1112 Account of Khyrpoor and the Fortress of Bukur. [No. 107. 



nuts, several kinds of wild plum, the tamarind, Sjc. Khyrpoor produces 

 two kinds of pomegranate : the best is full of large, white, juicy seeds, 

 and grows abundantly in the gardens of Roree, and at Ghotkee in north 

 Khyrpoor. The other kind is made into an acid shurbut, and the seeds 

 are dried and sold to poor people who cannot afford to purchase mangoes, 

 and form pickle with the addition of salt, dhuniyu, capsicums, and co- 

 coanuts. Unripe grapes are used for the same purpose. The flowers of 

 pomegranate are employed to dye leather for shoes and water bags. 

 A refreshing beverage is prepared from Keora flowers. The grape of 

 Khyrpoor is small and acid, and the only good kind procurable in the 

 country comes from Kabul and Persia. The aprjcots are small, hard, 

 and insipid, and the apples are a little bigger than crab apples, and rather 

 less acid. 



Khyrpoor yields plenty of dates, and they form part of the food of the 

 lower classes, who obtain a strong spirit from the juice by distillation. By 

 far the largest quantity are at Shikarpoor and Bukur. The gardens on. 

 the banks of the Indus at Bukur, and several miles below it, are a delight- 

 ful relief to the eye after the endless tamarisk woods of the lower Indus, 

 and rival the cocoanut groves of Bengal in beauty of foliage. The fruit is, 

 however, very inferior in size and flavour to the Arabian and Egyptian 

 date, though it surpasses the spurious kind of Northern India. The tree 

 emits, after rain, a disagreeable smell, and the leaves that fall into water 

 charge its colour in a few hours to a deep green, like that of a stagnant 

 pool, and are said to render it poisonous. The Kiya, a reddish coloured 

 maggot, about half an inch long, is born in the tree, and destroys the fruit ; 

 the people apply fire to the outer crust of the stem, which is about three 

 quarters of an inch thick, and burn the coronet of leaves, where the insects 

 breed. This severe treatment is seldom fatal to a tree situated in good 

 soil : the leaves appear in about a month, and fruit in the usual course, and 

 the tree is cut down if it does not recover soon after the period mentioned. 

 The date is not irrigated, but low situations on the banks of rivers where 

 the floods deposit a rich clay and fine loam are most favourable to its 

 growth, and not one in a hundred trees that are burnt perish, but from five 

 to ten per cent, in sterile soils. If rain falls on the date when nearly ripe, 

 it completely destroys the flavour, which happened in 1839. The harvest 

 begins about the middle of June, and terminates from the seventh to the 

 fifteenth of August, when the people consider the hot season at an end, and 

 the weather becomes perceptibly cooler. 



Dates are of four kinds, distinguished by their colour, shape, and flavour : 

 one is a pale yellow, a second a dark brown, a third light purple, and a 

 fourth a deep purple hue. The brown kind is the largest and best. The 



