The Indus, like the Nile and the Ganges, reaches the ocean by many mouths, which, diverging from the parent stream, form a delta of rich alluvium. At a distance of sixty miles from the sea, and about five miles below the city of Tatta, this river divides into two branches. The right arm is named Buggaur, and the left Sata. This separation is as ancient as the days of the Greeks, and mentioned by the historians of Alexander the Great.
Of these two branches, the left one, or Sata, pursues nearly a southern course to the ocean, following the direction of the great river from which it is supplied; while the right, or Buggaur, deviates at once from the general track of the Indus, and reaches the sea, by a westerly course, almost at right angles to its twin river.
The eastern branch, or Sata, is the larger of the two, and below the point of division is one thousand yards wide: it now affords egress to the principal body of the water; and though it divides and subdivides itself into numerous channels, and precipitates its water into the sea by no less than seven mouths within the space of thirty-five miles, yet such is the violence of the stream, that it throws up sand banks or bars, and only one of this many-mouthed arm is ever entered by vessels of fifty tons. The water sent out to sea from them during the swell of the river is fresh for four miles; and the Gora, or largest mouth, has cast up a dangerous sand bank, which projects directly from the land for fifteen miles.
The western arm, which is called Buggaur, on the other hand, flows into one stream past Peer Putta, Bohaur, and Darajee, to within five or six miles of the sea, when it divides into two navigable branches, the Pittee and Pieteanee, which fall into the ocean about twenty-five miles apart from each other. These are considered the two great mouths of the Indus, and were frequented till lately by the largest native boats. They are yet accessible, but for three years past the channel of the Buggaur has been deserted by the river; and though it contains two fathoms of water as high as Darajee, it shallows above that town. In the dry season it is in some places but knee-deep, and its bed, which continues nearly half a mile broad, has at that time but a breadth of 100 yards. The name of Buggaur signifies “destroy.” While this alteration has diverted the trade from Darajee to the banks of the Sata, the country near the Buggaur is as rich as it was previously; and though the branch itself is not navigated, yet there are frequently two fathoms in its bed, and every where a sufficiency of water for flat-bottomed boats. During the swell it is a fine river, and will in all probability shortly regain its former pre-eminence.
The land embraced by both these arms of the delta extends, at the junction of the rivers with the sea, to about seventy British miles; and so much, correctly speaking, is the existing delta of this river. The direction of the sea-coast along this line of rivers is north-north-west.
But the Indus covers with its waters a wider space than that now described, and has two other mouths still further to the eastward than those thrown out by the Sata, the Seer, and Koree, the latter the boundary line which divides Cutch from Sinde, though the rulers of that country have diverted the waters of both these branches by canals for irrigation, so that none of them reach the sea. With the addition of these forsaken branches, the Indus presents a face of about 125 British miles to the sea, which it may be said to enter by eleven mouths. The latitude of the most western embouchure is about 24° 40´ N., that of the eastern below 28° 30´, so that in actual latitude there is an extent of about eighty statute miles.[20]
The inconstancy of the Indus through the delta is proverbial, and there is here both difficulty and danger in its navigation. It has in these days, among the people of Sinde, as bad a character as has been left to it by the Greek historians. The water is cast with such impetuosity from one bank to another, that the soil is constantly falling in upon the river; and huge masses of clay hourly tumble into the stream, often with a tremendous crash. In some places the water, when resisted by a firm bank, forms eddies and gulfs of great depth, which contain a kind of whirlpool, in which the vessels heel round, and require every care to prevent accident. The current in such places is really terrific, and in a high wind the waves dash as in the ocean. To avoid these eddies, and the rotten parts of the bank, seemed the chief objects of care in the boatmen.
It is a fact worthy of record, that those mouths of the Indus, which are least favoured by the fresh water, are most accessible to large vessels from the sea; for they are more free from sand banks, which the river water, rushing with violence, never fails to raise. Thus the Buggaur, which I have just represented as full of shallows, has a deep and clear stream below Darajee to the sea. The Hoogly branch of the Ganges is, I believe, navigable from a similar cause.
I shall now proceed to describe the several mouths with their harbours, depth of water, together with such other facts as have fallen under notice.
