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

Effects of a late earthquake on the Run.

The effects of the earthquake of 1819 have been already mentioned, in so far as relates to the country adjoining the Indus; but occurrences of an equally singular nature happened farther eastward. It made numerous cracks or fissures in the Run; and I state, on the authority of eye-witnesses, that immense quantities of black, muddy water were ejected from these openings for a period of three days, and that the water bubbled out of the wells of the tract bordering on the Run, called Bunnee, till it overwhelmed the country in some place with six, and even ten feet of water. The shepherds with difficulty saved themselves and their flocks. During this time numerous pieces of iron and ship-nails were thrown up at Phangwuro, the sea-port before mentioned; and similar things have been since found in the same neighbourhood while digging tanks. I give this fact on the authority of respectable men at Nurra, who also assured me that nothing of the kind had ever been discovered before the earthquake of 1819.

Flooding of the Run.

The grand Run of Cutch is that part which lies between Sinde and the islands of Puchum and Khureer, the other parts being but ramifications of it. It has a communication with the sea both on the east and west, by means of the Gulf of Cutch and a branch of the Indus, and it is flooded from both these openings as soon as the south-westerly winds set in, about April each year. When local rain falls and moistens the Run, the sea enters with great rapidity, and insulates the province of Cutch for some months; but even without rain the greater portion of the Run is annually flooded. The level of the Run is obviously higher than the sea, since it requires strong winds to blow the waters of the ocean over it.

Configuration of the Run borders.

We must now attend to the configuration of the Run. In the north-eastern extremity of Cutch, it will be observed that a chain of hills overhangs the Run at Bheyla: they are about 300 feet high, and terminate abruptly. The islands of Khureer and Puchum lie due west of this range, and are not only composed of the same sort of ironstone as the Bheyla hills, but have similar ranges running through their northern extremities, which terminate, particularly at Khureer, in a bluff and abrupt outline towards the Run. Khureer is six miles westward of Cutch, and Puchum is about sixteen from Khureer; westward of Puchum there are a few low and sandy islets on the Run, and south of it lies the Bunnee, an extensive tract of grassland, of greater elevation than the Run, but not sufficiently so to yield grain. It has many wells, and is inhabited by a pastoral race. South of Khureer there are also many islands, the largest of which is Gangta, and covered with rocky hills. Between Guzerat and Cutch the Run is narrow; at Addysir it is but a mile and a half wide to the island of Chorar. Here there is a deposit of shells and marine matter, a carbonate of lime mixed with other substances; it has a red and yellow petrified appearance, takes on a tolerably good polish, and from which some members of the faithful pretend to read Arabic words, or letters of the Koran. It was used in the mosaic works of all the Moghul emperors, and is commonly called Dookur-warra marble by Europeans. North of the Bheyla hills lies Parkur, a district peninsulated by the Run, having the lofty hills of Kalinjur, of a formation differing from Cutch, where they are almost all sandstone. They are primitive rocks, rising in small cones one upon another, as if they had dropped from the clouds; the summit is composed of trap, which extends for about a third of the way down, and the base is red granite, which rings when struck. These hills are separated from Cutch by a low tract of the Run, upwards of thirty miles broad, without an intervening bush. The whole northern face of Cutch, from Bheyla on the east to Lucput on the west, presents, with a few exceptions, either a rocky or an elevated bank. From Nurra to Lucput the rocks terminate abruptly, and form what would be called capes, cliffs, and promontories, if the water washed under them. When the immediate vicinity of the Run is not of this description, it stretches inland, exactly as water would do when not resisted.

Run supposed to have been an inland sea.

The sea is receding from the southern shores of Cutch; and I believe it is a generally received conclusion, that there is a depression of its level throughout the globe, though in some places it has risen. We may, therefore, suppose the ocean to have receded from the Run of Cutch, and that that tract was at one time a navigable sea. That the natives should attribute so great a change in a part of their country to the influence of a Jogee, is not wonderful. A body of these persons has been long settled in Cutch. They are a philanthropic and hospitable body of men, who permit no one of any persuasion to leave their door hungry, and they are blessed with plenty. Like the monks in Europe in former days, these Jogees are the repository of history and traditions, and it may be their careful preservation of them, which has given rise to the belief that the alterations in the Run were accomplished in the time of Dhoorumnath, the founder of their order. In proof of this, they have a tradition that the ancestors of the present rulers of Cutch were once a class of poor shepherds from Samee (Tatta), in Sinde, and fed their flocks, till patronised by the Denodur Jogees, who raised them to be Rajahs of the country. So far is this true, the Rajpoots of Cutch did come from Tatta, and did tend herds of cattle in Cutch; but they were certainly not raised to their present elevation by the intercession of some Hindoo monks; yet such is the alteration which a story undergoes, in the course of four hundred years.[38]

NOTE ON SINDREE.

I annex the following extract, describing a journey from Lucput in Cutch, to Hydrabad in Sinde, by way of Sindree, from the MS. of Captain R. M. Grindlay, written in the year 1808, when with a mission to the Ameers of Sinde, and which has been kindly furnished to me. It will be seen that the neighbourhood of Sindree, which I have described to be under water, was then dry, and that the fort of Sindree existed at that time, as an outpost of the Cutch Government.