[I cannot introduce more appropriately than on the present occasion, the following paper, which was drawn up some time since. It is necessary to mention this circumstance, as a few of the facts communicated are already before the public, and have been noticed by Professor Lyell.[29] Of the Run of Cutch I am not aware of any other account having been published, though it is a tract without parallel on the globe.]
In the north-western extremity of our Indian possessions, and under the tropic, is situated the small and sterile territory of Cutch, important to the British from its advanced position, but of more attraction to the student of history, from its western shore being washed by the waters of the classic Indus. Cutch is a country peculiarly situated.—To the west, it has the inconstant and ever-varying Indus; to the north and east, the tract called Run, which is alternately a dry sandy desert and a muddy inland lake; to the south, it has the Gulf of Cutch and the Indian Ocean, with waters receding yearly from its shores.
The physical geography of such a province is full of interest; for, besides the alteration in its fluctuating boundaries, it is subject to earthquakes, one of which has lately produced some unlooked for changes in the eastern branch of the Indus. To particularly detail and explain these, is the object of the present memoir. Former fertility. Cutch at present labours under disadvantages inflicted on it by the vindictive hatred of a jealous and cruel neighbouring Government. Previous to the battle of Jarra, in the year 1762[30], the eastern branch of the Indus, commonly called the Phurraun, emptied itself into the sea by passing the western shores of Cutch; and the country on its banks participated in the advantages which this river bestows throughout its course. Its annual inundations watered the soil, and afforded a plentiful supply of rice; the country on its banks being then known by the name of “Sayra.”
These blessings, which nature had bestowed on this otherwise barren region, perished with the battle of Jarra; for the Sindian chief, irritated at the unsuccessful result of his expedition, returned to his country full of vengeance, and inflicted the deepest injury on the country which he had failed to humble. At the village of Mora he threw up a mound of earth, or, as it is called, a “bund,” across that branch of the Indus which fertilised Cutch, and by thus turning the stream, which so much benefited its inhabitants, to flow into other branches of the river, and by leading it through canals to desert portions of his own dominions, he at once destroyed a large and rich tract of irrigated land, and converted a productive rice country, which had belonged to Cutch, into a sandy desert.
The mound which had been raised, did not entirely exclude the water of the Indus from Cutch; but so impeded the progress of the main stream, that all agriculture depending on irrigation ceased. In process of time this trivial remnant of prosperity disappeared, and the Talpoors, who succeeded the Kaloras in the government of Sinde, threw up other mounds; and about the year 1802, the erection of one at Ali Bunder excluded the waters of the Indus, even at the period of inundation, from the channel which had once conveyed them past Cutch to the sea. Since then, the stripe of land which once formed the fertile district of Sayra ceased to yield a blade of vegetation, and became a part of the Run of Cutch, on which it had formerly bordered. The channel of the river at the town of Lucput shallowed[31]; and, above Sindree, filled with mud, and dried up. Lower down it changed into an arm of the sea, and was flooded at every tide.
The Raos, or Princes of Cutch, possessed at one time military stations in three different places of Sinde,—Budeenu, Ballyaree, and Raomaka-bazar,—yet they submissively bore these indignities, as well to their own detriment as that of their subjects. They used no exertion to recover that which nature had bestowed on their country, or to wipe off those injuries which had been offered, at variance, as they no doubt were, with the law of nations, which requires “that different nations ought, in time of peace, to do one another all the good they can, and in time of war, as little harm as possible, without prejudice to their own real interests.”[32]
In this state of indifference, there occurred, in June, 1819, a severe shock of an earthquake, by which some hundreds of the inhabitants of Cutch perished, and every fortified stronghold in the country was shaken to its foundations. Wells and rivulets without number changed from fresh to salt water; but these were trifling alterations, compared with those which took place in the eastern branch of the Indus, and the adjacent country. At sunset, the shock was felt at Sindree, the station at which the Cutch Government levied their customs, situated on the high road from Cutch to Sinde, and on the banks of what had been once the eastern branch of the Indus. The little brick fort of 150 feet square, which had been built there for the protection of merchandise, was overwhelmed by an inundating torrent of water from the ocean, which spread on every side, and, in the course of a few hours, converted the tract, which had before been hard and dry, into an inland lake, which extended for sixteen miles on either side of Sindree. The houses within the walls filled with water, and eight years afterwards I found fish in the pools among them. The only dry spot was the place on which the bricks had fallen upon one another. One of four towers only remained, and the custom-house officers had saved their lives by ascending it, and were eventually transported to dry land by boats on the following day.[33]
But it was soon discovered that this was not the only alteration in this memorable convulsion of nature; as the inhabitants of Sindree observed, at a distance of five miles northward, a mound of earth or sand, in a place where the soil was previously low and level. It extended east and west for a considerable distance, and passed immediately across the channel of the Indus, separating as it were for ever the Phurraun river from the sea. The natives called this mound by the name of “Ullah bund,” or the mound of God, in allusion to its not being, like the other dams of the Indus, a work of man, but a dam thrown up by nature.
