274 From Kurrachee to Mooltan. 



tlier on, past the houses of business and banks, you reach the 

 camp, divided into civil and military lines. In the centre, 

 nearly, is Trinity Church, with a square, stone-built tower for 

 its steeple. Close by is the flag-staff, on which a red pendant 

 announces once a fortnight the advent of the English mail and 

 home news. 



The train from Kurrachee to Kotree — the terminus of the 

 steamers on the Indus, now that the railway has superseded the 

 tedious navigation of the creeks, or the passage by the mouth 

 of the Indus, by which formerly the water passage from 

 Kurrachee to Kotree was made — starts at half-past . six every 

 morning, and its whistle is sounding impatiently, otherwise 

 I might pause and dwell a little on the lions of Kurrachee — 

 its Government Gardens, its Government House (the Com- 

 missioner's residence), its Cutcherry, and its Here Hall, lately 

 built, its Library and Museum, its evening drive, where an 

 enormous rifle-target and a ' ' blasted heath," appear to have 

 suffered as much scorching as no doubt the reputations dis- 

 cussed there do : its sea-view at Clifton, and last, not least, 

 its famous picnics and drives to Muggerpoer,* that shad\ r 

 abode of priests and muggurs (or crocodiles), held equally 

 sacred in the native eye. There are some three hundred croco- 

 diles here in about as many yards of shallow muddy stream- 

 lets, bordered with muddy grass, in which these brutes wal- 

 low. Close by is a hot sulphury spring, said to be of great 

 medicinal power. A shady grove of trees covering in this spot 

 renders it a pleasant retreat for visitors as well as residents, 

 and part of the amusement of the day is supplying the resident 

 muggurs with a live kid or goat to see the summary way in 

 which it is disposed of; a stock of these animals for sale is 

 kept on the spot by the natives. Occasionally a child is car- 

 ried away, I suppose when a dearth of visitors (and conse- 

 quently kids) make the muggurs unusually voracious, and then 

 the Government threaten to "put down" that sort of kidnap- 

 ping. But there it exists at present, and a famous old temple, 

 and shrine, and tombs of holy men also to look at, make a visit 

 to the shady oasis not by any means an unpleasant day's 

 trip. 



The man who, as Sterne says, travelled from Dan to Beer- 

 sheba, and found ' c all barren/' would certainly not find much 

 to notice from Kurrachee to Kotree except an " embarras " of 

 barrenness, which the total want of water during part of the 

 year imparts to the level, monotonous tract of sand and stunted 

 shrub that Lower Sind is at the delta of the Indus. A few dry 

 water courses spanned by railway bridges that look now in the 



* Sometimes spelt Muggea Poer. 





