3 



11. The next three mouths, the Khudi, Khai, Pitiani and Dubba, require 

 no special notice here ; they all lead into creeks which meander through low-lying 

 mud flats, very sparsely furnished with mangrove scrubs. The inhabitants are 

 few in number fishermen and camel graziers living in poor huts surrounded 

 with low bunds to keep out the tide, which at high springs submerges the 

 surrounding country. Neither springs nor wells are found in this region ; all 

 sweet water has to be brought in boats from a distance and is stored in tiny 

 tanks enclosed by mud bunds a few inches high. 



12. Next comes the Sisa (or Jua) mouth leading into Sisa creek to the 

 north-east, to Bhuri creek to the east and to the narrow Gabri creek into the 

 Hajamro and through to Keti, the only town near the embouchure of the Indus. 



13. The Hajamro mouth and creek vary greatly in position and importance, 

 sometimes forming for years one of the chief outlets of the Indus, sometimes 

 being cut off and forming a purely salt water tidal creek. One of its active 

 periods began about 1848 when it poured a large portion of the Indus water 

 into the sea immediately to the south of the Sisa mouth. Since then its seaward 

 opening has been deflected a considerable distance southward till to-day it is 

 only five miles north of the mouth of the Kediwari. The mud flats at its entrance 

 have also grown seawards some 3^ miles since 1867, when it constituted the 

 only navigable mouth of the Indus. This branch after a long period of closure 

 at the point of junction with the Indus (Kediwari) was again opened during 

 the floods some three years ago and at present shallow drafc craft are able to 

 pass to sea from Keti either by this mouth or the Kediwari ; they have the 

 further convenience of being able to pass the whole way from Keti to Gizri 

 Bandar by inland channels without having to debouch at the Kediwari mouth, 

 and then re-enter the creeks by the Hajamro or the Sisa mouths, as was necessary 

 during the period when the Hajamro did not connect with the Indus at Keti. 



14. The main branch of the Indus has long been the Kediwari and there 

 appears every probability of it so continuing. Like the creeks and channels 

 already mentioned its banks are everywhere low and subject to more or less 

 submergence during the height of floods. The power of the river water being 

 much greater than the tidal influence in this outlet, paddy cultivation is exten- 

 sively carried on along the banks as the inundation subsides. In those years 

 when the Hajamro takes off from the Indus, cultivation extends down the flats 

 bordering this channel as well, being again abandoned upon interruption of free 

 communication, as the water then becomes wholly tidal and unfit for irrigation 

 purposes. 



15. So far as we know, the history of the northern (north-western) section 

 of the Indus delta that portion with which we are immediately concerned begins 

 about the end of the 7th century. At the time of Alexander the Great's invasion 

 of the Punjab and voyage down the Indus and till about A.D. 680, this river 

 appears to have flowed to the sea considerably to the east of its present course 

 and to have entered the sea by what is now the Kori creek, the boundary 

 between Sind and Kutch. Then about 680 A.D. the river cut a passage for 

 itself through the limestone ridge between K/ori aud Bukkur and burst a new 

 way to the sea some 70 miles to the westward, probably in the vicinity of the 

 upper reaches of the Piti and J'hiri creeks. In the succeeding centuries the 

 ultimate channels gradually straightened tending more and more to the south 

 and east till they took their present form, with the Kediwari as the principal 

 outlet. From this we may conclude that the northernmost creeks, the Kuranji, 

 Piti, Khudi Khai and Pitiaui, antedate those between the last named and the 

 Kediwari ; the former seldom pass any large volume of river water in normal 

 years. Their main channels and their tributary creeks are subject to little 

 change and, as will be noted on a later page, these are the localities where edible 

 oyster beds have been most largely developed. Seldom have bads of oysters 

 been found in creeks and channels having direct communication with the Indus 

 thus there were several beds in the Hajamro when this channel was bunded off 

 by silting from the Kediwari, but these beds have entirely disappeared since 

 the recent re-opening of communication and the constant rush of river water 

 down this channel. 