These wonderful events passed unheeded by the inhabitants; for the deep injury which had been inflicted on Cutch in 1762 had so thoroughly ruined that part of the country, that it was a matter of indifference whether it continued a desert, or became an inland lake. A feeble and unsuccessful attempt was made by Cutch to establish a Custom-house on the newly raised dam of “Ullah bund,” but to this the Ameers of Sinde objected, and Sindree being no longer tenable, the officers were withdrawn to the mainland of Cutch.
Matters continued in this state till the month of November, 1826, when information was received that the Indus had burst its banks in Upper Sinde, and that an immense volume of water had spread over the desert which bounds that country to the eastward, had likewise burst every artificial dam in the river, as well as the “Ullah bund,” and forced for itself a passage to the Run of Cutch. Actual state of the river. In March, 1827, I proceeded to investigate the truth of what I have stated, to examine the natural mound, and to endeavour to account for these constant alterations in physical geography. I journeyed from Bhooj, the capital of Cutch, to Lucput, a town on the north-western extremity of the province, situated on the Koree, or eastern branch of the Indus. Here I embarked in a small flat-bottomed boat, and sailed up the river. At Lucput, and for twelve miles up, it was about 300 yards wide, and from two to three fathoms deep, retaining all the appearance of a river. At Sundo, a sand bank so called, which is about four leagues distant from that town, the channel shallowed to four or five feet, for two miles; but then regaining its depth, I entered on a vast inland lake that bounded the horizon on all sides, amid which the remaining tower of Sindree stood, like a rock in the ocean. At Sundo the water was brackish, at Sindree it was quite fresh. Hence I proceeded to “Ullah bund,” which I found to be composed of soft clay and shells, elevated about ten feet from the surface of the water, and cut through like a canal, with perpendicular banks on either side. The channel was about thirty-five yards broad, and three fathoms deep; and a body of fresh water, a portion of the real Indus, rolled down it into the lake which I had traversed, below “Ullah bund.” Here the stream took on once more the appearance of a river, and I found several boats laden with “ghee” (clarified butter), which had descended it from Wunga, and thus corroborated all which I had heard, that the bunds of the Indus had been burst, and that the communication between the great river and its eastern and long-forsaken branch was once more restored. I learned likewise that the far-famed fortress of Omercote had been partially overwhelmed in this inundation; for instead of being an öasis in the desert, as had long been supposed, this birthplace of the great Acbar is a small brick fort only three or four miles distant from the Indus, and between which and Lucput, so late as May, 1829, there was a communication by water.
The “Ullah bund,” which I now examined with attention, was, however, the most singular consequence of this great earthquake. To the eye it did not appear more elevated in one place than another, and could be traced both east and west as far as it could reach; the natives assigned to it a total length of fifty miles. It must not, however, be supposed to be a narrow stripe like an artificial dam, as it extends inland to Raomaka-bazar, perhaps to a breadth of sixteen miles, and appeared to be a great upheaving of nature. Its surface was covered with saline soil, and I have already stated that it consisted of clay, shells, and sand. The people universally attributed this bund to the influence of the earthquake, and also assigned the shallowness of the river at Sundo to the same cause.
The inland lake which had been thus formed, extended for about 2000 square miles, and its limits were well defined, since the roads from Cutch to Sinde passed on either side of it. The one led from Nurra to Loonee and Raomaka-bazar, and the other from Lucput to Kotree Garee and the Jattee. I am disposed to believe that this sheet of water has collected from a depression of the country round Sindree; for the earthquake had an immediate influence on the channel of the river below “Ullah bund,” which became deep enough to be navigable for boats of 100 tons from the sea to Lucput, which had never been the case since 1762. While the basin of Sindree, as I may call it, was depressed, it is evident that the mound of “Ullah bund” was raised at the same time, as the description already given will have satisfactorily shown.
In the month of August, in the year 1827, I proceeded a second time to the eastern branch of the Indus, to make further investigations regarding a subject on which many individuals, as well as myself, had taken an interest. Great alterations had taken place in this changeable country; the river and lake were deeper in all places by two feet, the channel through “Ullah bund” was much widened, and the sheet of water was now entirely and every where salt. The stream which passed “Ullah bund” was fresh, but greatly diminished in size: in the time that had intervened between my visits, the south-westerly winds had prevailed, and blown the sea water in upon the fresh, which, appeared to account for the change that had taken place.
