1895.] 
T. D. La Touche —An Ancient Map of Bhakar. 
69 
tions of Persia, Assyria and Babylonia, including his famous copy of 
Behistun inscription made in 1847, and published two years latter, 
which appeared in the Journals of the Geographical and Royal 
Asiatic Societies have given him an imperishable name. As 
Professor Max Muller well remarks, if we followed the process by 
which Grotefend, Burnouf, Lassen and Rawlinson arrived at the 
decipherment of the cuneiform tablets, we should see that “ the dis¬ 
covery of the alphabet, the language, the grammar, and the meaning 
of the inscriptions of the Achcemenian dynasty deserves to be classed 
with the discoveries of a Kepler, a Newton, or a Faraday.” 
The Philological Secretary exhibited an ancient map of Bhakar 
on the Indus, and read the following letter from Mr. T. D. La Touche, 
of the Geological Survey, from whom it had been received. 
“ I am sending you by parcel post a tracing of an ancient plan of 
the island of Bhakar, on the Indus, with portions of the towns of Rohr! 
and Sukkur, which may be of interest to some of the members of the 
Society. 
I have not been able to learn much of the history of the plan, 
but what follows was told me by the Mukhtiarkar of Rohrl, through 
whom the plan was obtained from the owner by Mr. Pratt, Deputy 
Collector of Rohrl, who lent it to me for copying. 
The owner is a Sayyad, Ya'qub ‘All by name, whose ancestor was, at 
the time of Akbar’s annexation of Sind (1591-92), sub-governor of 
Rohrl, and was made by him governor of the island of Bhakar. The 
plan was made by Akbar’s order, by an artist whose name is unknown, 
in duplicate, one copy being sent to the Emperor at Delhi, and the 
other handed down in the governor’s family. It would be interesting 
to learn whether the other copy, sent to Delhi, is still in existence 
or not. 
- The plan is, I imagine, a fairly faithful representation of the aspect 
of Bhakar as it was before the buildings were demolished. The most 
interesting point about the whole plan is, however, the building shown 
in the middle of the river, standing on a rock below the island of Sudh- 
bela. This building has entirely disappeared now ; indeed, it is evident 
that at the time the plan was made, the rock on which it stood was 
