490 H. Gr. Raverty —The Mihrdn of Sind and its Tributaries. [Ex. No. 
peninsula for some considerable time after this period, for some two 
centuries probably, but in the course of time, consequent on the in¬ 
creased volume which the Panch Nad or Panj Xb, now included 
in the Xb-i-Sind, had acquired, presently to be noticed, the force 
of the current washed away all the softer portions of the rocky strata 
on which the fortress stood, on the west side, by forming a second 
channel, leaving it an island, but larger than at present, and separated 
from the town. 568 The action of the current still continuing, in the 
course of years the other small islands near it were formed, one of 
Eastwick (p. 29) referring to the same subject, says, nothing can be made of 
Arrian’s account. Certainly not by attempting to trace the movements of Alexan¬ 
der according to the present courses of the rivers of these parts, but it may be 
different if the movements are traced according to the ancient courses of the rivers 
as I have here explained them. See also note 530, page 461. 
66S With reference to Rurhi more particularly, Captain G. E. Westmacott, of the 
37th Bengal N. I. (in “the Bengal Asiatic Journal” for 1841), who wrote on the 
spot, says, “ Roree, or more correctly Lohnree [I have already given the derivation 
of the word and the vernacular form of writing it in note 121, page 209], the ancient 
Lohurkote [?], is a town of considerable antiquity, and is said to have been founded 
[this is of course local tradition, not history] with Bukur about the middle of the 
seventh century of the Hijerat.” He is here quite wrong, and did not know that 
the fortress of Bakhar was invested and captured in 625 H., or twenty-five years 
before the middle of the seventh century of the H. He is just a century too late. 
He, however, gives some interesting particulars which tend to corroborate what I 
have mentioned respecting the action of the river. He says : “ The strata of the 
rock is horizontal, and exhibits marks everywhere of the action of the river, which 
must have risen formerly at least fifty feet above its present level in season of 
floods, and washed the foundations of the houses. In the sandy bays, creeks, and 
hollows abandoned by the stream, date and peepul trees grow luxuriously, and rocks 
worn by the water, and shattered and broken into gigantic masses, were submerged 
at no very remote period. Along the base of the hills, on both banks of the river, 
the land bears the appearance of having been under water [when the Panj Ab poured 
through the gap]. The remains of a stone and brick wall, or quarry, built evidently, 
to oppose the encroachments of the river, runs along the edge of the precipitous 
ridge which supports the town, and under it is an extensive cavern.” The buttresses 
are evidence that the river has worn away a great deal, or they would never have 
chosen to build dwellings in such a position. 
Burton (“ Scinde,” Yol. II — 250) also remarks, very pertinently : “In ancient 
days, when the Indus — say geographers — washed round the entire shoulder of the 
Sukknr Hills, it was, you may be sure, bleak and barren enough. Presently the 
stream shifted its course to the present channel, “ cutting away the looser strata of 
the limestone ridge, and leaving the harder masses, one of which forms the island, 
and others the hills on the Sukknr side of the river. Bukkur, with the moat which 
nature thus threw round it, and the least assistance of the mason’s art, in days 
when howitzers and mines were unknown, must have been a kind of Gibraltar. 
See previous note 567. 
