536 Wood's Report on the River Indus. [No. 115. 



It is customary to purchase the latter in the matrix, and to allow 

 a per centage to the blacksmith who smelts the ore, and works it up 

 into nails. 



Cordage. — Upon the Upper Indus the rope is either of hemp, or 

 formed from the culm of certain tall reedy grasses, very plentiful on 

 the banks of this river. 



The tools of the Sinde carpenter are as little diversified in form as 

 those used by the same class of artificers in India. The absence of 

 good material to work upon sharpens his inventive powers, and gives 

 a manual dexterity that improves the execution of whatever he may 

 have to do, when really good timber comes before him. If a curve is to 

 be imparted to one or a dozen planks united, chaff moistened with 

 water is the Sinde carpenter's store ; or what answers the purpose still 

 better, the dung of animals, and more especially that of sheep. 



Teak-built boats are much prized by the Moohana, as are those of 

 cedar and fir construction, which come from Find Dadun Khan, on the 

 Jalum. Such boats, when well put together, will run forty years ; but 

 from seven to ten is the duration of those patched up with the jungle 

 wood of the country ; and if care has not been used to see that the 

 wood employed in her construction was originally well seasoned and 

 selected, a less number of years brings on the decrepitude of age, when 

 to delay a thorough repair, is to lose the boat. 



Adaption of the Indus Boats, for the transport of military stores. 

 — They are not calculated to bear the weight of ordnance, such as a 

 battering train ; and at the present moment there is not a boat upon 

 the river, which a Committee would declare efficient for the transport 

 of these heavy guns. For this purpose, the boat should have a per- 

 fectly flat bottom, that the weight of metal may be equally distribu- 

 ted over the immersed portion of the hull. The sides too require to be 

 fixed to the bottom in a more secure manner than is at present custom- 

 ary. The knees which connect them should be formed of iron, in 

 preference to wood. If shot is to be carried, the bottom of the boat 

 should be planked over the beams, as well as under them. The latter 

 is all that is done at present ; but if this is not guarded against, the 

 nails will draw, and the shot fall through. 



Should it become desirable to increase the amount of tonnage upon 

 the Indus, boats could be built at Bombay, Hyderabad in Sinde, or 



