130 



CAPTAIN NELSON'S REPORT ON CERTAIN 



About two miles from Allotta, you descend by a winding 

 ghaut about 800 feet. The road is composed of loose frag- 

 ments of sand-stone, and, except to Lumbadi cattle, is almost 

 impracticable. 



From the ghaut you have a good view of the surrounding 

 country, the little Fort of Allotta standing in the plain 

 beneath you, about one mile from the river, which here 

 forms an elbow, changing its course from easterly to 

 north, north-east — much as it is sketched in the great 

 maps. 



The country on the other side of the river is nearly de- 

 void of trees and slightly undulating : the high hills, sketch- 

 ed in the map on the left bank of the river after its course 

 becomes northerly, do not exist. The river is turned to 

 the north by a range of hills on the right bank of the 

 river, running north and south. The appearance of the 

 Kistnah here is very disappointing. As far as it can be traced 

 by the eye, it appears a gigantic ravine or gully, with steep 

 and almost precipitous walls of indurated mud, and flows 

 about 1,000 or 1,500 feet below the level of the surround- 

 ing country. There was little water in the river at this time 

 (March), and what there was lay in pools or formed rapids, 

 giving the river much of the character of the famous 

 salmon streams of the north of Europe. 



The Fort of Allotta* is of stone, 80 paces square, with walls 

 12 feet high: it is admirably placed with a view to the defence 

 of the river at that point : outside the Fort the ruins of a 

 town of some size are in existence, the houses and streets 

 of which were entirely composed of slabs of rock. There 

 are the remains of four large bowries which have been used 

 to irrigate the land by picottah ; but it never could have 

 been a producing country, and the Fort must have been 

 built either as an out-post to dispute the passage of the 

 river, or as the stronghold of some marauding clan. 



* Vide Note 2. 