Beginning from the westward, we have the Pittee mouth, an embouchure of the Buggaur, that falls into what may be called the bay of Curachee. It has no bar; but a large sand bank, together with an island outside, prevent a direct passage into it from the sea, and narrow the channel to about half a mile at its mouth. At low water its width is even less than 500 yards: proceeding upwards, it contracts to 160, but the general width is 300. At the shallowest part of the Pittee there was a depth of nine feet at low water, and the tide rose nine feet more at full moon. At high water there is every where a depth of two fathoms to Darajee, and more frequently five and six, sometimes seven and eight. Where two branches meet, the water is invariably deep. At a distance of six miles up the Pittee there is a rock stretching across the river: it has nine feet of water on it at low tide. The general course of the Pittee for the last thirty miles is W.N.W., but it enters the sea by a channel due south. The Pittee is exceedingly crooked, and consists of a succession of short turnings, in the most opposite directions; even from south to north the water from one angle is thrust upon another, which leaves this river alternately deep on both sides. Where the banks are steep, there will the channel be found; and, again, where they gradually meet the water, shallows invariably exist. This, however, may be remarked of all rivers which flow over a flat country. There is no fresh water in the Pittee nearer than thirty miles from the sea: the brushwood on its banks is very dense, and for fifteen miles up presses close in upon the river. We navigated this branch to that extent, and crossed it in two places higher up, at Darajee and Bohaur, where it had two fathoms’ water.
The Pieteeanee quits the Pittee about twenty miles from the sea, which it enters below the latitude of 24° 20´. It is narrower than the Pittee, and in every respect an inferior branch; for there are sand banks in its mouth, which overlap each other, and render the navigation intricate and dangerous. We found it to have a depth of six feet on its bar at low tide, and fifteen at full; but when once in its channel, there were three fathoms’ water. At its mouth it is but 300 yards wide, and higher up it contracts even to fifty; but it has the same depth of water every where till it joins the Pittee. The Pieteeanee runs north-easterly into the land, and from its shorter course the tide makes sooner than in the Pittee, which presented the singular circumstance of one branch running up, and the other down, at the same time.
Connected with these two mouths of the Indus, there are three inferior creeks, called Koodee, Khow, and Dubboo. The two first join the Pittee; and the Koodee was in former years one of the great entrances to Darajee, but its place has been usurped by the Pieteeanee, and it is now choked. Dubboo is only another entrance to the Pieteeanee.
However accessible these two branches have been found, neither of them are navigated by any other than flat-bottomed boats, which carry the entire cargo to and from the mouth of the river, inside which the sea vessels anchor. It was an unheard-of occurrence for boats like the four that conveyed us (none of them twenty-five tons in burden) to ascend so high up the Pittee as we did, a distance of thirty miles; but assuredly we encountered no obstacles.
Of the seven mouths that give egress to the waters of the Sata, or eastern branch, below Tatta, the Jooa, Reechel, and Hujamree, lie within ten miles of each other. One of these mouths has been at all times more or less navigable; and while they are the estuaries of the waters of the Sata, still a portion of those thrown off by the Buggaur, or other grand arm, reach them by inferior creeks during the swell, forming an admirable inland navigation through all parts of the delta. The mouths of the Jooa and Reechel are choked; but the latter was at a late period the most frequented of all the branches of the Indus. It was formerly marked by a minaret, which has, I suppose, fallen down, as this fact is particularly mentioned by our early navigators. There is yet a village, near its mouth, called Moonara, or minaret. The Hujamree is now accessible to boats of fifty tons. Its port is Vikkur, twenty-five miles from the sea, which, with Shah-bunder (still further eastward), seems alternately to share the trade of the delta. This season Shah-bunder is scarcely to be approached, and the next season Vikkur will perhaps be deserted. We entered the Indus by the Hujamree mouth, and disembarked at Vikkur. At the bar we had fifteen feet of water at high tide, and a depth of four fathoms all the way to Vikkur, even when the tide was out.
The Khedywaree is the next mouth eastward of Hujamree, with which it is connected by small creeks; it is shallow, and not much frequented by boats but to cut firewood.
