1892.] H. Gr. Raverty —The Mihrdn of Sind and its Tributaries. 385 
what can be artificially irrigated by means of canals or cuts from that 
river. This belt or fringe in many places does not exceed three miles in 
breadth from the banks-, but in some places it is four or five. In the parts 
around Ajuddhan or the Pak Pattan much less land is fit for tillage, it is 
the most elevated part of the tract around, 892 and is covered with 
dense jangal ; but, in the south-west corner of the Do-abah, in the 
Multan district, along the banks of the Ohin-ab, this strip of cultiva¬ 
tion may extend to six or seven miles on the average from the river’s 
bank. 
Thus an extensive tract of waste land, extending some twenty 
miles or more in breadth in the Grhugherah district, intervenes between 
the high ridge of the elevated plateau marking the northern-most point 
the Biah ever reached, and the belt or fringe of cultivation before 
alluded to. On the northern half of this waste, nearest the high 
plateau, traversed by old channels of the Biah, water collects every 
here and there in its hollows in rainy seasons, 393 and these collections 
of water are called dhoras. The other or southern half is also inter¬ 
sected in several places with numerous old channels of minor branches 
or offshoots from the Biah, but all inclining towards the old bed of 
the river in the lowest part of this waste, towards the south-west 
extremity of the Multan district, in the direction of the point where, 
at one time, the united Biah and Rawi were joined by the united Ohin- 
4b and Bihat. 
392 Since the Pak Pattan stands just 616 feet above the sea, and 106 feet 
above the level of Debal-pur, and the banks of the Harlari, Nili, or Gharah, 
twelve miles above and below the Pak Pattan, are respectively, 548 and 520 feet 
only above the sea, that is, an average of 82 feet lower than the Pak Pattan, how 
is it possible that Debal-pur could have stood on the bank of the Sutlaj, as 
Cunningham asserts, or for the Pak Pattan “ to have been for ages the ferry over 
the Sutlej,” which has never approached it nearer than at the present day? 
393 From the heights given in the preceding note 392, it will be observed, 
that around Ghugherah the country is considerably depressed, and that this 
depression continues to increase down as far as the junction of the Rawi with the 
Chin-ab. 
Towards the close of the last century, in going from Sher Garh to Hinjaraun 
across the high plateau between the Biah and the Rawi which slopes towards the 
latter, just mid way, and near the present line of Railway between Multan and 
Lahor, there was a great dhorah or lake, called the Palti, which extended five kuroh 
in length from east to west, with a breadth of one leuroh. It was generally dry 
except in and after rainy seasons. This great lake, therefore, lay just in the 
middle of “the plateau. There were no inhabitants between Sher Gaph and 
Hinjaraun, but there was a dense jangal , and scarcity of water. It was much the 
same farther north-west to Wandiri and Salabat Pind, now a mile from the left 
bank of the Rawi, and seven miles east of Sayyid-Walah. 
X X 
