130 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 



the river was racing down furiously in an absolute wall of mud, for it 

 had not at all the color or appearance of water. They who saw it in 

 time easily escaped. Those that did not were inevitably lost. It was 

 a horrible mess of foul water — carcasses of soldiers, peasants, war- 

 steeds, camels, prostitutes, tents, mules, asses, trees, and household- 

 furniture — in short, every item of existence jumbled together in one 

 flood of ruin ; for Rajah Goolab Singh's army was encamped in the 

 bed of the Indus at Koolaye, three koss above Torbaila, in check of 

 Poynda Khan. Part of the force was at that moment in hot pursuit, or 

 the ruin would have been wider. The rest ran, some to large trees, 

 which were all soon uprooted and borne away; others to rocks, which 

 were speedily buried beneath the waters. Only (hose escaped who 

 took at once to the mountain side. About 500 of these troops were at 

 once swept to destruction. The mischief was immense. Hundreds of 

 acres of arable land were licked up and carried away by the waters. 

 The whole of the Seesoo trees which adorned the river's banks; the 

 famous Burgutt tree of many stems — time out of mind the chosen biv- 

 ouac of travellers — were all lost in an instant. The men in the 

 trees, the horses and mules tethered to the stems, all sunk alike into 

 the gulf, and disappeared for ever. As a woman with a wet towel 

 sweeps away a legion of ants, so the river blotted out the army of the 

 Raja. There were two villages upon an island opposite Ghazi. One 

 of the inhabitants was returning from Strikote and descending the 

 mountain ; when he came within sight of the spot where he had left 

 all he held dear, he naturally looked with affection toward his home. 

 Nothing was visible but a wide-rushing sea of mud. His house, his 

 friends, his household, his village, the very island itself had*disappear- 

 ed. He rubbed his eyes in mortal terror, distrusting his sight, hoping 

 it was a dream. But it was a too horrible reality. He alone, of all 

 that busy hive of moving, struggling, hoping, fearing beings, was left 

 upon the earth. " 



So far the Zemindar : and to this eloquent description of an eye- 

 witness, I need only add, that it will take hundreds, if not thousands of 

 years to enable time to repair with its healing hand the mischief of that 

 terrible hour. The revenue of Torbaila has, in consequence, dwin- 

 dled from 20,000 to 5000 rupees. Chuch has been sown with barren 

 sand. The timber, for which the Indus had been celebrated from the 

 days of Alexander until this disaster, is now so utterly gone, that I 

 vainly strove throughout Huzara to procure a Seesoo tree for the re- 

 pair of the field artillery carriages. To make some poor amends, the 

 river sprinkled gold-dual over the barren soil, so that the washings for 

 several successive years were farmed at four times their ordinary rent. 

 It is generally believed that the accumulation of the waters of the In 



dus was occasioned by a landslip which blocked up the valley ; but 

 this and other interesting questions we must leave for solution to Mr. 

 Vans Agnew, whose late mission to Gilet promises so much to the lov- 

 ers of science. 



7. Flood in the Macquarie, in Australia ; (Jameson's Jour., Oct., 

 1848, xlv, p. 395. Lieutenant-Colonel Sir T. L. Mitchell, Kt., on 

 Tropical Australia, p. 56.) — The talented and energetic Sir Thomas 

 Mitchell, Surveyor-General of New South Wales, in his lately-publish- 





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