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to the Euxine, and, by reason of their depredations along the coast of the Persian Gulf, were a terror to the Persian monarchy, even in the days of its most absolute power," were dark-skinned pirates who called themselves Hindus.. Their "nautical habits," according to Sir Henry Elliot, have 'been inherited by generations of descendants" and their inveterate addiction to piracies, which, in A.D. 711, led to the Arab conquest of Sind, has only now been eradicated by the power of the British.*

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IRRIGATION CANALS AND COLONISATION.

The Indus at its source is 16,000 feet above the sea-level. At Attok, it is still 2,000 feet above the sea. For the greater part of its course it is, therefore, a rapid river, and is always bringing down with it, from the mountains, a vast quantity of silt and mud and gravel, which, when it slackens its pace over the lower levels of the Sind Valley, it deposits on its bed, which, thenceforward, is always rising. If the banks of the river, in its lower reaches, were not artificially raised and strengthened at all weak points, a great part of Sind would become an uninhabitable swamp. There is a perpetual demand for the watchful care of an expert staff of engineers, not only to maintain protective works, but also, as an engineer in charge of one of the great canals once put it to me, to "feel the pulse" of the river, as every rise and fall of its waters is telegraphed to the canal officers from different stations on its course, during the annual melting of the snows in the Himalayas and Afghanistan; for, on a right forecast of the time and volume of each coming flood depends the due regulation of water to the great system of canals on both banks of the river, which help the cultivator to sow his seed, and reap his crops, and pay his dues, regardless of the rainfall. During the past 20 years the policy of extending irrigation works in Sind has been vigorously pursued, and a large amount of capital has been invested. For instance, on the Jamrao Canal a sum of more than £490,000 has been spent. The idea of this canal was suggested many years ago, but no definite proposals were adopted until Sir Charles Pritchard became Commissioner in Sind in 1888. It is a perennial canal in the Hyderabad district, and a small section of it yielded an income of £20,000 in the first year after it was opened. The Nasrat, Naulakhi, and Dad canals have also been ex

Sir H. M. Elliot's "History of India," Vol. I., pp. 511, 512.

tended and improved at a cost of about £300,000. A stable supply of water has been given to the Rohri district by the Mahi canal. The Pritchard canal has supplemented the Western Nara. A drainage cut has been made at the tail of the Fuleli, which is now a perennial canal, and the southern part of the Hyderabad district is no longer an unhealthy swamp; and the Unharwah and the Desert canal, in the extreme north of Sind, have been enlarged, so that there is hardly any culturable land now left waste on the Upper Sind frontier. The total expenditure on canals to the end of 19001901 amounted to £1,705,666, and by that time the total mileage of completed canals amounted to 6,596 miles, the aggregate length of main canals being 2,626 miles, of branch canals 3,613 miles, and of distributaries 357 miles. The navigable channels on these canals extended to 1,794 miles. Both banks of the Indus are now protected with embankments along the greater part of its course from Kashmor to the delta, and a River Indus Commission has been constituted as an Advisory Board in all matters relating to the river.

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These measures have stimulated cultivation; and the Irrigation Revenue Report for Sind for 1900-1901-the latest which I have seenshows that, in that year, the total area of cultivation was the largest yet reached. There was an increase of 475,000 acres, as compared with the preceding year, and of nearly 250,000 acres as compared with the hitherto record year of 1897-98." Such figures indicate, of course, a large increase of agricultural wealth. Another result of the policy of recent years has been a very desirable increase of population in an underpeopled country. The census of 1881 gave Sind, exclusive of the Khairpur State, a population of 2,417,057. In the next ten years, it increased to 2,875,100, and the increase of 19 per cent. was due to the extension of cultivation by means of canals. In 1901, the population, which then numbered 3,210,910, showed an increase of nearly 12 per cent. in ten years. The mean density of population is 68 to the square mile; and ranges from 27 to the square mile in the desert tract of Thar and Parkar to 112 and 125 in the Hyderabad and Shikarpur Districts, which have derived the most advantage from the extension of canals. Thirty years ago the corresponding figures for Thar and Parkar and these two districts were 14, 77, and 88. "Annual Irrigation Revenue Report, Sind, 1900-1901,"

pp. 63-65.

