1892.1 H. G. Rftverty —The Mihrdn of Sind and its Tributaries , 
313 
The Ghar river, previously referred to, appears to have sent another 
branch into the Ab-i-Sind in recent times, and in a more easterly 
direction. This old channel, which is broad and deep, can be traced 
from about fourteen miles to the southward of Khairo GarhL It runs 
in the direction of about east-south-east, passing Lar-kanali and the 
ruins of Mahortah on the north, and after passing them about three 
miles, it turns sharply to the northward, and unites with the Ab-i-Sind 
a little over sixteen miles west of Bakliar, and about eight miles higher 
up than the point where the Western Narali, as it is called by Europeans, 
branches oft from the Ab-i-Sind, or Indus. Some have mistaken this 
oharah ( vul . “Khelat”), if it had been, and the tracts surrounding it, anything 
like what they subsequently became, and lately were. After his time, and within 
two generations, a great change took place. Siwi became so very sickly, that 
Sultan Mahmud Khan, the feudatory of Bakhar and its dependencies under the 
Arghuns, of which Siwi was a dependent district, had to replace its garrison yearly ; 
for inost of the men perished through the badness of the olimate and water. Of 
the badness of the water on the way from the Derah of Ghazi Khan to the Shrine of 
Sakliln Sarwar, I can, myself, testify. This continued until the time of Akbar 
Badshah, after the death of the above mentioned Sultan Mahmud Khan, when 
Bakhar and its dependencies beoame annexed as a Sarhdr to the Multan Subah. 
Shortly after, a great flood came, accompanied by some volcanic action (See what 
Dr. R. H. Kennedy states in the preceding note, 311), and the spring-head, the source 
of this river, which supplied the place, beoame ohanged, and the river’s course likewise, 
and the deleterious nature of the water at the same time. Previous to this change, 
the river used to flow a distance of fifty Tcuroh, and its waters collecting in the Sar- 
Wah district—about the position of the great ran or “ Sind Hollow,” already referred 
to, and once the channel of the Ab-i-Sind, or Indus—used to be drawn off for irriga¬ 
tion purposes, and what remained reached the Manchhar lake, about one hundred 
and twenty miles farther to the south, in Wicholo or Middle Sind. 
Alexander’s march, according to the map given by Cunningham in his “ Ancient 
Geography of India,” page 248, is represented as leading straight down from “ Uch,” 
which he calls “ Alexandria ” [seethe observations on this subject in note 192, 
page 244 ] to “ Ubaro ” along the Indus, and then by “ Aror ” to “ Mahorta ” 
across the Indus as it at present flows, and from thence down the west bank to 
“ Sehwan,” and subsequently, by “ Bralimanabad,” “ Hala,” “Kotri,” and “Thatlia” 
to “ Kurachi.” In another direction Alexander is taken from “ Kotri ” to “ Lonibari 
ost,” just according to the present course of the river, as though it had never changed 
from his time to this day. Of course, all this is pure imagination, while we know 
what mighty changes have taken place, even since the time of the ’Arab conquest of 
Sind, and that the river has been constantly changing. 
The same writer makes “ Kraterus ” cross the Indus at “ Fazilpur,” and then 
takes him by “ Kusmur ” and “Khangar” to “Dadar” and “ Bagli,” and so 
through the “ Bolan defile and quotes Curtins as his authority for all this, but 
I fail to find any confirmation of it in the latter’s history after careful search, but 
I know quite well that none of the places mentioned were then in existence, and 
that the Indus did not run then as supposed. 
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