VEGETATION ON THE BANKS OP THE INDUS. 
543 
pearance of great picturesqueness and beauty. 
" About Sehwun," says a traveller, " the 
country is rich and productive, and the bazaar 
is well supplied. Looking north, the eye rests 
on a verdant plain, highly cultivated, which 
extends to the base of the mountains ; mul- 
berries, apples, melons, and cucumbers grow 
here ; the grain crops are luxuriant, and, for 
the first time, we saw gram. The melons 
are tasteless, I presume from the richness of 
the soil : cucumbers grow in Sindh only at 
Sehwun." 
Further on, in the tract near Bukker, there 
grow, in great numbers, plants called syar, 
resembling the wallflower, and from which is 
extracted a juice said to be most valuable as 
medicine for children. Its virtues have not 
yet been scientifically examined, but the 
natives declare them to be great and powerful. 
Doubtless they are, since all accounts given 
by the Sindhians agree on this point. 
Regarding the capabilities of the soil, all 
testimonies agree in describing them as great, 
and almost inexhaustible. According to Pos- 
tans, the land is so fertile and rich, that no 
kind of manure is needed, whilst Thornton, 
who is never inclined to bestow on those parts 
of India more praise for their abundance than 
they absolutely deserve, corroborates this ac- 
count of the soil. " The fertility of this pro- 
vince, in those parts," says Macmurdo, " which 
are exposed to the floods of the Indus, is 
exceeded by that of no tract of country in the 
earth." Even under the most unfavourable 
circumstances, when industry had long with- 
drawn itself from this portion of the region — 
when the husbandman had gone, when the 
fields lay waste, when all artificial methods of 
irrigation were abandoned, and when the 
magnificent gardens for which India is so 
celebrated were totally forgotten, the rank 
growths of wild vegetation which succeeded 
the valuable crops raised by man, proved that 
nothing was here needed but labour to cover 
the whole region with abundance. As w 7 e 
have said, the latest accounts from this por- 
tion of the East afford gratifying promise of 
the reappearance of plenty and prosperity in 
Sindh. Under the mild, and, for the most 
part, equitable rule of the British Govern- 
ment, the country is being rapidly recovered 
from the dominion of nature. The hunting- 
grounds of the despotic Amirs are being 
replaced by cultivated lands, and their hunt- 
ing-seats by Indian farm-houses and cattle- 
sheds. Vast pastures abound in the region ; 
large tracts capable of producing magnifi- 
cent wheat crops ; groves and orchards, and 
gardens suited for the cultivation of vege- 
tables, may be met with on all sides, and the 
Indus flowing in the midst, affords the ready 
means of transit, which, in a country so situ- 
ated, is an advantage of incalculable value. 
Along the whole valley of the river, as we 
have seen, extends, on either side, a, region 
which, submitted to the plough and the spade, 
and brought under the operations of the hus- 
bandman, may prove among the most pro- 
ductive of our Indian possessions. 
Although not coining exactly within the 
scope of the present article, there is another 
region which at once suggests itself during 
the discussion of such subjects. Concerning 
the region lying along both banks of this 
portion of the Indus a controversy has been 
maintained as regarding a newly acquired 
province. Now as many, both in this country 
and in India, foresee t he necessity of ultimately 
taking possession of Afghanistan, our readers 
may perhaps pardon a slight digression, to 
glance at the vegetable produce of that region 
which has been described as a vast rocky 
wild and naked desert, unfit for cultivation, 
incapable of supporting a large population, 
and valueless as territory. Without entering 
at all into the political part of the question, in 
which Afghanistan connects itself closely with 
Sindh, the Punjab, and Kashmir, we may 
be permitted to run over the list of vegetable 
productions which flourish in this " utterly 
desolate and stony waste, which could never 
be otherwise than a desert, expensive and 
unprofitable, where only pines and barley 
flourish, with the exception of a few grains 
and vegetables, grown in quantities so small 
as to deserve little consideration." 
Premising that our knowledge of the sub- 
ject is as yet far from complete, we may at 
once proceed to enumerate a few trees which, 
besides pines, flourish in Afghanistan. A 
species of oak is found plentifully at an ele- 
vation of from two to four thousand five 
hundred feet above the sea ; the zaitoon, or 
wild olive, is to be seen among the mountains, 
at the height of six thousand five hundred 
feet. Having ascended to this lofty elevation, 
we now begin to meet with the pine, which 
thence, to peaks which lift themselves ten thou- 
sand feet above the plain, grows in all direc- 
tions and in enormous numbers. Besides 
these valuable trees, we meet interspersed 
with them the cypress, the walnut, the birch, 
the holly, the pistachio (mastick), the sin jit (Ele- 
agnus orientalis), the pinus chilrjozeh (bearing 
an edible fruit, savouring slightly of tur- 
pentine), the hazel, and the mulberry. These 
flourish among the mountains, whilst in the 
plains, some of which are excessively fertile, 
grow tamarinds, willows, planes, and poplars. 
The population of this " naked desert" is 
in great part pastoral, which fact is in itself a 
sufficient refutation of the description which 
paints Afghanistan as an " utterly desolate 
and stony waste." The fact is unquestionaHe, 
