1892.] H. G. Raverty— The Mihran of Sind and its Tributaries. 487 
desert, and transfer plenty and population to what a month before was a 
glaring waste. As regards the ancient course of the Lower Indus 
infinite has been the speculation, the theorization, the dissertation, the 
argument, and the contradiction upon this mucli vexed subject. But 
listen to the voice of reason, as proceeding from one Dr. Lord,” etc., 
etc. See Dr. Lord’s “ Memoir on the Plain of the Indus,” also the 
statement of the Greek, Aristobulus, quoted at pages 469 and 470. 
Postans, too, in his “ Personal Observations on Sindh,” says (page 
18) respecting the Indus : “ At Sakkur, Rori, below Hyderabad, and at 
Jerruk, rocky barriers interrupt on the western bank its progress at 
those particular spots, but elsewhere it has full liberty to choose its 
constantly changing course, through an under soil so light and friable, 
that it cannot withstand the action of such a mighty rush of water even for 
one hour. * * * The noise of the falling banks of the Indus, when 
heard upon the stream during a calm night, resembles the constant 
discharge of distant artillery.” 
Such I have myself heard many times, as all must have who have 
passed up and down the great river. I have often in the course of 
a single day, seen many acres of land, trees and all, suddenly fall into 
the river with a great roar, and such I have witnessed several times in 
one and the same day. 
It is very certain that what the merchant is said to have done in 
ancient times, would, if now carried out, be sufficient to divert the 
course of the present Indus, consequent!} 7 , the feat ascribed to Saif-ul- 
Muluk, with the means of paying for the labour, say, of a thousand 
men during the space of three days and nights, was not impracticable. 
To have commenced the excavation of a new channel above Aror, and 
to have erected an embankment with the earth excavated, strengthened 
with brushwood, and the like, was as feasible then as now. The por¬ 
tion of a new channel once opened, the river, on being let into it, would 
soon cut a channel for itself, or take to the first depression it met with 
in its course ; and, in this instance, it made its way some distance to 
the westward of the lime-stone hills at first, and, subsequently, near 
to them, but still to the westward of where Rurhi and Bakhar were 
subsequently founded, namely a little west of Sakhar of modern days. 
In course of time, the Panj Ab or Panch Had having ceased to be a 
tributary of the Hakra or Wahindah at Dosli-i-A'b, in inclining west¬ 
wards lower down, got into the channel of the diverted or Ra’in branch 
of the Hakra; while the main river itself, through the loss of the Sind 
Rud or Panj Ab or Panch Nad, was not able to supply it, or to a very 
small degree ; and when the Hakra subsequently ceased to be a peren¬ 
nial stream, the Ra’in, or diverted branch of that river, only received 
