1892.] H. G. Raverfcy —The Mihran of Sind and its Tributaries. 451 
Its eastern part is still traversed by two river beds, now entirely 
dependent on rain, wliicli take tlieir rise in the low range of hills to 
the south-east of the town of Jasal-mir, a little to the east-wards of 
Poh-karn (the “ Pokurn ” and “ Poknrun ” of the maps). These ran 
in the direction of north-north-west, and unite with the Hakra channel. 
These were once perennial tributaries of the Hakra, and at present 
even, the waters, when they are at their full, still reach the old channel 
of that river. These two rivers are known to the people of the country 
under the name of Hakra. The water contained in these, together 
with other water in the bed of the Hakra, now go to form extensive 
about whose era it is said to have been founded ; and there are really within its 
precints a couple of mundurs or pagodas that appear almost old enough to 
have been coeval with the great Bikruni who flourished about nineteen hundred 
years ago. The fort of Birsilpoor, of which an account has already been given, 
being only seventeen hundred years old, modestly claims a less antiquity than the 
above, and is said to have been built as a half-way house or resting place in the 
dreary track between Bikrumpoor and Poogul. 
Should there be any foundation for the above tradition, it may have arisen 
from one of these three causes; either that the small stream running north-west* 
wards between Pohkurn and Jesulmer, instead of losing itself in the marsh near 
Moliungurh and Bulana, may have found its way through the low lands at Nok into 
the neighbourhood of Bikumpoor; or, secondly, the river Kagur [the Gliag-gliar 
he means] that waters part of Huriana may have continued its westerly course to 
the valley of the Indus [here he, of course, refers to the Hakra of which the 
Ghag-ghar was one of the principal tributaries], being possibly in those distant ages 
unchoked by the sand-drifts that have been accumulating for centuries to the west 
of Futehabad and Buhadra : or, lastly, the bed of the Sutluj and Ghara [sic] may at 
some remote era have had a much more easterly position [see page 417 of this]; for 
it seems to be admitted that the channel of the great river Sind has itself shifted from 
the same quarter, perhaps at a comparatively recent date; for instead of running as 
formerly from below Dera Ghazee Khan to near Ooch, it now flows more than 
twenty miles to the "westwards of this city.” 
Tod also says : “ The same traditions assert that these regions [Bikanir, etc.], 
were not always either arid or desolate,” and that its deterioration dates “ from the 
drying up of the Hakra river, which came from the Panjab [! ] and flowed 
through the heart of this country and emptied itself into the Indus between Rory 
Bekker and Ootch * # # It ran eastward [referring to the “ Sankra ”] parallel 
with the Indus * # * This catastrophe [the drying up of the Hakra] took place 
in the reign of the Soda prince Hamir.” Yol. II. 
From this, however, it will be seen that he has mistaken the Sutlaj for the 
Hakra, which latter is his “ Sankra,” and which was one of the names it bore, and 
still bears after entering Sind. 
The same writer also observes, that, “ History affords no evidence of Alexander’s 
passage of the Gharah ,” which is quite correct; for no such river existed until the 
Biah and Sutlaj finally united their waters in the last century. See note 390, 
page 380. 
