Most English visitors to Tatta go there for the shooting only and I should be the last to blame them. Below the ancient fort of Kalankot near Tatta is a lake of the same name. It is quite shallow and overgrown with tall reeds, the home of innumerable duck. They rise all round, as one is poled in boats through lanes cut among the reeds and quick eye and hand are needed before they can be bagged. But close to the bungalow are a number of ancient tombs; and as no record of their owners is to be found on the walls, a few facts about them may prove interesting to future visitors.

The tombs are built on a ridge known as the Makli Hill. Two derivations of the name are given. Some say that the hill owes its title to a pious woman called Makli who lived and was buried on it. Others say that a holy man gave it the name of Makli because he deemed it Maka laali or the threshold of Mecca. Whatever the true origin may be, let us take the tombs from north to south and put down what we know about them. The farthest to the north is a [58]brick tomb on a masonry plinth, plastered and white-washed. Beneath it lie the earthly remains of Sayad Ali Shirazi. Great saint though he was, he would long ago have been forgotten, save for the fact that for a moment his career touched that of the great Akbar. The Emperor Humayun, defeated in battle after battle by the great Afghan soldier Sher Shah, fled to Sind. After trying in vain to establish himself at Sehwan and Bukkur, he started for Bikanir, only to learn that the Chief meant to hand him over to his enemy. He turned back and made his way first to Jasalmir and then through the desert to Umarkot. Most of his companions died of thirst. The others losing in their misery all respect for their leader, let him walk so that his wife, Akbar’s mother, should ride. At last with only seven attendants he reached Umarkot and there on the 14th October 1542 Akbar was born. Humayun had neither gifts to distribute to his friends nor clothes in which to wrap the baby. The first difficulty he overcame by breaking a pod of musk and letting its perfume spread among his guests, at the same time exclaiming with prophetic truth that his baby boy’s fame would diffuse itself through the world like the fragrance of the musk. The second difficulty he met by cutting Akbar’s first garment out of the coat of Sayad Ali Shirazi, who had been sent by the people of Tatta with gifts and greetings. Ali Shirazi lived for thirty years afterwards and the date of his burial is inscribed on his tomb, viz., 1752 A.D.

South of the Sayad’s tomb is that of Makli, the eponymous heroine of the hill, and south of Makli’s is that of Jam Nindo. It is easily distinguished as it has no roof and its stones were evidently taken from some ancient Hindu temple. Jam Nindo or the Little Jam was the founder of Tatta. His real name was Jam Nizam-ud-din and he was a Samma by caste. Here we must go back into early Sind History. When the Afghan [59]Emperor Ala-ud-din Khilji conquered Sind, a Rajput tribe named the Sumras were in possession. Subdued then, they successfully revolted in the reign of Ghazi-ud-din Tughlak. In the middle of the 14th century, however, they were ousted by another Rajput tribe the Sammas. The latter ruled Sind from 1350 A.D. to 1521 A.D. But until Jam Nindo’s time they did not live at Tatta. They lived at Samui three miles to the northwest. When Jam Nindo had established his power and cleared the land of robbers, he thought he would build a new town, “wherein happiness might remain for ever.” He chose a site to the east of the Makli Hill and on a day picked out by the Brahmans, he founded his city, Tatta. There he ruled for at least fifty years and was buried on the Makli Hill. Another Samma chief buried there was Jam Tamachi. He was the Jam who loved the fisher maiden Nuri and was the ancestor of the Jadeja Raos of Cutch. But it is not possible to say with certainty which his tomb is!1

