768 Lieut, Irwin's Memoir of Afghanistan. [[Sept. 



windings, it takes few great sweeps. As far as Attoc it is a rapid river, 

 but at Kalabagh, distant thence 80 miles, it is very slow and still ; it is 

 no longer confined on both sides by hills, though to its right are some- 

 times found hills, and assumes all the well known characters of a river 

 flowing through a champaign country and yielding soil. At Kuheree 

 after having been joined by all the waters of Afghanistan, it is in the 

 ebb season about 1000 yards broad, and where deepest twenty-one 

 feet deep, with a current of two and a half miles an hour. Not far from 

 Mithundakot it receives from the left the Punjnud, in which are col- 

 lected all the waters of the Punjab, but which is yet much inferior to 

 the Indus. After this junction, that river probably exceeds the Oxus 

 in quantity of water. 



32. The Hydaspes is the most westerly of the five rivers of the 

 Punjab. This name originally imposed by the Greeks, is an evident 

 corruption from Vidusta or Velusta, its ancient name in the country, 

 and which the natives of Kushmeer still retain ; by the Punjabees it is 

 called Vehut, which the people of our provinces change into Behut; 

 strangers in general usually name it the river of Jelum, from a town 

 of that name built on its left bank in north latitude 33°. Here is a 

 famous ferry, and in the ebb season it may be forded, though with 

 some difficulty. Here too the Punjab may be said to begin, for in the 

 northerly directions are mountainous tracts. The Hydaspes rises in 

 the valley of Kushmeer, and having a slow current in deep muddy 

 banks, soon becomes navigable. Before leaving the valley it joins from 

 the north the Lar river, so called as intersecting the district of that 

 name. After leaving Kushmeer the Hydaspes becomes rapid and unna- 

 vigable. At Moozufferabad it receives from the right the Kishengunga, 

 a far inferior stream rising in little Tibet. Various mountain torrents 

 now add their waters, and arriving at Jelum it has gained almost its 

 utmost size. Until it reaches Pind-Dadun Khan, it is at intervals con- 

 fined by hills on its right; at Rusheedpoor it falls into the Acesines, and 

 near Ahmedpoor the joint river receives the Hydraotes. The Acesines 

 as being the largest and centrical gives its name to the three, which 

 thus united in one stream pass Mooltan, lying about six miles from the 

 left bank ; and at Sheenee Bhukhuree, fifty-six miles from that place, 

 is their conflux with the Ghura, which contains the two eastern rivers 

 of the Punjab. The five rivers thus assembled are called Punjnud. 

 The Punjnud had formerly but a short course before it joined the 

 Indus, and perhaps the term was not then used ; but in consequence 

 of an extraordinary rise of the rivers about twenty years ago, their 

 channels were changed, and the Punjnud now runs for about fifty-one 



