116 Papers relating to the Earthquake 



This convulsion of nature has affected the eastern and al- 

 most deserted channel of the river Indus, which bounds Cutch 

 to the westward, and the Runn or desert, and swamp called 

 the Bhunnee, which insulates this province on the north, in a 

 more remarkable manner than it has any other part of the 

 country. I myself have seen this branch of the Indus forded 

 at Luckput, with water for a few hundred yards about a foot 

 deep. This was when the tide was at ebb ; and when at flood 

 the depth of the channel was never more than six feet, and 

 about eighty or one hundred yards in breadth : the rest of 

 the channel at flood-tide was not covered in any place with 

 more than one or two feet of water. This branch of the river 

 Indus, or, as it may now with more propriety be termed, inlet 

 of the sea *, has since the earthquake deepened at the ford of 

 Luckput to more than eighteen feet at low water; and on 

 sounding the channel, it has been found to contain from four 

 to twenty feet from the Cutch to the Sindh shore, a distance 

 of three or four miles. The Allibund has been damaged ; a 

 circumstance that has re-admitted of a navigation which had 

 been closed for centuries. The goods of Sindh are embarked 

 in craft near Ruhema Bazar and Kanjee Kacote ; and which, 

 sailing across the Bhunnee and Runn % land their cargoes at 

 a town called Nurra on the north of Cutch. The Runn, 

 which extends from Luckput round the north of this province 

 to its eastern boundary, is fordable but at one spot, at this 

 period of the year, at which it has heretofore been dry; and 

 should the water continue throughout the year, we may per- 

 haps see an inland navigation along the northern shore of 

 Cutch : which, from stone anchors &c. still to be seen, and 

 the tradition of the country, I believe to have existed at some 

 former period. 



Sindree, a small mud fort and village belonging to the 

 Cutch Government, situated where the Runn joins the branch 

 of the Indus, was overflowed at the time of the shock. The 

 people escaped with difficulty, and the tops of the town-wall 

 are now alone to be seen above the water.— The fate of Sin- 

 dree was owing to its situation, for there cannot be a doubt 

 of all the Runn land having during the shock sent forth vast 

 quantities of water and mud. The natives described a num- 

 ber of small cones of sand six or eight feet in height, the sum- 

 mits of which continued to bubble for many days after the 

 16th. 



The sea must have been affected by the motion of the earth ; 



* It is many years since the eastern branch of the Indus has been almost 

 deserted by the waters of the river. 



but 



