Travels into Bokhara (Volume 3 of 3) / Being the Account of A Journey from India to Cabool, Tartary, and Persia; Also, Narrative of a Voyage on the Indus, From the Sea to Lahore, With Presents From the King of Great Britain; Performed Under the Orders of the Supreme Government of India, in the Years 1831, 1832, and 1833

by Sir Alexander Burnes

The river, in this part of its course, is named “Lar,” which, in the Belooch language, means south: it flows about S. S. E., being resisted at Sehwun by rocky mountains, which change the direction of the stream. Its banks are very low, and the country bordering on them frequently overflowed, particularly on the eastern side: the western bank is more firm, but seldom exceeds eight feet in height. This expansion of the river diminishes its general depth to eighteen feet: during the swell the increase is twelve feet additional; the width is frequently 1000 yards and upwards. About six miles above Hydrabad, the Indus divides into two channels, one of which is fordable, and the other but 400 yards wide, which points to this as the place for crossing an army. At Sehwun the rocky buttress of the Lukkee hills hems the waters into a channel of 500 yards; but the depth is nearly forty feet, and the current rapid.

Fulailee River.

The river throws off no branches, in this part of its course, save the Fulailee, which leaves the Indus twelve miles above Hydrabad, and passes eastward of that city: it is only a stream during the swell. It was dry at Hydrabad when we were at that city, and but a 100 yards wide, and knee-deep where it separated from the Indus; yet it is a very considerable river in the wet season, and fertilises a vast portion of Sinde by its water, which it may be said to exhaust between Hydrabad and Cutch. The maps give most erroneous ideas of the Indus, for the numerous branches which appear to leave the river are only water courses for the periodical swell, many of them artificial, dug for the purposes of irrigation. The river for nine months runs in one trunk to Tatta.

Current, and effects of it.

The current never exceeds three miles an hour in this part of the Indus, unless at some places where it is confined, when its rapidity undermines its banks, and carries villages along with it. The towns of Majindu and Amree, on the right bank, have both been swept away, the former no less than eight or ten times within the last twelve years; but the people retire a few hundred yards, and again erect their habitations. Hala, on the eastern side, has shared a like fate; but the channel of the river lies to the westward, where the banks are more steep, and the left bank of the river, though consisting of a flat field of sand, is only inundated in the swell. At that period, for eight miles eastward of the Indus, it is not possible to travel from the number of shoots the river casts off. The Indus itself is here pretty constant in its course; and, though the country eastward would, as I have observed, favour the escape of the water in that direction, it clings for some time to the Lukkee mountains.

Its military importance.

This section of the river is of great importance: about two miles below Sehwun these mountains run in upon the Indus, leaving two practicable passes over them. The one leads across a depressed part of the range, called Buggotora, westward of the village of Lukkee (which signifies a pass), and might be obstinately defended: it is not a gun-road. The other passes between the river and the mountains, and is a cart-road, running in a valley among the lower rocks, at the base of the Lukkee mountains. The ground is very strong for about two miles.

Crossing the Indus.

I have before mentioned that the river near Sehwun is confined to a narrow bed. The right bank is very remarkable, consisting of a natural buttress of solid rock, about fifty feet high, which extends for 400 yards along the river, and, slanting upwards, is barely accessible to a foot passenger. The Indus passes with such a sweep under the base of this rampart, that, though but 500 yards wide, I question if a bridge could be thrown across it. There is a more favourable place immediately north of this precipice, where the breadth is but 100 yards greater, and the water more still. Thirty or forty flat-bottomed boats would always be found at Sehwun: they lie on the left bank, which is flat and sandy. There are good roads from Sehwun to Hydrabad on both sides of the Indus; and there is a footpath along the base of the mountains to Curachee.

Navigation of the Indus.