Jam Nindo’s son and successor was Jam Feroz. But the new Jam loved too warmly the beauty of his dancing girls and the jokes of his jesters to be a good ruler. The result was that in 1521 A.D. he was driven from his throne by Shahbeg Arghun, who had himself been driven from Kandahar by the lion-hearted Babar. In 1536 A.D. Shah Hussein Arghun succeeded his father Shahbeg and was the ruler of Sind when Humayun fled to it and Akbar was born. In 1554 he died and Mirza Isa Tarkhan, the founder of the Tarkhan Dynasty, became master of Tatta. It is to his tomb to which we come, shortly after saying goodbye to Jam Nindo’s. Isa Khan’s last dwelling place stands in a large courtyard close to an old [60]mosque. The tomb is entirely of carved stone with perforated slabs let in here and there. It was in Mirza Isa’s time that the Portuguese sacked Tatta. It seems that in 1555 Mirza Isa Khan quarrelled with Sultan Mahmud the Governor of Bukkur by whose aid he had become King of Sind. Isa Khan sent an envoy to Goa to ask help from the Portuguese. The fame of that nation in India was then at its height. Only a few years before they had helped the King of Guzarat to drive out Humayun and in return had received Bassein and the whole Province of the north including Salsette Island. With their aid Isa Khan felt sure that he could humble Sultan Mahmud. On the other hand, no doubt, the Portuguese Governor-General dreamed visions of a second northern province on the banks of the Indus. He sent a fleet of 28 ships with 700 men under Pedro Baretto. The gallant Pedro duly sailed up the Indus and reaching Tatta asked for orders. In the meantime, however, Isa Khan had in several actions instilled into Sultan Mahmud Khan a sense of his inferiority and had forced him to sue for peace. Isa Khan sent word from Bukkur that he no longer needed Portuguese help. Pedro then asked for the cost of the expedition, estimated, I dare say, on a liberal scale. Isa Khan politely refused to pay. Dom Pedro flew into a rage, sacked Tatta, killed 800 people, took away two millions sterling and left the town in flames. Isa Khan rebuilt the town but he entered into no more alliances with the Portuguese. He ruled prosperously until 1572 A.D. when he died and was buried on the Makli Hill.

On Isa Khan’s death his son Mahomed Baki succeeded him. His tomb is a small ruined brick enclosure, the one immediately to the north of Tural Beg’s, of whom I shall say a word or two later. Isa Khan’s tomb is a poor thing compared [61]with his father’s and his son’s, but then so was Mahomed Baki himself. For twelve years he gave the good people of Tatta a dreadful time. To slit their ears and noses and shave off their beards was the favourite pastime of his leisure moments. To hang them, impale them and throw them under the feet of his elephants was the serious business of his life. At last in 1584, having lived to see his daughter returned with thanks by the Emperor Akbar, he committed suicide. To him succeeded his son Jani Beg, whose tomb is the southernmost of all. It is of brick, faced with glazed blue and green tiles. It has a perforated window above the door and there are geometric tracery windows also on the four sides. By the time Jani Beg had succeeded his father, the genius of Akbar was at its zenith. Sultan Mahmud of Bukkur yielded to the great Emperor his sovereignty without a blow. But Jani Beg was of sterner stuff. Entrenching himself behind the river Phito, he withstood for some months the imperial forces. Driven from his trenches he fell back on the great fort of Kalankot; but that Akbar should not use Tatta as his base, he destroyed it and left the emperor a smouldering ruin. Yet brave as he was, he had at last to kiss the stirrup of the world conqueror, was graciously received and confirmed as imperial governor of Tatta. He died there in 1599. The Emperor confirmed in his place his son Ghazi Beg. The latter lived until 1612, when he was murdered. His body was buried in the same tomb as Jani Beg and the common grave was for many years the scene of a curious pilgrimage. Both father and son were renowned as poets and musicians and childless couples who desired off-spring, used to visit their tomb and try and win the favour of their spirits by songs and instruments. But efficacious as his spiritual aid may have been in procuring sons for barren women, poor Ghazi remained childless himself. He had no son and with him the Tarkhan dynasty of Sind ended. [62]

The Moghul emperors thereafter ruled Sind through governors appointed directly from Delhi. The Tomb of Diwan Shurfa Khan, the minister of one of these governors, Amirkhan by name, is one of the best preserved on Makli Hill. Another less well preserved, but even more imposing tomb, that of Nawab Isa Khan, dates from the same period A.D. 1628–1644. It has an upper storey to which leads a flight of stairs. To the east of Isa Khan’s tomb are the graves of the ladies of his ample Zanana. To the south of Isakhan’s tomb is quite a small one, that of Mirza Tural Beg. It appears that he misused his position by artificially forcing up the price of grain and then selling his stock at a large profit. He was so hated in his life-time that he took the precaution to build his own tomb. But even so he did not escape infamy. He was nicknamed the “Dukario” or “Famine Man” and every one who passed his grave used regularly to heave a stone at it. In time the stones were piled up right to the stone canopy above it. Fortunately for the “Famine Man” the Public Works Department have taken charge of his tomb and have removed the stones. But his memory is still detested and his present address is believed to be somewhere in the very centre of the flaming halls of Iblis.