34S Gradus ad Aornon. [No. 4. 



Umb are 1st Uskra, at present a large village standing in a spot of 

 great strength at the southern end of a rocky height, about 300 

 feet in altitude and protected by the little castle of Kotla* overhead. 

 The village has little land, and it is difficult to suppose it ever to 

 have been a considerable town, owing to the great difficulty of pro- 

 curing food in a spot so confined and so remote from the plains. 

 The name Ushra has no resemblance to Nusa. Yet the mountain 

 immediately overhanging Ushra on the S. "West is called Mhowra, 

 being a gigantic spur from the mountain Mahabunn. This moun- 

 tain Mhowra, may have an elevation of 2,000 feet above the waters 

 of the Indus. "When Nadir Shah invaded the Mahabunn his atten- 

 tion was attracted by the sound of a spinning-wheel on Mt. Mhow- 

 ra, whither a large number of the people had fled for refuge. He 

 sent up a detachment and destroyed the fugitives. 



About four miles below Umb, stand the two villages of Sitana 

 and the village Mundi. 



They are small villages, but Mundi has been the site of a yearly 

 fair which has fallen into disuse in the present day. Above them 

 are, on the north a spur of the Mahabunn, on the west the lower 

 or eastern process of the mountain Aonj or "Wunj. 



Below these villages come successively upper Kyah, lower Kyah 

 and Khubl, all of which form a little commonwealth of 5 or 6,000 

 souls. Khubl so-called it is supposed from the abundance of Dhoob 



* The castle of Kotla is very ancient, being built according to Sanskrit history 

 by Raja and called by him Urniya or the unapproachable, or virgin 



fort. Urniya was very possibly the true name of Aornos, and there are some 

 particulars in which Kotla or Urniya will answer to Curtius' description of Aornos, 

 better than any other fort on the right bank of the Indus. For on the side of the 

 Indus it has a sheer precipice of about 250 feet, from the bank of which assailants 

 might be hurled into the Indus. It has also on the north, a small break or a chasm 

 between the site and the rest of the hill, which, supposing the works to have 

 extended so far, must have been filled ere the fort could be attacked. And although 

 the castle is at present a place of little strength, there is abundant evidence that 

 the works have been far stronger and more extensive. On the other hand, no one 

 would readily believe that either Hercules or Alexander would have thought much 

 of the capture of Kotla, and if Kotla could be supposed to be Aornos, Arrian's 

 narrative, which is circumstantial and apparently trustworthy, must be wholly 

 rejected. 