Of the remaining mouths of the left arm, the next is Gora, the largest of all the mouths. It derives its supply of water direct from the Sata, which near the sea feeds numerous small creeks, and is named Wanyanee. From the Hujamree we passed by a narrow creek into this mouth of the Indus. The Gora (or, as it is also called towards the sea, Wanyanee,) has every where a depth of four fathoms. It is not more than 500 yards wide, and runs with great velocity. Its course is somewhat crooked, but it pursues a southerly line to the sea, and passes by a fine village on the left bank called Kelaun. Though the Gora possesses such facilities for navigation, yet it is not to be entered from the sea by the smallest boats, from a dangerous sand bank, to which I have before alluded. It is clear that such sand banks are thrown up by the impetuosity of the stream; for the Reechel, till it was deserted by the great body of the Indus, had as large a bar as is now opposite Gora, which has entirely disappeared with the absence of the fresh water. This branch of the Indus in the last century was open to large boats; and a square-rigged vessel of 70 tons now lies near it on dry land, where it has been left by the caprice of the river.
Below the Gora we have the Khaeer and Mull, mouths communicating with it. All three disembogue within twelve miles of each other. The Khaeer, like the Gora, is unnavigable. The Mull is safe for boats of 25 tons; and being the only entrance now open to Shah-bunder, is therefore frequented. The boats anchor in an artificial creek four miles up it, called Lipta, and await the flat-bottomed craft from the port, distant about twenty miles north-east.
About five-and-twenty miles below Mull we meet the Seer mouth of the Indus, but have salt instead of fresh water. There are several minor creeks that intervene, but they do not form any communication. The Seer is one of the destroyed branches of the Indus. A dam has been thrown across it below Mughribee, fifty miles from its mouth; and though it ceases to be a running stream on that account, the superfluity of fresh water from above forces for itself a passage by small creeks till it regains the Seer, which thus contains fresh water twenty miles from its mouth, though it is but a creek of the sea. The river immediately below Mughribee is named Goongra; higher up it is called Pinyaree, and leaves the parent stream between Hydrabad and Tatta. The Seer is accessible to boats of 150 candies (38 tons) to a place called Gunda, where they load from the flat-bottomed boats of Mughribee. With some extra labour, these same boats could reach the dam of Mughribee; and from that town the inland navigation for flat-bottomed boats is uninterrupted to the main Indus, though it becomes more difficult in the dry season. The dam of Mughribee is forty feet broad. The Seer at its mouth is about two miles wide, but it gets very narrow in ascending; within, it has a depth of four and six fathoms, but below Gunda there is a sand bank with but one fathom water on it. There is a considerable trade carried on from this branch of the Indus with the neighbouring countries of Cutch and Kattywar; for rice, the staple of Sinde, is to be had in abundance at Mughribee.
The Koree, or eastern branch of the Indus, completes the eleven mouths of the river. It once discharged a portion of the waters of the Fulailee that passes Hydrabad, as also of a branch that quits the Indus near Bukkur, and traverses the desert during the swell; but it has been closed against both these since the year 1762, when the Sindians threw up bunds, or dams, to inflict injury on their rivals, the inhabitants of Cutch.[21] Of all the mouths of the Indus the Koree gives the grandest notion of a mighty river. A little below Lucput it opens like a funnel, and at Cotasir is about seven miles wide, and continues to increase till the coasts of Cutch and Sinde are not visible from one another. When the water here was fresh it must have been a noble stream. The depth of this arm of the sea (for it can be called by no other name) is considerable. We had twenty feet of water as high as Cotasir, and it continues equally deep to Busta, which is but eight miles from Lucput. A Company’s cruiser once ascended as high as Cotasir; but it is considered dangerous, for there is an extensive sand bank at the mouth called Adheearee, on which the water at low tide is only knee deep. There are also several sand banks between it and Cotasir, and a large one opposite that place. The Koree does not communicate with the Seer or any other mouth of the Indus, but it sends off a back water to Cutch, and affords a safe inland navigation to small craft from Lucput to Juckow on the Indian Ocean, at the mouth of the gulf of Cutch.
