1859.] The Flooding of the Indus. 213 



Now this greatly added to the danger, for people who found the 

 water coming down were, from having had no experience of the sorb 

 of thing before, peculiarly liable to fall into the fatal error (by 

 which most of the lives lost were sacrificed) of getting upon knolls 

 or other rising ground, on which they found themselves surrounded 

 and cut off before they were aware. In the present instance the civil 

 officer applied to me in behalf of some individuals who were thus 

 surrounded, near a village a few miles above Attok ; they most for- 

 tunately escaped through the flood not rising over their knoll, and 

 their waiting till an exit was again provided by the subsidence of 

 the waters. Had the stream risen a little higher, their case was 

 nearly hopeless ; for of course under the circumstances, no means of 

 assistance could have been brought from a distance. At Attok 

 many of the houses in the Mullah Tollah or boatmen's village, just 

 below the fort, were demolished, so was part of the opposing village 

 of Khairabad, but in both cases the property was almost entirely 

 saved. In the Chuch valley lying between Torbela and Attok, a few 

 villages were wholly or partially destroyed, and in the valley of the 

 Cabul river all those near the water as far as Nowshera. But in 

 both cases the principal losses were in grain and other field-produce, 

 and in cattle, both districts being low and well cultivated. Heavy 

 loss was also sustained, principally by householders, at the station 

 of Nowshera, and by Government in the destruction of roads and 

 bridges, and stores of various sorts collected at Khairabad opposite 

 Attok. On this point some interesting information regarding the 

 vicinity of Attok will be found in the report of proceedings of a 

 special committee of which Major Robertson, Lahore and Peshawer 

 Eoad, was president ; and which was assembled in September last 

 with the view of considering points relating to the catastrophe 

 which had just taken place. 



Below Attok most of the villages are placed on the high banks, 

 between which the river runs and there is hardly any cultivation 

 near the water so that no damage of any note occurred till at 

 Mokkadd about 80 miles below Attok, where upwards of 100 houses 

 were demolished and some cultivation destroyed. Marree also 

 suffered, though to a less extent, and Kallabagh, the last place where 

 injury of that sort occurred, lost some 10 or 15 houses. 



