INTRODUCTION.
I was employed as an officer of the Quartermaster-general’s department, for several years, in the province of Cutch. In the course of enquiries into its geography and history, I visited the eastern mouth of the Indus, to which the country adjoins, as well as that singular tract called the “Run,” into which that river flows. The extension of our knowledge in that quarter served only to excite further curiosity, in which I was stimulated by Lieut-General Sir Thomas Bradford, then Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay army. That officer directed his views, in a most enlightened manner, to the acquisition of every information regarding a frontier so important to Britain as that of north-western India. Encouraged by such approbation, for which I am deeply grateful, I volunteered my services, in the year 1829, to traverse the deserts between India and the Indus, and finally, endeavour to descend that river to the sea. Such a journey involved matters of political moment; but the government of Bombay was then held by an individual distinguished above all others, by zeal in the cause of Asiatic geography and literature. Sir John Malcolm despatched me at once, in prosecution of the design, and was pleased to remove me to the political branch of the service, observing, that I should be then invested “with influence with the rulers, through whose country I travelled, that would tend greatly to allay that jealousy and alarm, which might impede, if they did not arrest, the progress of my enquiries.”
In the year 1830, I entered the desert, accompanied by Lieut. James Holland, of the Quartermaster-general’s department, an officer ably qualified to assist me. After reaching Jaysulmeer, we were overtaken by an express from the Supreme Government of India, desiring us to return, since at that time “it was deemed inexpedient to incur the hazard of exciting the alarm and jealousy of the rulers of Sinde, and other foreign states, by the prosecution of the design.” This disappointment, then most acutely felt, was dissipated in the following year, by the arrival of presents from the King of Great Britain for the ruler of Lahore, coupled, at the same time, with the desire that such an opportunity for acquiring correct information of the Indus should not be overlooked. The following work contains the narrative of that mission, which I conducted by the Indus to Lahore. The information which I collected, relative to Jaysulmeer and the countries on the N. W. frontier of India, has just been published in the Transactions of the Royal Geographical Society of London.
London, June 7. 1834.