The Sindians, it will therefore appear, have choked both eastern branches. There being no communication by the Indus and the Koree, the trade of Sinde is not exported by it. It finds a vent by the Seer; but this has not given rise to any new town being built on its banks. Such, indeed, is the humidity, that this country is only tenable for a part of the year.
We here complete the enumeration and description of the mouths of the Indus. Out from them the sea is shallow; but the soundings are regular, and a vessel will have from twelve to fifteen feet of water a mile and a half off shore. The Gora bank presents the only difficulty to the navigation of these coasts, from Mandivee, in Cutch, to Curachee. Breakers are to be traced along it for twelve miles. The sailors clear it by stretching at once out of sight of land, and keeping in twelve fathoms’ water till the danger is over: they even state that a vessel of twenty-five tons would be wrecked on a course where the depth is ten fathoms. This bank is much resorted to by fishermen; and it may generally be distinguished by their boats and nets.
The coast of Sinde, from its entire exposure to the Indian ocean, is so little protected against storms, that the navigation is much sooner suspended than in the neighbouring countries. Few vessels approach it after March; for the south-west monsoon, which then partially commences, so raises the sea that the waves break in three and four fathoms water, while the coast is not discernible from its lowness till close upon it, and there is a great risk of missing the port, and no shelter at hand, in such an event.
The tides rise in the mouths of the Indus about nine feet at full moon: they flow and ebb with great violence, particularly near the sea, where they flood and abandon the banks with equal and incredible velocity. It is dangerous to drop the anchor but at low water, as the channel is frequently obscured, and the vessel may be left dry. The tides in the Indus are only perceptible seventy-five miles from the sea, that is, about twenty-five miles below Tatta.
There is not a more miserable country in the world than the low tract at the mouths of the Indus. The tide overflows their banks, and recedes to leave a desert dreary waste, overgrown with shrubs, but without a single tree. If a vessel be unfortunately cast on this coast, she is buried in two tides; and the greatest despatch can hardly save a cargo. We had proof of this in an unfortunate boat which stranded near us; and, to add to the miseries of this land, the rulers of it, by a barbarous law, demand every thing which is cast on shore, and confiscate any vessel which, from stress of weather, may enter their ports.
The principal sea-port of Sinde is Curachee, which appears remarkable, when its rulers are in possession of all the mouths of the Indus; but it is easily explained. Curachee is only fourteen miles from the Pittee, or western mouth of the Indus; and there is less labour in shipping and unshipping goods at it, than to carry them by the river from Darajee or Shahbunder in flat-bottomed boats. Curachee can also throw its imports into the peopled part of Sinde without difficulty, by following a frequented and good level road to Tatta. The unshipment, too, at that port, supersedes the necessity of shifting the cargo into flat-bottomed boats; and the actual distance between Curachee and Tatta (about sixty miles) is half exceeded by following the windings of the stream to any of the harbours in the Delta. As the ports in the river and Curachee are both subject to Sinde, it is conclusive that that sea-port has advantages over those of the river, which have led to their being forsaken by the navigator. In former years, before Curachee was seized by the Sindians, the exports from the Delta were more considerable; since then all articles of value are brought to Curachee by land, and there shipped. The opium from Marwar is never put into a boat but to cross the Indus on its way to Curachee.
The boats of the Indus claim attention. Including Curachee and all the ports of the country, there are not, perhaps, a hundred dingees, or sea vessels, belonging to the dominions of the Ameer. These boats are of a peculiar construction—of a sharp build, with a very lofty poop; the large ones never ascend the rivers, and are principally used at the port of Curachee, and sail from thence to Muscat, Bombay, and the Malabar coast: they carry no guns. A smaller dingee is used at the mouths of the Indus, chiefly for fishing: they are good sea-boats, and sail very quickly. The fisheries in the mouths of the Indus being extensive, and forming a source of commerce, these craft abound.
