1802.] H, G. Raverty —The MiJirdn of Sind and its Tributaries* 299 
The Sindhu, or Ab-i-Sind, 'which we call Indus, has, in the lapse 
of ages, changed its course very considerably, though not so much 
perhaps, considering its size, as some of the other rivers presently to be 
noticed. 
Traces of ancient channels are met with every here and there, 
especially to the immediate westward of Multan, between that place 
and the present channel of the river, and south of it again, between it 
and U'chchb, the intervening tracts of country being literally seamed 
with old channels. The whole of the southern part of the present 
Muzaffar Garli district of the Panj-ab, as at present constituted, below 
that part of the Thai or elevated alluvial waste, 291 running down through 
the southern part of the Sind-Sagar Do-abah from north to south, 
and which terminates a little to the north-west of the town of 
Muzaffar Garh, in about 30° 10' N. Lat., is low and depressed, and con¬ 
sists entirely of stretches of alluvial soil running parallel to the banks 
of the two rivers, Sind and Ohin-ab. This extensive tract is seamed 
with channels, showing, beyond a doubt, that nearly the whole of what 
now constitutes this district was a river bed. 
Respecting this Thai , it is necessary to state that, like the district, 
it is somewhat in the shape of a triangle, the base on the north being 
about thirty-five miles in breadth, and the sides about fifty; that it is 
highest on the west, and that it slopes downwards from the banks of 
the Indus, towards the Ohin-ab, from west to east. The western part of 
it consists of sandy soil, with sand-hills here and there, which latter 
increase in number and in elevation as you move eastwards, and run 
north and south in detached ridges or waves, between which, narrow 
flats of stiff clayey soil occur, which the people bring under cultivation, 
and which yield good crops, and finally terminate in the hollow, or 
valley, in which the Ohin-ab flows. 
It must not be supposed, however, that because these ridges of 
sand-hills increase in height from west to east, that the bed of. the 
Qhin-ab lies highest, for the contrary is the fact. There is a regular 
slope from the Indus towards the Ohin-ab; while the southern part 
of the district, from a little above Shahr-i-Sultan, 292 is so depressed 
that the waters of the Ohin-ab and Indus find their way during the 
inundations into the very middle of the delta. This difference in the beds 
291 Also known, in history, as the Ohul-i-Jalali. See my “Notes on Afghan¬ 
istan,” etc., page 338. 
292 In the hot season of 1754, the ghahr-i-Sultan was swept away by the river, 
together with the shrine of one of the Bukhari Sayyids of the U choh h family, named 
Pir-i-’Alam. They were subsequently re-built about two miles from the previous 
site. 
