1-i WYNNE : TRANS-INDUS EXTENSION OF THE PUNJAB SALT RANGE. 



are covered by a dense jungle of high feathery jaoiv, with cultivated 

 openings here and there. For some miles along the bank of the river 

 at foot of the Khasor hills a strip of the alluvium is wooded, in parts 

 thickly, with plantations of fertile date palms, but the Isa Khel plains 

 sloping gently to the river are sandy, covered with tufts of coarse herb- 

 age or grass, and only cultivated where their elevation permits them to 

 be irrigated from the Kuram. 



The Indus channels in this country are inconstant ; the river may 

 once have traversed the valley between the Nila 

 Roh and Khasor ranges, and even now the main 

 stream changes its place to more easterly or westerly parts of the large 

 space forming its recent bed, so that after the annual flood it may 

 run 8 to 13 miles away from its former course. For several years 

 past the principal stream has been deflected to 8 miles eastward of 

 Isa Khel, once upon its bank, the change destroying 17 villages; 1 and 

 this season (1878-79) another set brings it obliquely back, so as to 

 impinge upon parts of the Khasor range, where last year one could have 

 walked dry shod from end to end of those hills in the old Indus 

 channel. 



The current is strong, making the upward passage for boats very 

 tedious ; where shoals occur the water runs over them often in noisy 

 rapids, and even where gliding still and unbroken there is constantly 

 heard the loud plash of undermined masses of the banks falling in. 



As in the Salt Range, here also a boulder zone, 3 or 4 miles in 

 width, borders the Indus plains along the base of the mountains, forming 

 a very marked feature of the country. In this the dry stony wans or 

 water-courses from the hills unite, distributing their rounded boulder 

 debris in the form of blending fans, most distinct where the ranges 

 above supply the harder varieties of rock. This zone is sparsely dotted 

 with bheker {Adhatoda) bushes, &c, never affords a drop of water, and 

 from its ruggedness is always difficult to traverse. 



1 Thorburn's 'Bauu.' 

 ( 2U ) 



