The Acesines is the largest of the Punjab rivers, but its size has been exaggerated. Ptolemy informs us that it is fifteen furlongs wide in the upper part of its course; and Arrian states that it surpasses the Nile when it has received the waters of the Punjab falling into the Indus by a mouth of thirty stadia. Alexander warred in the rainy reason, when these rivers are much swollen, and when the inundation had set in for two months. We have already exposed the latter part of this amplification, in confining the Chenab to a breadth of 600 yards, and a depth of twenty feet. There is no perceptible diminution in the size of this stream, from the Sutlege upwards, for that river increases the depth without adding to the breadth; and the Chenab, south of the Ravee, will be found, as I have before described it, only with the shallow soundings of twelve feet. Its banks are so low, that it is in some places spread as much as 1200 yards, and looks as large as the Indus. At Mooltan ferry it was 1000 yards across, and below its junction with the Ravee, above three quarters of a mile; but these are exceptions to the general feature of the stream.

The Chenab receives the Ravee, or Hydraotes, below Fazilpoor, under the parallel of 30° 40´ north latitude, nearly 180 miles from Ooch, by the windings of the river, and upwards of 53 miles from Mooltan; in the neighbourhood of which city it passes on its course to the Indus, by a direction about south-west.[28] The redness of its water has already been mentioned, and that of the Ravee has even a deeper tinge. It runs quicker than the Indus, or any of the Punjab rivers, and its banks on both sides are open and richly irrigated by larger canals of running water, dug with great labour; on the right bank, from Mooltan upwards, there is a desert of low sand-hills, which does not admit of cultivation, and presses in upon the cultivated land at the short distance of two miles from the river. It is a mistake to believe that this desert commences so low as Ooch, and occupies the “doab” of the Indus and Acesines; for that tract has many large villages, and is rich and fertile across from one river bank to the other. The distance between the two rivers is about twenty-five miles, nor does it become desert till it widens beyond that space below Mooltan.

At Mooltan the Acesines is navigated by the “zohruk;” but the vessel differs in some degree from that used in the Daoodpootra country: the waist is little more than a foot above water; they are much smaller, and hoist a mat-sail on a small mast. As there is no trade, ferry-boats are only to be had, if we except the few which bring down salt from the Jelum or Hydaspes. We embarked in a fleet of ten boats, while such an additional number are not to be procured on this part of the river. Wood, &c. These vessels are built of the dyar, or cedar wood from the mountains in which the Punjab rivers have their source: the supply which the inundation roots up and floats down, is sufficient for all purposes, without any one carrying on a professed trade in it. While the boats here are constructed of this wood, they are repaired with the “talee” tree, which may be found near every village; and, though this country is not well wooded, an army might soon procure a supply by cutting trees from the villages near the river, and floating them down to any place of rendezvous.

The natives of this country cross the rivers without boats, on skins or bundles of reeds; and whole families may be seen passing in this apparently insecure mode. I have observed a man, with his wife and three children, in the middle of the stream, the father on a skin dragging his wife and children, who were seated on reeds, and one of them an infant at the breast: goods, clothes and chattels form a bundle for the head; and though alligators do certainly exist, they are not numerous, or such as to deter the people from repeating an experiment, to say the least of it, not free from danger.

The greater part of the country bordering on this part of the Acesines is included in the district of Mooltan, which, besides the city of that name, contains the modern town of Shoojurabad. The government, when tributary to Cabool, has been described in the worst terms; but Runjeet Sing has recruited its population, repaired the canals, and added to their number, raising it to a state of opulence and prosperity to which it had been long a stranger. The soil amply repays the labour, for such is its strength, that a crop of wheat, before yielding its grain, is twice mowed down as fodder for cattle, and then ears, and produces an abundant harvest. The indigo and sugar crops are likewise rich, and one small strip of land five miles long, which we passed, afforded a revenue of 75,000 rupees. The total revenue amounts to about ten lacs of rupees a year, or double the sum it produced in 1809. The tobacco of Mooltan is celebrated; but, for an Indian province, the date-tree is its most singular production. It yields a great abundance of fruit, which is hardly inferior to that of Arabia; for the trees are not weakened by extracting a liquor from them, as in Lower India. I imagine that they owe their maturity to the great heat of Mooltan; for dates seldom ripen in India. The mangoes of Mooltan are the best of Upper India, and their good qualities seem also to arise from the same cause, as the mango is usually but an indifferent fruit beyond the tropics.