1840.] Account of Khyrpoor and the Fortress of Bukur. 120T 



with tamarisk boughs. Sometimes lie relinquishes part of this humble 

 dwelling to his cattle. 



The only town on this route besides Sehwan, is Khyrgaon, situated on 

 the west bank of the Koodun, a branch of the Nara, and has not yet found 

 a place in the maps ; it is about thirty miles from lake Munchar, and has 

 seven mosques and between 2,000 and 3,000 inhabitants, about a fifth 

 of whom are Hindoos. The bazar was last year totally destroyed by fire, 

 and the people were rebuilding it in a very superior style to that of the 

 Sehwan and Thutta markets, which it promises to surpass in width and 

 loftiness. The chief articles exposed for sale are striped and coloured cottons. 



The lake Munchar bears E. 10 N. from the town of Sehwan, and about 

 sixteen miles distant. In the season of inundation it spreads far beyond 

 its limits, and overflows the groves of tamarisk and rushes on its shores. 

 The figure is a long oval, between forty and fifty miles in circuit, and the 

 greatest length is east and west. The shores are fringed with lotos, and 

 rushes six feet high, except on the south-west side, where there is a waste 

 of sand. Barren hills are seen at a distance rising in altitude as they recede 

 from the lake, and form the modern boundary between Sind and Beloochis- 

 tan. A hot dazzling vapour floats in summer over these desolate heights, 

 which are as unpromising to the eye as the mountains on the coast of Ye- 

 men, and afford no shelter for travellers. The solitary village of Jungar, 

 with the domed sepulchre of Peer Bubber, is to the south, and the only in- 

 habited spot distinguishable ; near it are extensive meadows where sheep 

 and buffaloes pasture. Among the varieties of fish that inhabit the lake 

 I recognized the Rohoo, the Silun, and the Saolee, which are speared with 

 bamboos barbed with iron, a common mode of fishing where water is suf- 

 ficiently clear to distinguish objects below the surface, which is never the 

 case in the Indus. 



Lake Munchar presents a beautiful sight in the season when the lotos 

 is in blossom ; the plants occupy a circle of more than twenty miles, cover- 

 ing the surface of the water with a thick carpet of leaves and flowers far 

 beyond the range of vision. A channel fifty or sixty feet wide, winds with 

 many sinuosities through the midst of the lotos beds, and a current sets to 

 the eastward at about two miles an hour. The water is clear, but has ra- 

 ther an unpleasant taste of vegetable matter, and a pole, three fathoms 

 long, was dropped into it frequently without touching the bottom. To reach 

 the Nara in the western limit of the lake, boats force a passage through 

 reeds and lotos, and no one unacquainted with the navigation could disco- 

 ver the mouth, it is so completely hidden from view by these plants. 



The river Arrul may be considered almost a continuation of the Nara, 

 and after emerging from the east side of lake Munchar has a course of 



