Indus Valley

“ The civilized population of the broad Indus Valley spread westward up the western highlands, only so far as the shelving slopes of the clay and conglomerate foothills, which constitute the piedmont of the Suleiman and Kirthar Mountains, afforded conditions for their crops. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On the opposite side, the naked hill-sides rising in precipice after precipice are entirely barren of all vegetation. Waterworn into innumerable gullies and rock towers, they present a melancholy and arid appearance; and, although their summits are 12,000 feet above the Indus, they do not form a north side to this gorge in any way comparable with that on the south. The floor of the valley is filled with the debris of countless Himalayan deluges, yet the Indus looks like a small and dirty stream. To appreciate in any way the gigantic scale of the whole is quite impossible. ”

“ He says that we have improved the climate of the Indus Valley; we have learned to subdue its wildness by the increased comforts of a more civilized life. Many abuses of the olden time have disappeared; formerly, it was a feat to live five years in Indus-land, but now you find men who have weathered their twenty years.
"There is an imperative demand for a sanitarium, and the nearest and best is Kelat. Kelat requires protection, and would be an admirable outpost in case of hostile movements from Merv upon [Pg 76] Herat (1876) . ”

“ The Indus valley would offer to the military explorers from the West the first taste of the quality of the climate of the India of the plains which they would encounter. The Indus valley in the hot weather would possess little climatic attraction for the Western highlander. Alexander's troops mutinied when they got far beyond the Indus. Any other troops would mutiny under such conditions as governed their outfit and their march. It is more than possible that the great Assyrian conqueror before him encountered much the same difficulty. ”

“ Indus-land was compelled to work out her own destinies in a mean and humble way, while the monuments of Nile-land still instruct and astonish humanity."
Then we came to Hyderabad, and he discusses the Indus Valley Railway. He finds it silly that the Government continued to march its troops between Karáchi and Kotri in ten days, including a single halt, rather than take the rail for four or five hours; expensive economy, he remarks, as the baggage camels cost far more than a few additional cars. ”

“ 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.) ”

“ There can be practically no rainfall in the Indus Valley in winter because the winds blow over the great land mass of eastern and south-central Asia before reaching the Indus and have lost their moisture. ”

“ The want of money never stayed an Afghan raid—on the contrary it is more apt to instigate it. From Shikarpur 364 he bent his steps towards the Punjab. No modern traveller, racing down the Indus valley by a north-western train, can well appreciate the amount of human interest and activity which lies hidden beyond the wide flat plains of tamarisk jungle that stretch between him and the frontier hills. This same Indus valley was Arabic India for centuries, and there were Greek settlements centuries earlier than the Arabs ”

“ Farah, a city of Arachosia in Western Afghanistan on the borders of Seistan, must have been a centre from whence Assyrian arts and industries were passed on to India for ages; for Farah lies directly on the route which connects Seistan with the southern passes into the Indus valley. The Indus itself seems to have been the boundary which limited the efforts of migration and exploration. ”

“ Rivers.—With the exception of the Kunhar river, which flows down the Kagan valley to the Jhelum, the whole drainage of the province eventually finds its way into the Indus. The Indus enters the province between tribal territory and Hazara district. After leaving Hazara it flows in a southerly direction between the Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province, till it enters Mianwali district of the Punjab, from which it emerges to form again the eastern boundary of the province. ”

“ The traders disperse, and the few residents of Gartok, together with the viceroys, retire down the Indus Valley to the more sheltered village of Gargunza (14,140 feet or 4311 meters elevation) , which represents the limits of permanent settlement in these altitudes.1243 The Sutlej Valley route from the Punjab to Lhassa is capped near its summit at an altitude of about 5000 meters by the summer market, of Gyanema, whose numerous types of tents indicate the various homes of the traders from Lhassa to India.1244
Pass peoples. ”

“ Here we turned aside from the main valley. The contours of the mountains now become more rounded, the relative heights diminish, and the valleys are not so deeply excavated as on yesterday’s ride. The rivulet, which we follow up to its source in the main ridge, is the last connected with the system of the Indus, but still it is a child of the Indus, and carries to the sea news of this elevated region. Winter will soon chain up its waters, soon it will fall asleep in the cold and frost, until the sun calls it to life again in spring (Illustration 55) . ”

“ 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. ”

