Rici:. 



293 



the greatest part of tropical America, with only some uuimportaut 

 exceptions. On the coast of Africa rice ripens in three months ; 

 they put it under water when cut, where it keeps sound and good 

 for some time. 



Eice is now the staple commodity of Bourhon, and it produces 

 about 26,000 quintals annually. It forms, together with maize 

 and mandioc, the principal article of food amongst the negroes and 

 colored people. 



The Bhull rice lands of Lower Sind. — Like all large rivers which 

 flow through an alluvial soil, for a very lengthened course, the 

 Indus has a tendency to throw up patches of alluvial deposit at 

 its mouth ; and these are in Sind called bhidls, and are in general 

 very valuable for the cultivation of the red rice of the country. 

 These bJiuIls are large tracts of very muddy swampy land, almost 

 on a level vdth the sea, and exposed equally to be flooded both by 

 it and the fresh water ; indeed on this depends much of the value 

 of the soil, as a hhuU which is not at certain times well covered 

 with salt water, is unfit for cultivation. They exist on both sides 

 of the principal mouths of the Indus, in the Grorabaree and Shah- 

 bunder pergunnas, which part of the province is called by the natives 

 " Kukralla," and was in olden days, before the era of Groolam Shah 

 Kalora, a small state almost independent of the xlmeers df Sind. 

 On the left bank of the mouths of the river these hliidls are very 

 numerous and form by far the most fertile portion of the surround- 

 ing district. They bear a most dreary, desolate, and swampy ap- 

 pearance — are intersected in all directions by streams of salt and 

 brackish water, and are generally surrounded by low dykes or em- 

 bankments, in order to regulate the influx and reflux of the river 

 and sea. Yet from these dreary swamps a very considerable por- 

 tion of the rice consumed in Sind is produced ; and the Zemin- 

 dars, who hold them, are esteemed amongst the most respectable 

 and wealthy in Lower Sind. 



To visit a hliull is no easy matter. Route by land there is none, 

 and the only way is to go by boat, in which it is advisable to take 

 at least one day's provisions and water, as the timeoc3npied in the 

 inspection will be regulated entirely by the state of the tide and 

 weather. Yery diflicult is it too, to land on any of these places, 

 the mud being generally two or three feet deep, and it is only 

 here and there that a footing can be secured, in the embankment 

 surrounding the field. 



Let me now describe the mode of cultivating these anomalous is- 

 lands, floating as it were in the ocean, and deriving benefit both 

 from it and the mighty river itself, whose oflTspring they are. 

 Should the river daring the high season have thrown up a hJiull, 

 the Zemindar selecting it for cultivation, first surrounds it with a 

 low bund of mud, which is generally about three feet in height. 

 When the river has receded to its cold weather level, and the hJmll 

 is free of fresh water (for be it remembered, that these hliulls being 

 formed dnring tlie inundation, are often considerably removed from 

 the river branches during the low season), he takes advantao'e of tlie 



