Animals.
I am not aware that there are any animals peculiar to the Delta of the Indus. Otters abound; camels are numerous, and superior; buffaloes are reared in great numbers; horned cattle and sheep are plentiful. The dog, too, is here elevated to his proper situation, and is an attendant on man. They watch the flocks, and are of a ferocious description, and will not allow a stranger to approach a “raj” or village; they swim the rivers with great dexterity.
Productions.
The staple production of the Delta of the Indus is rice: it is to be had of many different kinds, but its value seems to depend chiefly on its preparation for the market. Bajree and all other Indian grains are raised. From extensive plantations of cane, “goor,” a coarse kind of sugar, is produced; which, with wheat, barley, and moong, are reared by irrigating the fields from cuts to the river, some months before the periodical swell, and form what may be called a second crop. Saltpetre is found in the Delta, but it is not exported, though formerly an object of commerce to the East India Company.
Climate.
The climate of Lower Sinde is sultry and disagreeable. The thermometer ranges as high as 90° in March, and though the soil is a rich alluvium, the dust blows incessantly. The dews are very heavy and dangerous. It is in every respect a trying country to the human constitution, and this was observable in the premature old age of the inhabitants. I could not hear of their being subject to any marsh fever, or other evil effect from the inundation; they confined their complaints to the inconvenience and annoyance which they suffered from insects and musquitoes generated in the mud.
CHAP. VI.
THE INDUS FROM TATTA TO HYDRABAD.
Indus from Tatta to Hydrabad.
From the city of Tatta, which stands at a distance of three miles from the river, we cease to have the Indus separated into many channels. On the right bank it is confined by low rocky hillocks of limestone formation; and on the left there is but one narrow branch, the Pinyaree, which is accessible to boats from the town of Mughribee, when the superfluous water of the floods follows its course to the sea. Yet the general width of the channel is less than half a mile; at Hydrabad it is but 830 yards, at Tatta less than 700, and below the village Hilaya, fifteen miles from that town, it does not indeed exceed 600. The greatest depth of water lies opposite the capital, and is five fathoms; the least at Tatta, where it is but fifteen feet; generally, there is a depth of twenty feet.
Its sand-banks.