212 The Flooding of the Indus. [No. 3. 



nearly all the way above Chelass, and certainly every where below 

 and west of Attok, people unless caught in some peculiar position 

 could without much difficulty escape, except, as always happens in 

 such cases, the few who, by over-eagerness to save property, expose 

 their lives to foolish risks. There were very few human bodies 

 (not above three or four apparently) seen to pass Attok, and the cattle 

 and stacks of grain, straw, &c. w r hich came down in considerable 

 numbers belonged principally to the vale of Chuch. 



Accounts regarding the catastrophe of 1841 agree in stating that 

 many bodies were seen to pass Attok, and allowing for the probable 

 amount of exaggeration, it is I think unquestionable that a very 

 considerable loss of life then occurred, and had it not occurred then, 

 there would probably have been more to chronicle now. The great 

 cause of difference is clearly the experience of effects and the ex- 

 pectancy of repetition in the present case. A flood of the sort hav- 

 ing happened within the memory of all the grown population, and 

 having proved very fatal, as soon as warning was received in 18.58 

 the people not only took precautions, but became prepared, on ob- 

 serving or hearing of anything unusual on the part of the river, to 

 place themselves at a safe distance from it ; without the experience 

 of a similar disaster it was hard to tell what was going on or where 

 it was to stop, and thus at Nowshera some people placed their pro- 

 perty on the top of their houses when the rise over-stepping their 

 calculations, destroyed both house and property. 



At Attok again I saw natives, who had in mind what they had 

 heard of the previous flood, go off at once up the hills, while the river 

 was rising, though quickly by no means alarmingly so. It is also 

 to be borne in mind that the former flood was much greater, for not 

 only did it over-top that of 1858 by 12 feet at Attok, and the 

 addition of a single foot in height to a torrent of depth, width, and 

 velocity such as the Indus then presented would have been a very 

 great increase indeed, but occurring as it did in May when the bridge- 

 of-boats was up at the lower site, it had a much lower level to start 

 from. For the bridge in question has never been held by the na- 

 tive boatmen after the submergence of a rock near which is their 

 well known water mark, and the actual rise which took place in a 

 few hours must therefore have been upwards of 80 instead of about 

 55 feet. 