On the Upper Sind frontier the mean density of the population has risen during the same period from 47 to 89 to the square mile.* On the completion of the Jamrao Canal, three years ago, the experiment was tried by Sir Evan James, late Commissioner in Sind, of colonising some of the lands brought within the influence of the canal with cultivators from the congested districts of the Panjab-Baluchis, Marwaris, Cutchis, and others. It was feared that cultivators already in Sind might abandon their old lands on the opening out of new virgin soil; and to obviate the loss that would thus be caused to the zamindars of the deserted lands, a colonisation scheme, on the lines of the Chenab Colonisation Scheme of the Panjab, was adopted; and Sir Evan James drew up the conditions of the new tenures, providing amongst other things against mortgages of the lands of the new occupants. This, to my mind, is a wise provision, whenever the debt is small, as is the case with most agricultural debts. In such cases, the creditor ought to be content with the debtor's personal security. A different practice has brought untold misery on the cultivating classes of the older districts of the Bombay Presidency. Two selected officers, Mr. Robertson and Sirdar Mahomed Yakub, were entrusted with the duty of bringing colonists from the Panjab; and the experiment has already succeeded beyond all anticipations, the area brought under cultivation in three years having amounted to about 600 square miles. This is only one of many good works by which Sir Evan James has won the gratitude of the people of Sind.

Canals in Sind may also be regarded as a powerful civilising agency. At one time, not so very long ago, travelling was not safe near the frontier without the protection of an armed escort. The whole country-side was infested with thieves, who, however, were glad to become honest men and take up land for cultivation, as soon as it was offered them, on the opening of the desert canal from Kashmor, westwards. Indeed, shortly after a portion of it had been opened, an English lady rode a camel from Jacobabad to Quetta without an escort and without harm. In view of such an incident it is satisfactory to read in Mr. Enthoven's able and instructive report on the Bombay census of 1901 that 74 per cent. of the population of the Upper Sind frontier now

"Census of India, 1901," Vol. IX., Pt. I., p. 16; Vol. IX. -A., Pt. II., p. 2; and Vol. IX.-B., Pt. III., p. 19.

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VEGETATION AND SCENERY.

Within the area watered by the canals all vegetation is luxuriant. Where the soil is deep and rich, as it is in most of the alluvial tracts, the cereal crops develop a growth unknown on used-up lands elsewhere. At Jacobabad, bodies of spearmen, riding through a field of "Jowari," the great Indian millet (Sorghum vulgare), have been known to screen themselves effectually, horses, spears, and all, in the lofty shelter of the cornstalks. In the forest reserves near the Fuleli at Miani, the "Babul," or gum Arabic tree (Acacia arabica), and the “Kandi" (Prosopis spicigera), the two commonest forest trees of Sind, attain a height and girth beyond anything seen in Guzerat, the garden of India, or the Deccan, where the Babul is very much at home. In the Collector's garden at Larkana there is a splendid Ailanthus excelsa, excelling in size and vigour of stem, branches, and its great pinnate leaves, any of the fine trees in the grove so well known to travellers at one of the villages on the road from Wattar to Mahableshwar. The "Tali," or Blackwood

(Dalbergia latifolia), also thrives in Upper Sind, but not so luxuriantly as in the neighbourhood of Agra. At Shikarpur, the magnificent avenue of "Sirras" trees (Albizzia Lebbek)-an entirely modern growth of British times-gives a most grateful shelter from the hot sun of March or April; nor can I soon forget the plantation of Chinese Tallow-trees (Sapium sebiferum) near the little English cemetery at Sehwan, below the massive mud fort on the Indus, which, some say, was built by Alexander, and some, by Shem, the son of Noah- with what authority, in either case, no one can perhaps say. I have grown these shapely trees, which, in general contour and size, are comparable to the birch, on the red soil of Malabar Hill in Bombay and on the sandy soil of the University Garden on the Esplanade, and successfully; but they have never displayed there the rich sunset-tints, purple and crimson and gold, with which they glorify the landscape in the crisp, chilly evenings of the late autumn in Sind. Nor will any Sindhi be slow to pay his tribute to the pervading grace of the endless

self-sown tamarisk thickets of every landscape in Sind of which any stream or pool of water forms a part. In his carefully prepared "List of Trees, Shrubs,&c.," of the Jerruck division, Mr. G. K. Betham includes three species of tamarisk, one of which, the " Asri" (Tamarix articulata) is a tree of fair size. In some parts of Sind the tamarisk jungle gives cover to vast numbers of wild pig.

