180 MR. P. EDGEWORTH—FLORULA MALLICA. 
The Bar may further be considered as twofold ; that more pro- 
perly so called is raised some thirty to fifty feet above the lower 
land. 
The Bar proper, when seen at the close of a favourable rainy 
season, is very pleasing—a rich carpet of grass dotted over with 
bushes or large trees, mostly Salvadora or Tamarix. The soil is 
hard, and in a few places there are dunes of blown sand (as in the 
Thall), and occasionally tracts of sodiferous soil which produces 
nothing almost but Salsolacee. 
The Bar improper is intersected by the remains of deserted 
water-courses (arid branches of the several rivers). It is either 
densely clothed with a jungle of Jhund (Prosopis) or Tamarix both 
orientalis and Gallica, or consists of almost perfectly bare open 
tracts of clay, sometimes sodiferous, causing friable soil, the dust 
of which will fall like water in drops, sometimes with sand-dunes, 
generally thinly clothed with the grey Anabasis multiflora, which 
toward the Chenab seldom exceeds two feet in height, while 
towards the Sutlej it often is five or six, making a small bush with 
ramifications not unlike a miniature oak, and not unpleasing to 
the eye when in fruit, when the winged calyces are often of a 
bright rose-colour. 
In the lower part of the Bari Doab, forming the district of Mul- 
tan, the Bar is intersected by innumerable long, low mounds, the 
remains of ancient canals from the Ravi, Chenab, and Beyas, 
which, gradually silting up, have raised themselves above the level 
of the country, and finally, probably owing to the change of the 
course of the latter river, been quite deserted. Towards the south 
of the district there are several ranges of low dunes of drifting 
sand which have a peculiar vegetation of their own. 
The Kdchhi, or irrigated portion of the district, produces very 
fine crops of cereals, sugar-cane, and indigo, particularly on the 
Chenab. There are also extensive groves of the date-palm, which 
was introduced by the Arabs in the eighth century. The usual 
weeds of cultivation appear in the winter, not only those common 
to the Punjab and North-west Provinces, but from Persia and 
Affghanistan, that do not cross to the Sutlej, as Hypecowm and 
Goldbachia. It is well wooded, principally with Acacia Arabica 
and Lebek (the former of enormous size and height) and Dalbergia 
Zizyphus. Wherever irrigation penetrates, the produce is very 
great ; without it, very little will grow. In some places there are 
only wells for the purpose; but throughout the Kichhi they have 
the advantage of inundation-canals from the rivers, which fill their 
