554: Lieutenant Burnes’ Memoir on the 
it by sounding, the bed of it being in no place, except Sando, less than two 
or three fathoms deep. 
The Allah-band being the chief object of interest, I sailed for it at once, 
and found that the ‘flood, or as it is called, the mara, of 1826, had com- 
pletely cut it through and left a: channel forty yards wide and about three 
fathoms ‘deep, in which the waters of the real. Indus were passing to the 
ocean ; ‘and’ I could not be mistaken in this, as they were perfectly fresh 
and drinkable, and in such quantity that they had even affected the salt 
expanse as far down as Lacpat, where at low tides the water becomes 
sweetish. On Sando it is'brackish, and at Sindri, five miles below Allah- 
band, as good as'could be wished. 
The embankment: of AUah-band is elevated about ten feet from the level 
of the river, and is composed of soft clay mixed with shells, having all the 
appearance of being cut through at some late period, the sides being 
quite perpendicular. At present the channel through it is only thirty 
and forty yards wide, but there are marks of the current having extended 
during the ‘swell’ two or three hundred yards westward. It will be seen, 
therefore; that at Al/ah-band the stream once more takes on the appearance 
of a‘river, and though narrow, is quite navigable even at this season 
(March); indeed I there met several boats, laden with ght, which had 
come from Wanga, many miles higher up, and had so far prosecuted their 
voyage to Cutch, which proves, better than oral information, that every 
band in this branch of the Indus had burst. It is necessary to mention 
in this place that the Al/ah-band ought not to be looked upon as a narrow 
bar or strip of earth which had been ejected by the earthquake, for it 
extends very far inland, perhaps sixteen miles, and by gradually sloping 
towards the north, unites with the land, which renders it impossible to 
define its breadth with correctness.* 
I shall not venture to give any further account of the river to the north, 
as it has not come under my personal observation. Be it sufficient to 
remark that the walls of Amercét, a fortress in the desert, have been 
partially thrown down by this influx of water, and some reports have gone 
so far as to say that the inundation spread to the Nueyar country, at the 
mouths of ‘the Lunt, where some of the water escaped into the Parcar 
* See Part II. 
