1 THE INDUS. 175
2 is divided into three or four branches, and is
3 full of islands and dry banks. There tlie river
4 is a ford. Ranjeet Singh forded it twice or
5 thrice at the same point ; but the Sikhs have an
6 idea that it never becomes fordable, and the
7 fording of Ranjeet Singh is ascribed by them
8 to a miracle wrought by the favour of their
9 Guru, or patron saint. The Indus, after leaving
10 its rocky channel below Attok, and entering the
11 plains of the Derajat, becomes very calm and
12 gentle. Its banks above Attok are not above
13 twelve feet high, and it evidently overflows
14 annually the plains of Chach. The stream, in
15 each of the many channels it has there, is
16 rapid, and flows over a pebbly bottom with the
17 noise of a cataract.*
18 * “We watched this deeply interesting picture from some
19 overhanging rocks, which bear on their surface such a
20 high state of polish, that they have the appearance of being
21 perfectly wet ; but it arises, I conjecture, from* the con-
22 stant trituration of the sand, washed upon them during
23 the rainy seasons. From the sharpness of their angles and
24 the darkness of their hue, I concluded they were composed
25 of an extremely hard stone; but a few blows from a stick
26 easily separated a portion, the fractures assuming regular
27 shapes of a slaty substance.” — Barr's Journal, p. 199.