1 SINDE. 207
2 turage for camels, buffaloes, kine, sheep, and goats, all in con-
3 tinual motion in search of water, or its concomitant, vegetation.
4 Numerous beds of rivers long dried up intersect this arid tract,
5 appearing to indicate that the waters of the Indus, or of some of
6 the Punjab rivers, once found their way throught it. Vestiges
7 of ancient towns also may be observed, in great quantities
8 of fragments of bricks and pottery in some places strewed over
9 the surface. That the Indus, which now finds its way through
10 the limestone rocks at Roree, might at one time have poured its
11 waters in many branches over this waste, at present parched, is by
12 no means improbable, as there are unequivocal indications, that it
13 formerly flowed fifty feet! above its present level, in the channel Pi paiotie
14 cc. of Roree,
15 between Sukkur and Roree, and that the country on both sides Jour. as. Soc.
16 of the river along the base of the limestone range was at that isi acide sidd
17 time under water. The old course of the river? may also be trae ea
18 traced along the northern base of that rocky range, which stretch- 59.
19 ing nearly one hundred miles to the south-eastward, must have sent
20 the water of the Indus over the surface of the country now be-
21 come the Eastern Desert since it has been deserted by the stream.
22 This limestone range, commencing in Cutch Gundava, proceeds,
23 as already mentioned, south-east towards Jessulmair, being cut
24 by the channel of the Indus between Roree and Sukkur, where
25 way may have originally been made for the stream by. one of
26 those earthquakes the traces of which are observable else-
27 where in that region. The passage here, however formed ori-
28 ginally, it is certain has, in a long course of ages, been deepened
29 greatly by the force of the current, and thus an adequate efflux
30 afforded for the water, which may formerly have been poured
31 over the Thur, and found its way to the sea by the eastern
32 mouths and the Runa, or great salt-marsh af Cutch, With the
33 exception of this range of hills stretching from Roree towards
34 Jessulmair, and the Gunjah hills? east of the Indus, on which ® Pott.261.
35 Hyderabad is built, in Lower Sinde, the eastern part of this
36 country is quite level. On the west4 of the Indus, the Hala, or sed La Hoste,
37 - ‘ ‘ ‘ep. on the Coun-
38 Brahooic mountains, under various denominations, stretch, with try between Kur-
39 diminished height, to the bank of the river at Sehwan, and Tory ond bee
40 southward, to the sea at Cape Monze. Of these, the Pubb range Beng. 1840, p. 911.
41 is the most western, its ridge forming the boundary on the side
42 of Beloochistan. Among its valleys and ravines runs the Hubb,
43 the only permanent river of the country, except the Indus. It