618 On the recent Cataclysm of the Indus. [No. 116. 



cribed to me by the Rajah, as having occurred within his recollection, 

 attended with desolating effects along the valley of the Indus in little 

 Thibet. The river rushes down in a mighty torrent, sweeping every 

 thing before it. Further I learnt at Attock, when going over the 

 fort in 1837 with Burnes, that such heavy floods have been known 

 in the river there, that the water has risen over the top of the 

 " Ab-doord^^ bastion, perhaps 30 feet high, which insures the supply 

 of water for the fort if besieged, and the base of which is usually almost 

 on a level with the surface of the current. But I was not above to 

 connect the two events as coincident in time of occurrence. 



I do not think it at all likely that the obstacle occurred any where 

 below Iskardoh, both from the configuration of the valley of the river, 

 and from the difficulty of conceiving a barrier of snow or ice to be 

 formed so low down ; whereas higher up, on the Noobra river, 

 avalanches are so common, and on so grand a scale, that it is easy to 

 conceive the river being blocked up : and the temperature of the water 

 is so low, that its action in the way of melting the ice would be very 

 slow and partial. This objection appears to me to apply to the whole of 

 the united river, as far up as the junction of the Ludakh branch. The 

 *' very foreign appearance of the bodies washed down,'^ would indicate 

 them to be at least from as high up as little Thibet, for the people of 

 Ghilgeet and the " Dardohs" of that neighbourhood, are very much like 

 the Pathans above Attock. The Chinese style of features first com- 

 mences in and above little Thibet. 



But these ideas at the best are merely conjectural, and I only ad- 

 vance them, with the object of guiding the direction of the inquiries. 

 If the river really was so low at Attock as to be in the state of a 

 practicable ford, it would seem to follow that the obstruction must 

 have affected both branches of the Indus : for otherwise, the Ludakh 

 river is large enough to supply of itself a large volume of water. 

 The cause in that case would probably be found in a land-slip, or 

 something of that kind, or mountain masses precipitated by an earth- 

 quake. An event of this sort is not improbable, for we know that in 

 1809 an earthquake of such force took place in Gurwah, that the 

 Bishnoo Gunga river, one of the great branches of the Ganges, was 

 blocked up below Goseenauth by a land slip, and the water rose to 40 

 feet above its usual level. 



