Indus River

“ The Indus traverses, too, a comparatively barren and deserted country, thinly peopled and poorly cultivated; while the Ganges expends its waters in irrigation, and blesses the inhabitants of its banks with rich and exuberant crops. The Indus, even in the season of inundation, is confined to its bed by steeper and more consistent banks than the other river ”

“ For another 230 m., in a north-westerly direction, the Indus pursues a comparatively gentle and placid course over its sandy bed between the giant chains of Ladakh to the north and Zaskar (the main “snowy range” of the Himalaya) to the south, amidst an array of mountain scenery which, for the majesty of sheer altitude, is unmatched by any in the world. Then the river takes up the waters of the Shyok from the north (a tributary nearly as great as itself) , having already captured the Zasvar from the south, together with innumerable minor glacier-fed streams. ”

“ The junction of the Shayuk and Indus rivers takes place a little way below Kiris. The Shayuk is considerably wider and more rapid than the Indus, but much less deep, so that neither river so decidedly preponderates over the other as to enable their relative size to be determined at a glance. ”

“ The water of the Indus is considered superior, for every purpose of life, to that drawn from the wells of Sinde. When taken from the river it is very foul; but the rich keep it till the mud with which it is loaded subsides. There are few ferry-boats on the Indus; and it is a curious sight to see the people crossing it on skins and bundles of reeds. A native will often float down to a distance of fifteen or twenty [65] miles, accompanied by a whole herd of buffaloes, preferring this mode of travelling to a journey on the banks. ”

“ That such changes of river bed and channel should have occurred within a comparatively limited period of time is the less astonishing if we remember that the Indus, like many of the greatest rivers of the world, carries down sufficient detritus to raise its own bed above the general level of the surrounding plains in an appreciable and measurable degree. ”

“ Again this same river unites with the Hydraotes, and after absorbing this river, still retains its own name. After this the Acesines takes in the Hyphasis, and finally flows into the Indus under its own name; but after the junction it yields its name to the Indus. From this point I have no doubt that the Indus proceeds 100 stades, [3] and perhaps more, before it is divided so as to form the Delta ; and there it spreads out more like a lake than a river. ”

“ The mountains rise on both sides of the Indus very abruptly, being almost always precipitous. From the narrowness of the valley the great elevation of these is not seen, and the lesser height of those on the right bank of the Indus, which form the termination of the chain separating that river from the Shayuk, is not brought prominently to notice. For more than two miles, the 228 ravine continues very narrow, and several steep spurs are crossed. ”

“ The inconstancy of the Indus through the delta is proverbial, and there is here both difficulty and danger in its navigation. It has in these days, among the people of Sinde, as bad a character as has been left to it by the Greek historians. The water is cast with such impetuosity from one bank to another, that the soil is constantly falling in upon the river; and huge masses of clay hourly tumble into the stream, often with a tremendous crash. ”

“ In succeeding years, unless an exceptionally high flood should come down, the river will be less liable to cover these lands, and the general effect, therefore, of the annual rise of the river is to confine it within narrower limits, for the banks on either side are gradually raised. The Indus, however, not only raises its banks, but also raises its bed, and flows at a higher level than the surrounding country ”

“ Hala, on the eastern side, has shared a like fate; but the channel of the river lies to the westward, where the banks are more steep, and the left bank of the river, though consisting of a flat field of sand, is only inundated in the swell. At that period, for eight miles eastward of the Indus, it is not possible to travel from the number of shoots the river casts off. The Indus itself is here pretty constant in its course; and, though the country eastward would, as I have observed, favour the escape of the water in that direction, it clings for some time to the Lukkee mountains. ”

“ That is the typical state of the Himalayan rivers, though the same Jhelam above Baramula is an exception, flowing there sluggishly through a very flat valley into a shallow lake.
The Indus Basin.— The river Sindh (Sanskrit, Sindhu) , more familiar to us under its classical name of the Indus, must have filled with astonishment every invader from the west, and it is not wonderful that they called after it the country that lay beyond. ”

“ The chief river of western India is the Indus, which enters the presidency from the north of Sind and flowing south in a tortuous course, falls into the Arabian Sea by several mouths, such as the Ghizri creek, Khudi creek, Pitiani creek, Sisa creek, Hajamro creek, Vatho creek, Mall creek, Wari Rivers. ”

“ The mountains on the north side, the terminal spurs of two great branches of the Kuenlun or Muztagh, which flank the Shigar river, are considerably lower, but equally barren and desolate.
The river Indus traverses the open valley in an extremely winding course. At one time it washes the base of the cliffs which terminate the projecting mountain spurs; at another it flows between high banks of alluvial conglomerate or of fine clay. Not unfrequently these clayey cliffs recede to a considerable distance from the river, in which case the intervening space is generally sandy. ”

“ The river but rarely flows here in one undivided stream; with a width of three quarters of a mile, in some places, it preserves a depth of fifteen feet in its shallowest bed. There is nothing approaching to a ford in any part of its course: two hundred boats would be found at the various villages in this part of the river. The declivity on which the Indus runs to the ocean must be gentle, for above the delta it glides sluggishly along at less than two miles and a half in the hour. ”

“ In these facts, we have additional proof of the greater bulk of the Indus, as compared with the Ganges; when at the lowest, it retains a velocity of two and a half miles, with a medial depth of fifteen feet, and though running on as great, if not a greater slope than that river, never empties itself in an equal degree, though much more straight in its course. ”