Beyond the reach of the silt-laden waters the dry and hardened ground is almost bare, and in such places the physical contrast is most striking between the landscapes of Sind and the hilly tracts of some other parts of the Bombay Presidency. My recollection of particular plants is not recent, but I have refreshed my memory from a paper I wrote only a few years after I had left Sind, and I then noted that, where there was any vegetation at all, the characteristic plants, in places beyond the influence of the river and the canals, were those of the desert-the "Kirar" or leafless Caper (Capparis aphylla)—essentially a lonely plant, but beautiful, with its countless brick-red flowers,-the "Pilu" (Salvadora persica) with fleshy leaves, and strings of translucent, rounded, glutinous fruit, shining like pearls and the Parkinsonia aculeata, with clear, yellow, crumpled flowers, freckled with brown, and spiny branchlets, which once suggested to a great Italian painter his idea of the Crown of Thorns." Then there is an undergrowth of Camel-thorn (Alhagi Camelorum), which, near Kandahar and Herat, yields manna "at flowering time, after the spring rains," and is an agreeable food for camels and useful for door-tatties in the hot weather,* and of various plants of the Goosefoot tribe (Chenopodiacea), one of which, the Sueda maritima, yields, according to Mr. Betham, "an impure carbonate of soda," used in soap-making, calico-dyeing and washing," and is also a favourite food of the camel. And there is that curious plant, the "Panirio" (Withania coagulans), of the potato tribe, whose juice curdles milk into "panir" or cheese. In these arid tracts, with such strange herbage, the traveller misses the fresh, bright tints which enliven the forests of the Konkan and the Western Ghâts in the early spring of March or in the second spring of the early weeks of June. The prevailing tones are sad, secondary, bluish-greens, and the same faint colours

• Dr. Dietrich Brandis's "Forest Flora of North-West and Central India," p. 145.

repeat themselves everywhere on uncultivated lands, and are only rarely relieved by the deep, glossy greens of the Salvadora. There is nothing like it in the rest of the Presi dency, except in the districts nearest Sind. It is to the Flora of Africa that the indigenous vegetation of Sind is most closely allied.

FAUNA.

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Of the wild animals of Sind, it may also be said that they comprise many distinctive types and species. As observed by Sir Evan James in a lecture delivered before the Dayaram Jethmal College at Karachi, "Sind in on a kind of dividing line between the peninsula of Hindustan, with its tropical forms, and the temperate regions of Baluchistan and Persia." It is a 'half-way house," therefore, where vast numbers of rare birds meet," and in the cold weather is "simply a paradise to the lover of birds ;" and, as regards the further investigation of the Department of Mammals, he gives good ground for the remark that there is yet "work to be done in Sind." Every English officer who has served in Sind will endorse these statements, for every English officer is, by the happy opportunities of his daily life and by his instinctive love for every wild thing, a sportsman and a naturalist, whether he has learnt his lore on the rocky hills the homes of the ibex, the markhor, and the gad, the hyena, the porcupine, the anteater, and an occasional leopard or Thibetan bear; or in the forest plantations, the hunting grounds of the Amirs, traversed by the hogdeer, and by numerous wild cats, including the lynx, but no longer by the tiger or the great swamp-deer; or else on the numerous "dhands" or lakes, formed by the overflow of the Indus, and glorious with water-lilies and tens of thousands of bright feathered waterbirds. On the great Manchar lake near Sehwan wild swans have been seen, and several kinds of wild geese are common; and elsewhere ample occasion may be found by the naturalist for his favourite pursuits, either in desert places frequented by the "houbara," or Sind bustard, and several species of sandgrouse; or by the pools of the salt Rann of Cutch, where "the wild asses quench their thirst; " or in the stubble fields of Upper Sind, where the black partridge most abounds; or, in reedy marshes swarming with snipe; or on some tamarisk shaded island of the the Eastern Nara, with its rare wood-peckers, gay in green and scarlet, its dappled kingfishers, and its endless arrays of solemn

pelicans and flamingoes keeping guard along the sandy beach.*

As regards domestic animals, honourable mention must always be made of the grand buffaloes of the pastoral tracts between the Mitrao Canal and the Eastern Nara, the single humped camels, which do most of the carrying work of the country, and are also employed in turning water-wheels for irrigation, the hardy breed of horses and ponies, and the four-horned, large - tailed sheep known as "Dumbas."

