CHAP. VII.
FROM HYDRABAD TO SEHWUN.
The town of Sehwun stands at a distance of two miles from the west bank of the Indus, and is exactly 1° of latitude north of Hydrabad, for it is crossed by the parallel of 26° 22´. The voyage is performed in eight days, against the stream, and the distance is 105 miles.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The river can only be navigated by dragging the boat against the stream, for there is very little wind in the upper parts of Sinde: the progress by this method is sure, and averages from fifteen to twenty miles a day. It would be impossible, without steam, to conduct any military expedition against the stream of the Indus, for the labour of dragging the boats would be great, from constant accidents, by ropes breaking, and the vessels being hurried into the stream. The case would be very different in an army descending the Indus. Trading vessels, however, would not be liable to any such impediments. We only counted 180 boats in our progress from Hydrabad to Sehwun.
Of the country and towns which intervene between Sehwun and the capital, a few words will suffice. There are none of any size but Sehwun itself: Muttaree, sixteen miles from Hydrabad, contains 4000 people; and Hala, Beyan, Majindu, and Sen about 2000 each. The other places are few, and thinly peopled: three or four of them have frequently one name. The country is much neglected, the banks of the river are, in most places, covered with tamarisk, towards the hills it is open. Cotton, indigo, wheat, barley, sugar, tobacco, &c. are produced by irrigation in the dry season; but the limited extent of the cultivation may be discovered, by their being but 194 wells, or cuts, from the river on one side of the Indus, between Hydrabad and Sehwun, a distance of 100 miles, where the greater part of the soil is rich and cultivable. In a few places the land is salt and sterile. Rice is only produced during the swell, and yet provisions are dearer here than in the neighbouring and less favoured country of Marwar. The people live chiefly on fish and milk.
The town of Sehwun bears alone the marks of opulence in this portion of Sinde; and it is indebted for its prosperity to the shrine of a holy saint from Khorasan, by name Lal Shah baz, whose tomb is a place of pilgrimage from afar to Hindoo and Mussulman. A branch of the Indus, called Arrul, runs immediately past the town, in its course from Larkhana; but this will be described in the next chapter. Four years since, the Indus passed close under Sehwun; but it has retired, and left a swamp on all sides of the town. About Sehwun the country is rich and productive, and the bazar is well supplied. Looking north, the eye rests on a verdant plain, highly cultivated, which extends to the base of the mountains: mulberries, apples, melons, and cucumbers grow here; the grain crops are luxuriant, and, for the first time, we saw gram. The melons are tasteless, I presume from the richness of the soil: cucumbers grow in Sinde only at Sehwun. The climate is sultry, oppressive, and disagreeable.
The Lukkee mountains run in upon the Indus at Sehwun, extending from near the seaport of Curachee, and gradually encroaching upon the river, till they meet in a bold buttress. The elevation of this range does not, I think, exceed 2000 feet; their formation is limestone; the summits are flat and rounded, never conical: they are bare of vegetation, and much furrowed by watercourses, all of which present a concave turn towards the Indus. There is a hot spring near Sehwun, at the village of Lukkee, situated at the base of these mountains, adjoining one of a cold description: the hot spring is a place of Hindoo pilgrimage, and considered salutary in cutaneous disorders. There is a spring of the same kind in the neighbourhood of Curachee, at the other extremity of the same range, so that similar springs would probably be found in the intervening parts. On this range, and about sixteen miles westward of Majindu, on the Indus, stands the fortified hill of Runna, a place of strength in by-gone years, but, till lately, neglected. The Ameer of Sinde has repaired it at considerable expense; but, from what I could learn, Runna owes its chief strength to the absence of water from the bleak mountains which surround it, and the copious supply within its walls.