THE SOURCES OF THE INDUS. 427 



troops at a few points of its course (and probably only 

 during the cold season) from Attock to Sakka. Accord- 

 ing to General Lord Chelmsford this is " the only 

 portion of the river frontier which is in any danger."* 

 The river races with the speed of a mill sluice during 

 floods, and all along its northern section these floods 

 are liable to come down suddenly without warning of 

 any kind, and sweep away everything in their course. 

 At Attock for instance, where the main road to Peshawar 

 crossed the river before the present railway bridge 

 was constructed, f there used to be a bridge of boats, 

 in accordance with the usual practice in India, where 

 wide and rapid rivers liable to sudden floods have to 

 be crossed, but this bridge generally had to be withdrawn 

 in summer, when the melting of the snows on the 

 mountains endangered it, and the Indus has been 

 known to rise at this point quite 90 feet in a single 

 day.** We shall however revert to this subject again 

 in greater detail in our next section, on " The Great 

 River Basins." The danger to which an army would 

 be exposed in leaving such a river unbridged in their 

 rear must be obvious ; upon its upper waters however 

 near where the Indus enters the Punjab (in Lat. 34 

 25' N., Long. 72 51' E.) the river is fordable in many 

 places, during the cold weather ; but a few hours may 

 convert the ford into a raging torrent. Thus Ranjit 



* See report of an interview by a commissioner of the Pall Mall 

 Gazette with Lord Chelmsford in that paper of the date of August 

 24th, 1893. 



t Opened for traffic in May 1883 (a subway carries the road 

 beneath the railway line) ; see The Imperial Gazetteer of India, by 

 W. W. Hunter, Vol. vii., p. 15. 



Encycl. Brit., gth Edition., Vol. iii., p. 62. 



** See The Imperial Gazetteer of India, by W. W. Hunter, Vol. 

 vii., p. 15. 



