1 4 Burnes’ Bokh.
2 Uh. 254.
3 210 SINDE.
4 season is autumn, and during that of 1840, the whole of the 26th
5 regiment, stationed in Lower Sinde, was, with the exception of
6 three persons, attacked with fever, and nearly one hundred died.
7 The climate and air of Kurrachee are by far the most salubrious
8 in Sinde. In consequence of the unwholesomeness of the climate
9 in Lower Sinde,‘ the infirmities of age are in general premature
10 in their approach, and life is of short duration.
11 The natural history of Sinde has not received the attention
12 due to so important a subject. The shores of the delta and its
13 numerous inlets are overgrown in most places with mangrove-
14 5 Wood, Oxus, 10; trees (Cocoloba uvifera ?), where the brackish water reaches.> It
15 On the Indus, in.
16 App. to Burnes’
17 Pers. Narr. 385 ;
18 Kennedy, i. 74.
19 is a low tree, but frequently has a girth of twelve feet. The
20 ground everywhere in the delta, where deserted by the water,
21 becomes a jungle of tamarisk, springing up so closely as to pre-
22 sent, when a few inches high, the appearance of a verdant field,
23 and affording, in the tender shoots, an excellent food for cattle.
24 It furnishes the common fuel of the country, and also the wood
25 * Lord, Med. Rep. principally employed for carpentry and boat-building.® Its twigs
26 60; Burnes’
27 Bokh. sii, 274,
28 are used for mats, baskets, and similar purposes. It is called lye by
29 the natives, but appears to be the Tamariz orientalis or articulata
30 of our botanists. The other trees are Sabcol, or mimosa, of which
31 several kinds, yielding good fuel, abound in the arid wastes ; jal,
32 or pelloo (Salvadora Persica), is found chiefly where the irrigated
33 tract and desert join. Besides these may be mentioned the neem
34 (Melia azadarachta), the pepul (Ficus religiosa), the bir (Zizyphus
35 jujuba), the elegantly-formed Parkinsonia aculeata, the Jerusalem
36 thorn of the West Indians ; the juwassi, a prickly shrub, a favourite
37 food of the camel; the tad/ee, the most valuable of the timber-
38 trees of this country; the durree/, or caper, a stunted tree, with
39 crooked wood, well suited for boat-building ; the kundie, resem-
40 bling the last in size, and in being suited for the same purposes.
41 A few others of no importance, besides various sorts of wild
42 and fruitless palms, might be added to the list. The date-
43 7 Burnes, iit,120. palm,’ according to tradition, was introduced by the conquer-
44 ing armies of the Khalifs. Wild rue, and other odoriferous
45 plants, occasionally enliven the arid deserts, accompanied often
46 by various species of salsola, or saltwort, turned to advantage
47 by the natives, who burn them, and extract soda from the
48 ashes ; the foolse, or Ocymum sanctum, abounds, but is supposed
49 to have been introduced from Central Hindostan: the egg-