“ Between the eastern Ghats and the sea lies the extensive maritime plain generally named the Karnatic, reaching back from the Coromandel coast for about fifty miles. The soil of this plain proves abundantly fertile when it is watered, but there are few streams, and a supply of water for irrigation has to be stored in reservoirs.
Rivers.—The river system of India consists of three great rivers: the Indus, the Ganges, the Bramaputra.
The Indus rises on the northern slopes of the Himalayas, sweeps round and enters at the western extremity of the range, and waters the Punjab. ”

“ On the 9th of November I encamped at Kiris, and next day I passed the junction of the Indus and Shayuk. The direction of the united streams soon becomes nearly due north, and it flows for many miles through a very narrow ravine, along which the road is of a most difficult nature, partly high on the mountains, partly on platforms of alluvium, and occasionally over angular blocks of rock, which are piled in enormous heaps along the banks of the river. ”

“ But still east of all these tributaries, the Indus itself rises three hundred miles away in those unknown lands of Tibet behind the Himalaya and near the source of that mysterious river of eastern India, the Bramaputra. ”

“ The district of Rondu may be understood to comprise the whole of the narrow part of the Indus valley, from the western end of the Iskardo plain to the great bend of that river, where it assumes a southerly direction. It is only during the winter season that the route along the valley of the Indus is much frequented, as it is quite impracticable for horses, and so very bad even for travellers on foot, that the road over 249 the passes towards Hasora is always preferred in summer. ”

“ About a mile above Nimo the Indus is joined by the Zanskar river. The valley where the two rivers unite is very rocky and precipitous, and bends a long way to the south. The road to Le does not follow the river, but ascends among gravelly ravines behind the village, and emerges on a wide open plain, which, as on the previous march, is interposed between the northern range of mountains and the present channel of the Indus. ”

“ It is, therefore, a rapid river, which brings down a great quantity of silt from the mountains and deposits it in the Sind valley. The bed of the river is always rising, and has to be constantly watched to prevent its overflowing its banks, while the quantity of silt that the water contains makes it very valuable to the cultivator. The inundation canals of the Indus have, therefore, been carried to a high degree of perfection, though the water of the river cannot be fully utilized until the proposed barrage is constructed at Sukkur. ”

“ As for his second project, of inducing the caravans and merchants of Lahore and Agra, who are in use to travel by Candahar into Persia, to come by the river Indus and to go by sea in our ships to Jasques or the Persian gulf it is a mere dream. Some men may approve of it in conversation, but it will never be adopted in practice. The river Indus is but indifferently navigable downwards, and its mouth is already occupied by the Portuguese; while its navigation upwards, against the stream, is very difficult. Finally, we must warrant their goods, which cannot be done by a fleet ”

“ Many of the principal ramifications which it sends down towards the Indus are very elevated, and immense glaciers descend in their valleys, so that, except in a very few places, the main chain cannot be seen from the valley of the Shayuk, the mountains in the immediate vicinity of that river in general obstructing the view. ”

“ The Indus, when joined by the Punjab rivers, never shallows, in the dry season, to less than fifteen feet, and seldom preserves so great a breadth as half a mile. The Chenab, or Acesines, has a medium depth of twelve feet, and the Ravee, or Hydräotes, is about half the size of that river. These are the minima of soundings on the voyage; but the usual depth of the three rivers cannot be rated at less than four, three, and two fathoms. The soundings of each day’s voyage are shown by the figures on the map. ”

“ The country from Tatta, which stands at the head of the Delta, to the sea downwards, is in most parts influenced by the periodical swell of the Indus: the great branches of this river are of themselves so numerous, and throw off such an incredible number of arms, that the inundation is general ”

“ The river Indus will, I suppose, hardly be considered so safe a boundary as the hills; for if any danger is to be apprehended from the west, it would not be safe to leave the enemy so fine a field to organize their forces upon after emerging from the difficult passes. Well organized upon that field, a force could cross the river anywhere in the cold and hot seasons; and the revenue of that field would aid in keeping up a force that might in the day of need be used against us. ”

“ It affords a typical instance of that cutting-back process by which a river-head may erode a channel through a watershed into the plateau behind, there being no steep fall towards the Indus on the northern side of the range. From the Zoji La the road continues by easy gradients, following the line of the Dras drainage, to the Indus, when it turns up the valley to Leh. From Leh there are many routes into Tibet, the best known being that from the Indus valley to the Tibetan plateau, by the Chang La, to Lake Pangkong and Rudok (14,000 ft.) ”

“ It runs quicker than the Indus, or any of the Punjab rivers, and its banks on both sides are open and richly irrigated by larger canals of running water, dug with great labour; on the right bank, from Mooltan upwards, there is a desert of low sand-hills, which does not admit of cultivation, and presses in upon the cultivated land at the short distance of two miles from the river. ”

“ It was a masculine, before it became a feminine. No more telling name could have been given to a broad river, which guarded peaceful settlers both against the inroads of [190] hostile tribes and the attacks of wild animals. A common name for the ancient settlements of the Aryans in India was "the Seven Rivers," "Sapta Sindhavah." But though sindhu was used as an appellative noun for river in general (cf. Rig-Veda VI. 19, 5, samudré ná síndhavah yâdamânâh, "like rivers longing for the sea") , it remained throughout the whole history of India the name of its powerful guardian river, the Indus. ”

“ The other two lying between the rivers Euphrates and Indus are scarcely worthy to be compared with India, if they were joined together. They say that India is bounded towards the east and the east wind as far as the south by the Great Sea, towards the north by mount Caucasus, as far as its junction with the Taurus; and that the river Indus cuts it off towards the west and the north-west wind, as far as the Great Sea. The greater part of it is a plain, which, as they conjecture, has been formed by the alluvial deposits of the rivers ”