1839.] Account of a Journey to Beylah. 185 



until the chiefs who were to accompany us made their appearance, 

 and then continued our journey across a low flat plain, covered with 

 saline bushes. About an hour after sunset having reached a spot where 

 the land was higher, and water procurable, halted for the night. 

 In the course of the evening many travellers had collected at this spot, 

 and by the time we arrived forty or fifty had encamped about the 

 wells, which are merely small holes dug at the foot of a high bank, 

 yielding a scanty supply of brackish water. There was a Syud 

 amongst them, a noted story-teller, who continued to entertain a large 

 audience with his tales until the night was far advanced, and as he 

 possessed a deep and melodious voice, the effect of the kind of recitative 

 style in which they were chaunted was extremelypleasing. 



On the following morning started for Layaree, a small town six 

 miles distant, which we reached early in the afternoon. The level 

 plain between the sand hills and Layaree is scored throughout with 

 marks made by the passage of water, and overrun with saline bushes, 

 intermixed here and there with patches of stunted tamarisk trees. Our 

 attendants told us that the Poorally flows through this plain during 

 the inundation, and pointed out the beds of two deep water courses 

 through which the water escapes in the latter part of the season. The 

 river, they said, had no decided bed from Layaree, where there is 

 a bund thrown across it, to its mouth, a distance of about twelve 

 miles, but discharges itself into the bay and harbour of Soonmemy 

 by several outlets, through the low grounds near the sea coast. 



Layaree is a small town, containing about fifty mud built houses, 

 prettily situated in a grove of large baubool trees; there is a large 

 tank near it filled by a canal from the river, and half a mile to 

 the N. E. is seen the small village of Charro, which is the residence of 

 the darogah, or collector of taxes. At least a third of the population 

 is composed of African slaves, who perform all the out-door labor. 

 In my walks about the place I met several who complained bitterly 

 of the treatment they received, and earnestly begged me to receive 

 them on board the vessel, for they had determined to escape from their 

 masters on the first opportunity. In the immediate vicinity of the 

 town the country is open, and the ground laid out in fields, in which 

 wheat, jowaree, cotton, and oil seed are cultivated. Farther off the 

 land is overrun with high thick jungle, but in the small open spaces 

 that occur here and there, is covered with grass, which although of a 

 coarse kind, affords excellent pasturage for the flocks and herds. 



Shortly after our arrival at Layaree, and before the baggage camels 

 had come up, word was brought that a chief had just arrived from 

 Beylah with Teeruthdass, the Jam's dewan, and wished to see me. 

 As soon as a place had been prepared to receive them, by spreading 



