1110 Account of Khyr poor and the Fortress of Bukur. [No. 107. 



the air for three years, but the heaps are opened once in twelve 

 months to preserve them from insects. Joowaree (maize) and pease 

 are more liable to be injured by weevil than wheat, and will not keep 

 beyond twelve or eighteen months in the air. 



Grain is also preserved out of doors in circular jars (goondee) of sun- 

 dried earth, capable of holding from eighty to twelve hundred pounds, and 

 taken out once a year, through a hole near the bottom of the jar, and 

 exposed a few days in the sun. A small quantity is kept in houses for 

 daily use in jars of sun-baked earth. 



Khyrpoor produces all the grains and pulse common to India. Wheat 

 and joowaree are the staple, and belong to different harvests, and are 

 consumed in nearly equal quantities. The district of Roopa in Moghulee, 

 produces fine crops of joowaree and barley, and bajree and moong are next 

 to these the most common grains. Roree and Sukhur produce rice, but 

 Chandkoh, and the country south of it, yield the largest quantity of any 

 district in north Sind. Chunna (gram) is collected in kind. The land 

 owners usually reserve their share of the crop for their cattle, and all that 

 finds its way to the market belongs to government. Indigo is chiefly 

 grown in the districts of Kyrpoor and Oobaro, and is the only dye used by 

 the lower classes for their trowsers and turbans. It is inferior in quality to 

 that of Bengal, but considerably cheaper. Sukhur and the village of 

 Kundura, four kos from Roree, are considered to produce tobacco equal in 

 quality to any in the province, but it undergoes no preparation beyond 

 exposure to the sun, and is dry and distasteful to the native of India. 

 Gotkee is famed for the quality of its opium, which fetches double the price 

 of that raised at Shikarpoor and elsewhere. The sugar-cane of the villages 

 of Ubdo and Napur, between Sukhur and Shikarpoor, has an excellent 

 character, and it is cultivated pretty generally throughout the province, but 

 is inferior to the produce of northern India and the Punjab. Sugar-candy 

 of an impure colour is manufactured at Khyrpoor and Roree. Large 

 quantities of poppy and garlic are grown at the Biriyah Loh in the district 

 of Khyrpoor, and hemp at Sukhur and elsewhere. Plenty of good cotton is 

 raised in the northern part of Khyrpoor, and in the little district of 

 Shahbelo, two kos north of Sukhur. It is one of the most important 

 products, and supplies the inhabitants with clothing. Looms are estab- 

 lished in all the principal places, but the quantity grown is not equal 

 to the demand, and a good deal of the raw and manufactured material 

 is imported. 



Dry land (puko) intended to receive cotton, is watered before ploughing, 

 and every four or five days afterwards till the crop is gathered. Wet land 

 (bosee) is not irrigated, and the plough is passed over it three or four times, 