Besides the facts which have been recorded, it appears clear that a portion of the waters of the Indus have a tendency to escape by Lucput and Cutch. We find an inundation of the river seeking an old channel which had been deserted by them for sixty-five years.[34]
In the course of my observations on the Indus, I found myself drawn into many inquiries regarding the Run of Cutch, to which that river adjoins; for if the alterations in the river afforded room for remark, there was also much to be said on the Run, which is a tract, I believe, without a counterpart in the globe. In length, the Run extends from the Indus to the western confines of Guzerat, a distance of about 200 British miles. In breadth, it is about thirty-five miles; but there are, besides, various belts and ramifications, which give it an extent of about 7000 square miles. It is accurately delineated in the map. The whole tract may truly be said to be a “terra hospitibus ferox;” fresh water is never to be had any where but on islands, and there it is scarce; it has no herbage, and vegetable life is only discernible in the shape of a stunted tamarisk bush, which thrives by its suction of the rain water that falls near it. It differs as widely from what is termed the sandy desert, as it differs from the cultivated plain; neither does it resemble the Steppes of Russia; but may be justly considered of a nature peculiar to itself. It has been denominated a marsh by geographers, which has given rise to many erroneous impressions regarding it. It has none of the characteristics of one: it is not covered or saturated with water, but at certain periods; it has neither weeds nor grass in its bed, which, instead of being slimy, is hard, dry, and sandy, of such a consistency as never to become clayey, unless from a long continuance of water on an individual spot; nor is it otherwise fenny or swampy. It is a vast expanse of flat, hardened, sand, encrusted with salt sometimes an inch deep (the water having been evaporated by the sun), and at others, beautifully crystallized in large lumps. So much is the whole surrounding country corrupted by this exuberance of salt, that all the wells dug on a level with the Run become salt. The depression of the Run below the level of the surrounding country at once suggests the probability of its being a dried up lake or sea.
Nowhere is that singular phenomenon, the mirage or surab of the desert, seen with greater advantage than in the Run. The natives aptly term it smoke[35]; the smallest shrubs at a distance assume the appearance of forests; and on a nearer approach, sometimes that of ships in full sail, at others that of breakers on a rock. In one instance I observed a cluster of bushes, which looked like a pier, with tall-masted vessels lying close to it; and on approaching, not a bank was near the shrubs to account for the deception. From the Run, the hills of Cutch appear more lofty, and to have merged into the clouds, their bases being obscured by vapour. The wild ass[36] is the only inhabitant of this desolate region; they roam about in flocks, “scorning the multitude of the city, and make the wilderness and barren lands their dwelling.” Their size does not much exceed that of the common ass, but, at a short distance, they sometimes appear as large as elephants. While the sun shines, the whole surrounding space of Run resembles a vast expanse of water—the appearance it commonly assumes—and which is only to be distinguished from real water by those who are long habituated to such visionary illusions. When the sun is not shining, the Run appears higher at a distance; but this has been remarked of the sea, and other extensive sheets of water, and is also to be accounted for in the deception of vision.
The natives of Cutch, Mahommedans as well as Hindoos, believe that the Run was formerly a sea; and a tradition is in the mouth of every one, that a Hindoo saint, by name Dhoorumnath, a Jogee[37], underwent penance by standing on his head for twelve years on the summit of Denodur, one of the highest hills in Cutch, which overlooks the Run. When his penance terminated, God became visible to him, the hill on which he stood split in two, and the adjacent sea (the present Run) dried up; the ships and boats which then navigated it were overturned, its harbours destroyed, and many wonderful events happened. There is no race of people who have recourse to supernatural agency in their chronicles, more than the natives of India; and, to those accustomed to enquire into them, the circumstances just recorded will appear as the graft of one of their tales on some real event which has actually occurred, and is thus transmitted to posterity. Considering the frequent occurrence of earthquakes in Cutch, the volcanic appearance of’ its hills, and the lava which covers the face of the country, it is to a convulsion of nature, in all probability, that we are to attribute the foundation of such a tradition.
