560 Lieutenant Burnes’ Memoir on the 
than two. Further, that officer had approached the Indus from the village 
of Saira by land, and described the route as quite passable; but in attempt- 
ing it, my progress was arrested by two nallds, called Cétro and Chitriari, 
that I could hardly approach for clay, and the latter of which had five feet 
of water, so that besides the danger I incurred in passing over a tract of 
quick-sand, and Runn, which was affected constantly by the tides, the river 
was not even to be approached. I mention these facts from the strong 
concurrence between them and the reports of the natives, as to the deepen- 
ing of the river, and the alterations which it has undergone. It is therefore 
quite out of the question to look any longer for this ford, and did it still 
exist, the nature of the country is such, that no advantage could be taken of 
it even for a private individual, much less for the passage of an army.* 
It is to be recollected that, previous to the earthquake of 1819, the Runn 
was partially filled every season by the water being blown over it from the 
Lacpat creek, still the return of the hot weather and the north-westerly 
winds invariably dried it up. These causes have not of late been powerful 
enough to recover the tract from the sea, though it becomes much shallower 
after the monsoon, as well no doubt from the fair weather as the constant 
blowing of the north-westerly breezes, which would carry out the water. 
It is, perhaps, difficult to support the opinion, but I am led to infer 
from the above-mentioned fact, that while the Allah-band was raised by 
the earthquake, the country which surrounds Lacpat must have been 
depressed ; if such be the case, the chances of the water ever being displaced 
are very remote, but their longer continuance in their present site seems 
certainly to afford a ground for belief, that there is a hollow round Sindr¢ ; 
nor must we forget that the overflow of salt water near Sindri was brought 
about by an earthquake, not from a flood of the Indus, or from rain. 
The conclusion, then, must be, that until the P’harrdn river disembogues 
a sufficient quantity of fresh water to dislodge the body of salt about 
Sindri, or brings down such a quantity of alluvium, as will fill up this 
hollow, if it do exist, there can be little prospect of the people of Cutch 
regaining the fertile perganah of Saird. Allowing such a circumstance 
to take place, I have very many doubts if any advantage would ever be 
derived from such an influx of fresh water, for water, when beyond a certain 
* See note G. 
