khow, and Dubboo. The two first join the Pittee; and the Koodee was in former years one of the great entrances to Darajee, but its place has been usurped by the Pieteeanee, and it is now choked. Dubboo is only another entrance to the Pieteeanee.
Indus navigated by flat-bottomed boats.