During my service in Sind, I had the singular good fortune of being allowed by the Karachi. Municipality to lay out on a new plan their garden of 40 acres on the banks of the Lyari, and was able, in association with the Municipal Engineer, Mr. Strachan, to whom Karachi is indebted for many fine public buildings and other works of public usefulness, and Mr. Ffinch, late Directorin-Chief of the Indo-European Telegraph Department, and with the willing help of district officers and Indian gentlemen throughout the province, to form, in the garden, the nucleus of a good collection of wild animals, which, under the skilful care of Mr. Ffinch, in later years, has become, I am told, the best zoological garden in India. I will presently show on the screen a few photographs by Mr. Parsons, late Acting Chief Justice of Bombay, of some of the animals, and also of views in the garden, which, thanks to the completion of Mr. Strachan's Malir water scheme, began to make a good show in a very short time. By that admirable scheme, fresh, pure water was brought from the Malir river, a distance of 14 miles, to the camp and city of Karachi. The Malir is simply a continuous expanse of sand; but, deep down below the surface is a stream of naturally filtered water, which, by means of wells sunk through the sand and a masonry channel leading from them, finds its way by simple gravitation to the Temple Reservoir at Karachi. No pumping is required any

where.

Mr. J. L. Jenkins, of the Indian Civil Service, has sent me a most interesting Note on the Fauna of Sind, from which it appears that, in 1881, a tigress and two cubs were still left in Sind. The cubs were drowned in the great flood of that year, and the tigress was shot a few years afterwards by Colonel McRae. Three swamp-deer survived in a forest in the Ubaro district till 1881, when they also were drowned in the same flood. Mr. Jenkins has shot six kinds of sandgrouse in Sind, including the Pterocles coronatus, which is not found elsewhere in the Bombay Presidency.. According to the late Lieut. Barnes, it is "only a cold weather visitant,"-apparently from Southern Afghanistan.

RAILWAYS AND IMPERIAL DEFENCE. But, before we pass from the map still on the screen, I should like to point to the railway lines shown on it, the importance of which, whether for purposes of communication, or the development of trade, or the strengthening of defences, is measured by the obvious importance of the geographical position of Sind, and by the clear necessity for protecting the great port of Karachi and its trade in every possible way. It has been fortunate for Sind that two recent members of the Viceroy's Council, in charge of Indian public works, Sir Charles Pritchard and Sir Arthur Trevor, had already been Commissioners in Sind, and members of the Bombay Government, and were both intimately acquainted with the needs of the province, before they joined the Government of India. As regards railway communications, therefore, Sind has, so far, been most judiciously provided for, Karachi being now in direct communication by rail with Quetta and Peshawar, and, by way of Shadipalli and Dhoro-naro, with the railway system of Rajputana, and, through it, with Bombay, the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, and Northern Bengal. A chord line on the left bank of the Indus has lately been constructed between Hyderabad and Rohri, because the set of the Indus, to its right, endangered the right-bank line, and frequent breaches of the permanent way seriously interrupted communication between Karachi and the North, and dislocated the export trade. The new line is on high ground, and is fairly safe from inundations. It gives an alternative route from Karachi to Quetta and the northwestern frontier, and saves thirty-six miles on the journey from Karachi to the Panjab. It has also the merit of serving the rich tract of country watered by the Jamrao Canal. Of the two railway bridges across the Indus, the one at Kotri was opened in 1900, for the purposes of the chord line to Rohri and the line to Rajputana. The Sukkur bridge, on the original line from Karachi northwards, connects Sukkur with Rohri by way of the island of Bukkur. The span between Bukkur and Rohri is constructed on the cantilever principle, and is 790 feet long. The other three spans are respectively 270, 230, and 90 feet long. A new line to connect Ahmedabad or Viramgam, through Kathiawad, and thence by way of Lakhpat, in Cutch, and Mugalbhim, either with Karachi or Hyderabad, is also projected.

