86 The District of Ludi ana. [No. 2, 



also in many other parts of the district, the ground is covered with it. 

 It is used as fuel by the gram roasters. The " akas bel" or dodder, 

 cuscula reflexa, which is common on the Jalandhar side of the 

 river, looking very pretty as it covers the hedge-rows with a yellow, 

 silk-like net, is also found here, hut is not so common. The cactus 

 which makes the favourite hedgerow in the Jalandhar Duab, does 

 not come to perfection here. " Aliya" and " henna" succeed 

 better. 



I may add to my list of common weeds easy of identification, 

 the " itsit" (trianthema pentandra), a creeping plant which spreads 

 over the ground ; the " bhakhra" or " gokru" (pedalium murex) 

 also recumbent, the fruit of which is used by the natives for gonor- 

 rhoea, the " hulhul" (cleome vicsosa f) of which the seeds possess 

 anthelmintic and other virtues, and the " papra" or " shahbra," which 

 is used for cutaneous diseases and is, I believe, the " Fumaria 

 officinalis" or fumitory. 



Of course this is by no means an exhaustive list of the Ludiana 

 flora. There are many plants that I know by their native, but not 

 by their scientific names ; and doubtless there are many more which 

 have not come under my observation at all. The garden plants are the 

 same as those cultivated elsewhere in the Panjab and North-West. 



2. — History. 



Doubtless the province of Sarhind, through which the classical 

 Saraswati flowed, and which was the scene of so many struggles for 

 empire in Muhammadan times, possessed historical interest from the 

 very dawn of Brahmanical religion ; yet the traces of ante-Musal- 

 man civilization are few. There are extensive ruins of undoubted 

 antiquity at a small village called Sunet, about four miles from 

 Ludiana on the Firozpiir road. The settlement report speaks of 

 it as an old Kajpiit city, said to have been renowned throughout 

 Hindustan for its size and splendour. Coins and large old bricks with 

 figures on them, are constantly dug up from its remains. 



The most common impression on the bricks is that of three or four 

 fingers of the human hand. There are no standing ruins ; but broken 

 bricks are found on the surface for a great distance, and excavations 

 beneath what are now c'orn fields, uncover walls and floors of brick 