“ West of the Indus in the north the wild and desolate Bhangí-Khel glen with its very scanty and scattered cultivation runs north to the Kohát Hills. The rest of the district consists of the wide and flat valley of the Indus and the Thal or Uplands. In the north the latter includes an area of strong thirsty loam, but south of the railway it is a huge expanse of sand [Pg 260] rising frequently into hillocks and ridges with some fertile bottoms of better soil. Except in the north the Thal people used to make their living almost entirely as shepherds and camel owners. ”

“ In the upper part of the valley of Thawar, which is more level than the ravines higher up the Indus, a great accumulation of clay and boulders is seen attaining a height of at least 8000 feet above the level of the sea, as it forms hills a thousand feet above the village, which is at least as much above the Indus. ”

“ A great chain of snowy mountains branching off south-east and north-west divides the drainage of the Chenab and the Jhelum rivers from that of the higher branches of the Indus. It is within spurs from this chain that the valley of Kashmir is enclosed amid hills which rise from 14,000 to 15,000 ft., while the valley itself forms a cup-like basin at an elevation of 5000 to 6000 ft. All beyond that great range is a wide tract of mountainous country, bordering the north-western part of Tibet and embracing Ladakh, Baltistan and Gilgit. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The institutions and manners of life in the East have been very slow to change, in comparison with the West, and it is likely that the life of these village communities continued for many centuries to be much as it had been when the immigrants first came down from the north to that valley of the Indus river which seems to have been their earliest place of settlement. ”

“ With the exception of the comparatively small extent of irrigated fields, all around is bare and desolate. Looking from Leh across the Indus, is seen a tract of cultivation of considerable extent, running up into a valley, clusters of houses here and there giving it a cheerful, prosperous aspect. This, I am told, is the village of the rightful owner of Ladâk, where he resides in humble obscurity. ”

“ Sijistan country is included in the more extensive region of Khorassan, which comprises all that elevated mountain tract bounded by the valley of the Indus on the east, and that of the Oxus on the north, the salt desert of Kirmán and Yazd on the west, and the sea of Omán on the south. ”

“ The heat, the fruitful date-palms, and the lotus-eating natives combine to make up a truly tropical scene.
Much of the country population seems to be nomadic, or semi-nomadic, dwelling in tents with which they remove to the higher ground when the Indus becomes inundated, and return again to the valley to cultivate and harvest their crops. They seem a picturesque people mostly, sometimes strangely incongruous in the matter of apparel, as, for instance, one I saw wearing a white breech-cloth and a hussar coat. ”

“ The valley has an average width of less than four miles, and its surface slopes up to the Bághrán range of hills, forming its southern boundary. In the opposite direction its hollow is occupied by a drainage ravine. The soil is a firm gravel, from which were commencing to sprout a variety of herbs, such as wild rue, orchids, tulips, &c., and a thin grass in abundance. No trees are seen on the plain, but the hill skirt to its south is fringed with a close succession of fruit gardens and vineyards, amongst which are nestled numerous villages, castles, and country-houses. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Dashing its way through the most formidable barriers, it is entirely unlike the gentle Ganges, which pursues its tranquil course through the plains, meeting no barrier in its entire length. The Indus, so long as it remains north of the Himalaya, traverses a plateau 10,000 feet above the sea; while the Ganges, even at Delhi, is but 1000 feet above the sea. ”

“ 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 Indus is brawling along five hundred feet below us, as if in a hurry to get "out of that;" and above, one's neck aches with trying to see to the top of the vast craggy mountains which confine the stream in its rocky channel. So wild, so heaven-forsaken a scene I never beheld; living nature there is none. ”

“ Crossing the Indus, Fa Hian came to Wuchung, which is identified with Udyana, or Upper Swat, and there he remained during the rains. The Indus below the Darel junction is confined within a narrow steep-sided gorge with hills running high on either side, those on the east approaching 15,000 and 16,000 feet. There are villages, groups of flat-roofed shanties, clinging like limpets to the rocks, but there is little space for cultivation, and no record of Buddhist remains north of Buner. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As regards the physical peculiarities of that country, they are all to be found again on the Indus, with its affluents from{6} far inland Alps bringing down a periodical inundation, with its great delta spreading from Hyderabad, with its long course through a desert which affords it not a rivulet of increase: yet the peoples of the Indus have never thriven and waxed great like the Egyptians. ”