1 194 Account of Khyrpoor and the Fortress of Bukur. [No. 108. 



The Pulla fish has been sometimes compared to the salmon, from the 

 extreme richness of its flavour, and is excellent either fresh or salted. 

 When full grown it measures about eighteen inches long, and comes into 

 season in Upper Sind in the month of Sawun^ when the river is full, and is 

 in its prime about six weeks. The people prize it less than others of the 

 finny tribe from its heating quality, which is said to generate itch 

 and another disagreeable disorder in those who eat it constantly, and it is 

 filled with small bones. The poor Sindees, among other dirty practices, 

 broil and eat the entrails. The price of Pulla depends on the drought. In 

 1838 a full grown one sold in the Roree market for two pys, but the sup- 

 ply failed in the season following, and the demand made for it by the 

 British, raised the price to six pys. 



The peculiar manner of fishing for Pulla has been well described by 

 Burnes in his voyage up the Indus. It is a novel spectacle to see the 

 stream in the floods covered with men floating fearlessly on vessels of 

 baked clay. A vessel {mutfee) will usually contain twenty gallons of wa- 

 ter, and is much flattened at the sides. Those half the size have handles 

 through which the fishermen pass a rope to tie to their waists. The fisher 

 covers the opening at the top of the jar with the pit of his stomach and 

 swims into mid-stream, with a net ready for use on his shoulders. The net 

 is woven in large meshes, and fixed at the upper end of a bamboo, twelve 

 or fourteen feet long, with branches at the top like a fork. He plunges the 

 net vertically into the water and remains motionless with his thighs drawn 

 up on the jar until the fish are snared, when he tightens the mouth of the 

 net, disengages the fish, spears them, and drops them into the vessel. 



The fisher usually selects a reach of the river for his employment, and 

 after floating the length of his beat, gains the shore to deposit his spoil. 

 He either transfers the jar to his head, or leaves it hanging to his loins, and 

 with the net on his shoulder walks across the point he swam round, and 

 again commits himself to the water. Fallen trees swept along by the cur- 

 rent sometimes break the earthen vessel, and endanger the fisherman's life. 

 In situations liable to this accident, he substitutes for the muUee a large 

 gourd enclosed in netting, which he binds over the pit of his stomach. It 

 obliges him to swim low in the water, and often his head and shoulders 

 alone are visible. 



The fishermen of the Indus have spare figures and swarthy complexions ; 

 they wear beards like the other Sindees, and a wrapper of blue or white 

 calico round their heads and loins. 



A muttee, or earthen jar, costs from 12 to 16 anas. 



A net with a handle of bamboo, or bank wood, 12 anas. 



A gourd, 1 or 2 pys. 