The traffic on the Indus, commencing from its very mouth, is carried on in flat-bottomed boats, called doondees. They are large and unwieldy, and never exceed 100 kurwars (fifty tons) in burthen, and, when laden, draw only four feet of water. They have two masts, the larger in front; they hoist their sails behind them, to prevent accident, by giving less play to the canvass. The foresail is of a lateen shape; that aft is square, and very large. With these set, they can stem the current, in a good wind, at the rate of three miles an hour. We came from the sea to Hydrabad in five days. When the wind fails, these boats are dragged, or pushed up by spars against the stream. With ropes, they can be pulled a mile and a half in the hour; and they attach these to the mast-head, to have a better purchase. The helm is shaped like the letter P, and in the larger vessels is managed by ropes from each side; at a distance, it seems quite detached from the doondee. These vessels are also furnished with a long supple oar astern, which they work backwards and forwards, the steersman moving with it on an elevated frame. It is possible to impel the doondee with this oar alone, and nothing else is used in crossing the different ferries. When coming down with the stream, this oar, too, is again in requisition, they work it to and fro, to keep the broadside of the vessel to the current. In descending the river, the masts are invariably struck, and the helm even is stowed away. I can compare these boats to nothing so correctly as the drawing of Chinese junks; the largest are about eighty feet long and eighteen broad, shaped something like a ship high astern and low in front, with the hull slanted off at both ends, so as to present less resistance to the water. They are floating houses; for the people who navigate them take their families, and even their herds and fowls, along with them. All the boats on the river, large and small, are of the above description. In navigating the doondees, the boatmen always choose the shallow water, and avoid the rapids of the river.
From the account of the River Indus at its mouths, which is above given, it will appear that it would be accessible to steam-boats of a certain size and build; but I am thoroughly satisfied that no boat with a keel could ever navigate this river with any hopes of safety. The flat-bottomed boats are constantly grounding, but they sustain no injury; while boats differently constructed would be at once upset by the violence of the stream, and destroyed. It is not to be doubted, however, that steam-vessels could be adapted to this navigation as well as the existing boats on the river; and had not coal been found both at the head and mouth of the Indus, fuel could be supplied from the great abundance of wood which the banks of this river every where furnish. The Americans use wood for this purpose; and the supply of brushwood on the Lower Indus is abundant.
I make allusion to the navigation of this river by steam, because I am aware it is an object of interest; but, in conducting any expedition against Sinde, I feel satisfied, from what I have seen, that there would be little advantage, in a military point of view, derived from the river Indus below Tatta. It would be impracticable to march a force through the Delta, from the number of rivers; and it would be equally impossible to embark it in flat-bottomed boats, for there are not 100 of them below Hydrabad; few are of burthen, and the very largest would not contain a company of infantry. The vulnerable point of Sinde is Curachee, and a landing might be effected on either side of the town without difficulty. The Creek of Gisry, to the south-east, has been pointed out[22] as a favourable place, and I can add my concurrence in the opinion; but a force would easily effect its disembarkation anywhere in that neighbourhood. For a land expedition, the route from Cutch to Ballyaree, by the Thurr, seems to me the most feasible. While I represent the mouths of the Indus as unfavourable for conducting an attack from India on Sinde, I do not wish to be understood as hazarding at this time any opinion on like obstacles presenting themselves in an attack from its banks on India.
With regard to the supplies which an army is to expect in the lower parts of Sinde, my report will be more favourable. Grain, that is, rice and bajree, will be found in great abundance. Horned cattle and sheep are numerous. The pasturage is not good, but near the sea abundant. Almost all the villages are mere hamlets; for Darajee, Lahory, and Shahbunder, which figure on the map as places of importance, have none of them a population of 2000 souls. The two first, indeed, have not that between them; and there are not ten other places that have a hundred souls below Tatta. Camels would be found in great abundance, as also horses: these are of a small and diminutive breed, but the camels are very superior. From the number of buffaloes, milk and ghee are to be had in great abundance, and all the rivers abound in fish. The country is peopled to the sea-shore; but the inhabitants are thinly scattered over its surface in temporary villages; and near many of the mouths experience great inconvenience from the want of fresh water, which they bring from a distance for themselves and cattle: the banks of the Gora form the only exception. The people consist chiefly of erratic and pastoral tribes; for though the Indus presents such facilities to the cultivator, there is not a fourth of the cultivable land below Tatta brought under tillage; it lies neglected and overgrown with tamarisk.