For many ages, the former rulers of Sind were drawn by the conditions of their time and

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state to a closer intimacy with the Afghans and Baluchis than with the people of the continent of India, and, therefore, they exercised little or no influence over the political affairs of India. The great desert of Rajputana was a barrier to communication eastwards. Indeed, in no direction, even within the province itself, was communication easy. In the days of our immediate predecessors, articles of food may have been cheaper than they are now, and the peasantry may have been more truthful, as old men lately living were fond of saying, but there were no good roads, and no proper postal arrangements. I am told that Munshi Awatrai, formerly prime minister of Mir Sobdar Khan, used to say that it took nearly a fortnight for a letter from Hyderabad to reach Khairpur, and that a special messenger had to be employed at a cost of Rs. 60. The construction of roads and especially of railroads has, however, removed many ancient obstacles, and Sind can now realise, as never before, its rightful position. What the fulcrum is to the lever, what the axle to the wheel, the wrist to the hand and the shoulder to the arm, that, with every improvement of communications, is Sind tending to become in relation to the rest of India; and when Karachi, the nearest Indian port to Aden and the Persian Gulf, has grown to its destined greatness and is linked by direct lines of rail with every administrative centre in India, then Sind cannot fail to become the pivot of our whole Indian political system. Its place is now, at all events, within and not outside that system. In the prosperity and progress of India, Sind has now its share; and, on the other hand, any danger to Sind would be a shock to the whole of India, and would vibrate throughout the British Empire. Sind has borne the brunt of many invasions in the past; and, in possible developments of the restless "Middle Eastern Question," such a combination of new political forces might yet be evolved as might again threaten the sanctity of its soil. We could never, of course, allow any such threat to be accomplished, but we ought, by adequate measures of precaution, to make the threat itself impossible. No more pressing question than the effective completion of the defences of Sind against every possible attack, whether by sea or land, could well engage the attention of the

• Mill and Wilson's "History of British India," Vol. VII., p. 5.

Council for National Defence; and, at the present moment, in a time of peace, when the necessary arrangements can be carried out at a comparatively small cost, it is a matter for consideration whether the port of Karachi ought not at once to be made the trooping port for India. On the outbreak of a war involving India, it would certainly be used as a trooping port, and then it might be difficult to make effective arrangements promptly.

I will now, before proceeding to take a brief retrospect of past events in Sind, show some of the photographs of which I have spoken.

ARYAN INFLUENCE IN SIND.

In the times of the great Indian Epics, the Hindus of Sind, though their ascendancy was not always undisputed-for they were constantly harassed by numerous wild races on the left bank of the Indus-were yet clearly recognised as within the Aryan comity of nations. Their ruler, Jayadrath, married Duhsala, a daughter of Dhritrashtra, the blind brother of Pandu, and father of Duryodhana, the leader of the Kauravas, to whom he allied himself in the great war with their cousins, the five Pandavas. Jayadrath brought splendid horses with him from Sind, and the Pandavas also are described as having great cars, drawn by steeds of the Saindhava breed "with the speed of the hurricane."* Jayadrath is at first described as "the famous King" of Sind, Sivi and Savira, and other countries, but, after his treacherous attempt to carry off Draupaudi, which was frustrated by the prompt pursuit of the "heroic" Pandavas, he is thenceforth styled "the wicked King." His whole force was crushed, and though his own life was spared, he returned in humiliation to his own country. This is the earliest record we possess of a King of Sind. It is interesting to note that Duhsala was appointed by Duryodhana to rule over the rival tribes of Jats and Mers, who, according to Sir Henry Elliot, "may be considered the oldest occupants of Sind, who, in their names, as well as persons, have survived to our own times." These tribes were, at one time, locally reputed to be descended from Ham, the son of Noah, but that was not till after their conversion to Mohammedanism. Duhsala "exercised the functions of government with great wisdom and moderation."+ Duryodhana sent 30,000 Brahmans from all parts of India to her court

• Protap Chandra Roy's "The Mahabharata," Vol. II., p. 789.

+ Sir H. M. Elliot's "History of India," Vol. I., p. 520.

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