ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY. 13 



and Sunhetta (Dodoucea) jungle. Scattered fulled {Acacia modesla) bushes 

 are commonly dotted over most of the ranges at intervals, except the 

 Nila Roh and Bhattani hills, which may be called absolutely bare. 

 The bluish-green colour of the bare rocks gives to the Nila Roh, 

 as well as to the Shingarh chain, their descriptive names, the former 

 being the blue, the latter the green mountains; — names more ap- 

 plicable than that o£ the Ratta Roh, or red mountain, by which the 

 Khasor range is also known, though the local colouring partakes more of 

 an orange than a red tint. Vegetation is generally or largely absent 

 upon most of the mountains formed of the tertiary sandstones ; indeed, 

 many of these are too precipitous to admit of its growth, and their 

 surfaces are being constantly removed. So much is this the case that 

 the freshly stripped pale gray or whitish sandy peaks of the Shingarh 

 range, seen from a distance, have all the appearance of mountains 

 streaked and flecked with snow. 



This Shingarh range is finely serrated and peaked, but, as a rule, the 

 sandstone mountains, though rugged and eaten by ravines into the very 

 core, present long even outlines, the exception to this being where the 

 inclinations of the beds are unusually steep. Those parts of the moun- 

 tains formed of limestones are even more uniform in outline, this uniform- 

 ity being, however, always associated with the sudden contrast of high 

 cliffs and abruptly broken ground, immediately overlooking the plains, 

 except in the case of the Khasor range, where the rugged talus of the 

 diminished escarpment occupies most of the eastern slopes. 



The plains of the Derajat bordering these hills are of the sandy 



desert pasture land called Thai, 1 the localities of 

 The plains. . 



distant villages being marked by scattered lines 



and clumps of foliage. Higher up the Indus its many flat island patches 



1 From its application I am uncertain whether this name always means " desert." Tharr, 

 in South Sind and the Punjab, is applied to sandy water "flashes" or jhils. Thalia, 

 Tarla, or Tallceri in Panjabi means beloiv, lower, the bottom of a box or sole of a shoe, the 

 lowest of two villages, &c, and this may be alike applicable to the low plains of the Indus 

 and the low site of the frontier camp at Thai (Tul) on the Kuram. 



( 223 ) 



