1 840. ] Account of Khyrpoor and the Fortress of Buhur. 1 095 



carpenter unites the profession of bricklayer, and is ignorant of the use of 

 the line and plummet. The smith can neither turn a hinge, nor fashion a 

 screw. The hills produce excellent lime, which is turned to no account, 

 and the public edifices which are at all remarkable, were built by foreign 

 workmen, or at least under the superintendence of foreigners.* 



The houses of the better class in towns, are often on a par externally with 

 the cotter's hut of India, and equally deficient in accommodation within. 

 While such is the state of the arts in towns, it is not surprising to find the 

 peasant ignorant of the common mode of thatching and building, and 

 though the banks of the Indus are clothed with grass, he covers his dwelling 

 with tamarisk boughs put together without order or arrangement. 



The princes keep large packs of dogs, of a powerful and ferocious breed 

 peculiar to Sind, and pass much time chasing the boar in the preserves 

 and tamarisk woods near the Indus. They hunt on the battu system, and 

 sit in houses thatched with reeds, elevated many feet above the ground, in 

 openings of the jungle, and shoot the game which are driven through the 

 avenues by beaters and dogs. The Shikargah, or hunting preserves, are 

 surrounded, like those in lower Sind, with hurdles, thornwood, and reeds, 

 woven into a fence twelve feet high, and contain tigers, boars, wolves, 

 porcupines, hog-deer, jackals, hares, and foxes. Some of the most fertile 

 lands in Khyrpoor are reserved for this pastime, and overrun with accacia, 

 tamarisk, and underwood, which the people are prohibited cutting under a 

 severe penalty. Sometimes a multitude of peasants armed with sticks and 

 clubs are mixed with matchlock men, and surround the hunting thickets, 

 and by narrowing the circle, drive the wild beasts towards the Ameers, 

 who dispatch them with long and heavy barrel guns with flint locks. The 

 villagers are gathered together to assist in these expeditions, and view them 

 with fear and alarm. They are often injured by gun-shots and the attacks 

 of wild animals, and rarely paid for their labour. Sometimes they receive 

 a small allowance of food, which is taken from the grain-seller at a fourth 

 less than the market rate, and bankers support the chase with loans forced 

 from them, and paid by an order on the revenue. They are left to settle 

 with the land owners the best way they can ; they have infinite trouble to 

 collect their due, and never realize it in full. 



* The great mosque at Thatta was built by a viceroy of Ourungzeeb, and is perhaps 

 the finest public edifice in Sind, but far inferior in beauty to the same class of buildings 

 in Northern India. The great mosque at Roree was founded in the end of the tenth 

 century of the Hijru, by a Lieutenant of Ukbur. The minaret of Meer Masoom at 

 Sukhur, was i-aised about the same period, and is a heavy, ill-proportioned column, 

 without ornament. The carving of a few tombs of Kalhora and Talpooree chiefs at 

 Thatta and Hydurabad is worth examination, but the architecture is deficient in 

 lightness and elegance. * 



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