552 Lieutenant Burnes’ Memoir on the 
of the river above Lacpat had nearly dried up and filled with mud, while 
that below the town was converted into a creek of the sea, and flooded at 
every tide. 
The Raos, or Rajds, of Cutch, possessed at one time military stations in 
three different places of Sinde, wiz. Badina, Ballyari, and Raoma ca bazar, 
yet they bore submissively these indignities which I have described, as well 
to their own ruin as that of their subjects, and used no exertion to regain 
from Sinde what nature had bestowed on their country, or to wipe off those 
injuries which had been offered them, at variance, as they no doubt were, 
with the law of nations, ill even as it is understood in India.* 
In this state of apathy and indifference, there occurred, in the month of 
June 1819, a severe shock of an earthquake, by which some hundreds of the 
inhabitants of Cutch perished, and every fortified strong-hold in the country 
was shaken to its foundation, and wells and rivulets without number were 
changed from fresh to salt water: but these were trifling incidents com- 
pared with the alterations which were brought about in the eastern branch 
of the Indus and the country bordering on it. At sunset the shock was 
felt at Sindri, the station at which the Cutch government collected their 
taxes, and which is situated on the high road from Cutch to Sinde, and on 
the’ banks of what had been once the eastern branch of the Indus. The 
little brick fort of a hundred and fifty feet square, which had been built 
there for the protection of merchandize, was overwhelmed at once with 
a tremendous inundation of water from the ocean, which spread on all sides, 
and in a few hours completely flooded the country, and converted the tract, 
which had before been hard and dry, into an inland lake, extending for 
sixteen miles on each side of Sindri. The houses within the walls were 
instantaneously filled with water and the interior of the fort became a tank, 
in which, eight years afterwards, I found fish; the only dry spot being 
where the walls had actually stood, and which continued so from the bricks 
having fallen on one another. Of the four towers but one now remains ; 
the inhabitants saved themselves from destruction by ascending it, and only 
reached the land on the following day by boats. 
But it was soon discovered that this was not the only alteration effected by 
this memorable convulsion of nature; as the inhabitants of Sindri observed 
* See note C. 
