12 [PAKT I. 



Chapter II. — Physical aspect of the Province. 



Perhaps the most striking feature of the country is its sterility, 



naked rocky hills and sandy plains presenting in 

 Sterility. 



this respect a strong contrast to the more fertile 



portions of India; and yet parts of it are far from being unpicturesque, 



though its barrenness is heightened by the scarcity of trees and general 



absence of anything that can be called jungle. 



This is plainly caused by want of rain^ for when even a little falls 



grass quickly springs, the plains and hills rapidly 



Want of rain. , , ,■ i n • ji ^ 



change colour, particularly in the trappean area, 



and should cloudy weather by good fortune follow, sufficient forage is 



obtained for the herds upon which the inhabitants mainly depend for 



their subsistence. 



In ordinary dry seasons the plains are deserts, over which the heavy 

 sand is drifted by the wind often into forms resembliDg the dunes 

 of sea coasts : the country seems to afford nourishment to Httle besides 

 numbers of prickly-pears (of the cylindrical variety), and the streams 

 are waterless, or only retain pools so much impregnated by mineral salts 

 as to be usually unfit to drink. 



Sometimes, however, the rains are so partial that large tracts, receiv- 

 ing but a few scanty showers for as many as six successive years, be- 

 come all but uninhabited, and are in some cases quite so, the people with 

 their flocks having sought subsistence on the irrigated lands of Siud 

 or elsewhere ; and indeed where cultivation exists, it is 'only carried 

 on by toiling day and night to raise sufficient water from the wells. 



The province may be described as hilly, with large tracts of low 

 ground between, margined by broad plains to the south, and intersected 

 by one which separates most of the Wagir country to the east from the 

 larger part of Kutch. 



( 12 ) 



