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



The chief, in fact the only difficulty is, mooring the boats, and to 

 effect this, the Seiks use an anchor of a form the very worst that could 

 be imagined, and which has no other recommendation than its an- 

 tiquity, and perhaps the ease with which it can be dropped from the 

 boats. The figure is pyramidical, a skeleton of wood filled with stones. 

 These uncouth things, when once let go, cannot be recovered, and 

 as the strength of the bridge is not proof against that of the current 

 in June, July, August, and September, a new set has to be made as 

 often as the bridge is required to be constructed. Now were a line of 

 mooring anchors once laid down in place of these wooden baskets, and 

 beyond chain bridles attached to them, a bridge of boats could be put 

 together in about as many hours, as days and weeks are now consume 

 in preparations. 



The number of boats required to form a bridge, would be built 

 of a form the best that science could propose, and always kept in 

 a state of readiness to haul out to their several berths, numbered 

 as the buoys would be, 1, 2, 3, &c. A bridge so formed, would be 

 a very solid construction, and able to brave, under proper superin- 

 tendence, the strongest freshes in the Indus, whether abreast of 

 Attock or under the fort at Bukkur. Should it become necessary 

 to destroy it, one end of the bridle chain has only to be slipped 

 and the mooring anchors are useless to an enemy. But little weight 

 is due to the opinion of men, who not conversant with military affairs, 

 cannot be expected to have clear ideas on such a subject. But still 

 I venture to hold the opinion, that bridging the Indus at Bukkur, 

 is a practicable question.* 



The difficulty would be to moor boats in the eastern channel ; but 

 this once accomplished, the bridge might be made permanent, as the 

 small western channel might serve for the navigation of the river. 



XI. — Of a Site for a Fair. 

 While Government has it in contemplation to establish an entre- 

 pot for trade on the banks of the Indus, it will not be irrelative 



* I need not observe that this was written before Capt. Thompson (Bengal Engi- 

 neers) threw his noble bridge across the river, by which the British army crossed in 

 1838, with their baggage and battering train. |T[| 



