1 INTRODUCTION. $
2 C3KX»ao^ wfakli nuy be x^Asmui the aeocmd town, in lib dommioiM.
3 Ik is near a in& aod a half round, without counting its large but
4 mean subuibe $ and* diough situated among naked sand hills, it has a
5 very handsome appearaaoe. The houses are all terraced, and boththef
6 and the walls of the town are built of a kind of lime-stone, of so pure a
7 white, that it gives an air of great neatness to every thing composed
8 of it. It is however soft, and cnimhies into a white pov. <l(<r, mixed
9 here and tliere witli shells. It is lumid in large beds in iri mv parts
10 of the desart. The chief of Chooroo is a dependent ratlier than a
11 subject of the Raja of Bilianeer.
12 The Shckhawuttce couiiti y seenui to lose its title to he included in
13 the desart, when compared with the two hundred and eighty miles
14 between its western frontier and Baliawuipoor, and, even of this, only
15 die la^ hundred miles is absolutdy d^tute of inhabitantSt water, or
16 vegetation. Our joomqr Bnmi the Shekhawut frontier, to Pooggul, a
17 distance of (me hundred and miles, was over hills ud TsUefs
18 of loose and heavy sand Hie hiUs were exactij Uke those idueh
19 are sometimes fiirmed bj the wind on 4he sea shore,, hot frr exoeed-
20 ing^ them in thefar heig^ whidi was from twenty to one hundred feet,
21 niey ate said to shift Ihmr positions, and to alter their sbipeB, aooord*
22 ing as dMy are affected by the wind ; and in Summer, llie passage oH
23 many parts of the desart is said to be rendered dangerous by the
24 clouds of moving sand ; but wh«a I saw the hills (in winter), they
25 seemed to have a great d^ree of permanence, for they bore a sort of
26 grass, besides llioke, and the thorin hushes of the Baubool, and the
27 Rnir. or Jujube, which ahoixptlii r gavf tin m :in ^pearanr( tliat some-
28 times amounted to verdm f. Among the most dismal hills of sand,
29 one occasionally meets wilh a village, if sucli a name can be given to
30 a few round huts of straw, with low walL uud euriical rool's, like little
31 stocks of com. These are surrounded by hedges ol" tliorny brandies
32 stuck in the sand, which, as wdl as the houses, are so dry, that if
33 they happened to catch Bre, the village would be reduced to ashes in
34 five minutes. These misendile abodes are sorroanded by a few fidda,
35 whidi depend Ibr water' on the rains and dews, and .whidi bear thii^
36 • Digitized by Google