THE LOWER INDUS IN FLOOD-TIME. 533 



Character, with shifting channels winding among sand- 

 banks and islands, through a flat country. The Scinde 

 Sagar loop of the North Western railway follows the 

 course of the river all the way down to Dera-Ghazi- 

 Khan at a distance varying" from about five to ten 

 miles from its bank, where it can keep clear of danger 

 from floods; the stream is in this part of its course 

 obstructed by many sandbanks, and the river bed is 

 often many miles wide. 



Thus at Dera-Ghazi-Khan, the Indus at low water 

 is only about a quarter of a mile wide, in the hot 

 season, but after great rains its floods extend over an 

 enormous area, and the river " at this point becomes 

 1 8 miles wide and takes 1 2 hours, and not infrequently 

 1 8 to 24 hours, to cross." * So says Dr. Clark a 

 resident physician at Amritsar (Punjab) according to 

 whom, during the last great flood in 1889, the river 

 in one portion of its course "inundated close upon 700 

 square miles of country." f As these floods subside 

 vast lagoons of stagnant water are left in low lying 

 situations, and as these begin to dry up, some four or 

 five months afterwards, malarial disease becomes very 

 rife. Malarial fever of malignant type, in fact, some- 

 times assumes the form, according to Dr. Clark, of a 

 regular pestilence on such occasions, hardly anybody 

 escaping an attack. 



Proceeding down the course of the river about 

 78 miles below Dera-Ghazi-Khan we reach one of 

 the most important points on the Indus, namely its 

 junction with " the five rivers " at a point about 490 



* Remarks on Malaria and Acclimatization, by Dr. H. M. Clark, 

 of Amritsar, in paper read April 1892 in Royal Scottish Geographical 

 Magazine for June 1893, Vol. ix., part 6,. p. 284. 



f Ibid., p. 284.. 



