1 soo. 247
2 and vessels of any size could not navigate it without great diffi-
3 culty until it has been buoyed off inside. There are six or seven,
4 or even ten, fathoms in some places, but towards the town the
5 channels become shallow, and the trading boats cannot approach
6 it nearer than a mile. At the spot where they anchor, they are
7 always aground at low water. During the south-west monsoon
8 the harbour cannot be entered, for the bar at the entrance is
9 exposed to the whole force of the swell, and the breakers on it are
10 heavy.” This bar, according to Horsburgh, has two fathoms of
11 water when the tide is out, but the depth is every year diminishing,
12 and will probably be soon too little to admit vessels; at the same
13 time the sea is encroaching on the land, and threatens soon to
14 sweep away the present site of the town.4 Sea-going vessels, in aa Kalat,
15 general, anchor outside the bar, at the distance of about two
16 miles from the town, and are much exposed to the sea and the
17 ‘ weather. The cargoes are discharged into small boats, and so
18 landed. Horses for exportation are made to swim to the vessels,
19 The town is mean and dirty, and has about five hundred houses,
20 built of mud, and each surmounted by a badgeer, or small turret
21 or flue, open on one side to the sea-breeze, which it sends down-
22 wards in the interior of the building, for the purpose of mitigating
23 the excessive heat. It was formerly surrounded by a mud wall,
24 which is now so decayed that scarcely a vestige of it remains.
25 Water can be obtained only by digging in the sand a little above
26 high-water mark, and is so brackish as to be scarcely drinkable,
27 insomuch that the British vessels, when stationed here, were
28 supplied from Kurrachee. The inhabitants live principally by
29 fishing, and are extremely poor, except a few Hindoos, who have
30 the whole trade in their hands. The imports from Bombay are
31 silk, cloths, iron, tin, steel, copper, pepper, sugar, and spices ;
32 from the Persian Gulf, dates and slaves; from Sinde, coarse
33 cotton cloths. The exports are horses, butter, wool, hides, oil,
34 grain, dried fruits, and gum. In 1808 this place was burned by
35 Arabian pirates, and the trade has much decayed since that time.
36 Its traffic is at present much injured by the predatory Belooches,
37 who interrupt the communication with the interior. ‘The popula-
38 tion is estimated by Carless at about two thousand. Lat. 24° 25’,
39 long. 66° 35’.
40 SOOKAD.— A village in Northern Afghanistan, situate on E.1.C. Ms. Doc.
41 the left bank of the Alingar river. Lat. 35° 21’, long. 70° 41’,