The natives, however, carry their traditions beyond the vague legends of a saint, and point out at this day different positions, said to have been harbours, in the Run of Cutch. At Nerona, which is a village about twenty miles NNW. of Bhooj the capital, and close to the Run, there is said to have been a sea-port, which is thus described in the poesy of the country:—
In other words, that Nerona was a sea-port (tur), when Goontree (an ancient city in Cutch) flourished in the neighbouring district of Chitrano. At Charee, a village westward of Nerona, and on the Run, there is also a like tradition. The people of the Puchum, the largest island on the Run, have similar traditions, and speak of boats having been wrecked on the hills of the island; also that there were considerable harbours near them, called Dorut, Doh or Dohee, and Phangwuro, which are yet pointed out to the westward of Puchum. Bitaro, a small place on the high road to Sinde, between Cutch and “Ullah Bund,” is also said to have been a sea-port, and I could point out several others. Nor are the traditions less concurrent on the Sinde, or northern side of the Run: Veego-gud, near “Ullah Bund,” is said to have been the principal sea-port, and its brick ruins are yet visible. Vingur and Ballyaree, which lie eastward, claim likewise the same privileges. This sea had the name of “Kiln;” nor do I believe that the testimony of so many people, regarding it, can be discredited, informed as I was of these traditions by different persons, who had no communication with one another.
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.
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.
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.
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]
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.
“We embarked on the creek at Lucput Bender, which is about three quarters of a mile broad, and runs between east and north, for six or eight miles, when it begins to narrow very much: the shore on each side is a wet marsh, covered with short bushes.
“In the evening we anchored at the turn of the tide, and at twelve o’clock next day we passed Sindree, which is about thirty miles from Lucput, and dependent on it, with a small garrison of sepoys: it is a small fort, with a few huts outside, and one well: the creek here is about a mile and a quarter broad, and has a ferry across. The travellers who take this route to Sinde are not numerous, and leave no vestige of a road in the light sand, of which the dry part of the Run is composed. The heat of the meridian sun is said to be so intense, that they generally travel in the night. From Sindree, by land, the next stage is about twenty-four miles to Baura, after which the Run ends, and water becomes tolerably plentiful.
“We passed Sindree, and observed several inferior branches leading through the Run, among which we saw a few straggling men and women; about twenty miles beyond Sindree, we reached Aly Bunder, at eight o’clock at night, and came to anchor close to the mound which confines the fresh water: when the day appeared, we observed it to be a poor mud village, of about fifty huts, and a tower of the same unsubstantial materials. Here we encamped for the purpose of collecting the boats from the freshwater side of the mound, and not finding a sufficient number, several of those we brought with us were dragged over: this, however, was a work of three days; and, during that time, from the nature of the soil, we were annoyed by the dust in such a manner as would scarcely be believed by those who had not been in a similar situation: the sun was completely obscured by it, an object at the distance of 100 yards was invisible; and the natives moving about were so disguised, that their colour was not distinguishable. The soil of the Run is a mixture of fine sand and the salt deposited by the inundation. This, dried by several months’ sun, becomes a most impalpable powder. The Run, which ceases about a line with Aly Bunder, from north-east and north, is covered with aquatic bushes and a few shells: the sand entangled amongst these bushes forms hillocks of various heights, from five to fifteen feet, according to the size of the bush. It does not appear that any of the side channels lead beyond the Run, or that any of them are navigated by boats, except those which again join the main stream: that by which we came is certainly by far the most considerable.
“On the 10th we embarked again on the freshwater river, which is there about 400 yards broad, and soon after widens very much, with high sand-hills on the banks, and a few huts with a little cultivation. The river here takes the name of Goonee.
“At the distance of about twelve miles from Aly Bunder, the river divides, and soon after becomes so narrow, that our boats, though not large, had difficulty in passing through the large bushes which overhang the bank, and has great appearance of a cut canal, or at least of a channel cleared out and deepened; the banks are irregular in their height, and the land immediately beyond them low, and in several places swampy. We passed the mouth of a creek on the west, said to lead to Tatta, besides several other inferior streams which run through the country, and are cut into a variety of channels, for the purposes of cultivation.
“About ten miles beyond Aly Bunder, on the west bank, is Chuttee Thur (or ferry), opposite to which is the mouth of a considerable stream, with a dam across, which we understood to be the Phoran. This was formerly a very large branch of the Indus, and ran past Nusserpoor, which I learn is to the south-east. Many of the inhabitants of that place recollect a remarkable change in the river: the inundation swallowed up a great part of the town, and altered the course of the river, which since then has had much less water in it. The whole of Sinde, from the nature of its soil, is subject to these alterations by the annual floods, many striking instances of which the inhabitants are well acquainted with, particularly that which I have already mentioned, and the great alterations in the branches below Tatta.”—See Captain Grindley’s Journal in MS.
THE END.
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