Ravi River

“ We came at length—and really at length, for it was a long stretch—in view of the Wurdwan, the valley opening out many thousand feet below, two or three small villages with their clustering hovels and irregular patches of cultivation shewing themselves. A rapid stream, of dimensions and volume claiming, perhaps, to be styled a river, was brawling and fighting its way against innumerable obstacles and impediments down the vale. ”

“ Even the sheltered relatively dry leeward slopes of the mountains are fairly well covered with forest, but on the sides which face the southeast trade wind the vegetation crowds into every nook and cranny of the precipices even to the summits of the highest peaks. So copious is the rainfall that the Rewa River is larger than any in England and is navigable for fifty miles above its mouth, its width being fully three thousand yards, where it meets the ocean. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This is the valley, often miles broad, through which the stream has moved in ever-shifting channels in the course of centuries. He [Pg 34] finds it hard to realize that, when the summer heats melt the Himalayan snows, and the monsoon currents, striking against the northern mountain walls, are precipitated in torrents of rain, the rush of water to the plains swells the river 20, 30, 40, or even 50 fold. The sandy bed then becomes full from bank to bank, and the silt laden waters spill over into the cultivated lowlands beyond. ”

“ The houses of the poorer orders, are unornamented, but those of the better classes are always ornamented with a belt of red ochre outside. There are no large boulders in the river here, although it runs with violence. This is owing to the softness or tenacity of the rocks.
March 4th.—Our march commenced with a steep ascent up the ridge, forming the west boundary of the valley, surmounting this we proceeded on for some distance at about the same level, and thence descended rapidly to a nullah. ”

“ And as the region comes within the sweep of the monsoon from the Bay of Bengal, there is not only great heat in the plains and lower valleys, but great moisture as well. The mountain-sides are in consequence clothed with a luxuriant vegetation.
To enter this wonderful region the traveller has first to cross the Ganges—the sacred river of the Hindus. Great rivers have about them a fascination all their own. They produce in us a sense of everlastingness and irresistibility. ”

“ I took my seat between the centre bars, and was in admiration at the perfect composure and sangfroid with which these two men managed it--now shooting across the stream to find better water, and always putting in their poles exactly at the right instant, and singing some Indian cantata all the while. The upper falls at length burst on our view, on rounding a point. The river has a complete drop, of some forty feet, over a formation of sandstone. The water forms a complete curtain. There is nothing to break the sheet, or intercept it, till it reaches the deep water below. ”

“ On looking back, below me is spread out the narrow, winding valley, between its two mountains, widening at that point into an extensive bar, through which, on account of the many dams, canals, and other obstructions, the tortured river seems to have infinite difficulty in forcing its way. There is also the collection of tents, and the miners engaged in cooking, and collected in small groups about their camp-fires, for it is a cool morning. There stand the wrecks of our aqueduct and canal; the bare half channel of the river, and the surface of the bar scarred and pitted over. ”

“ This phenomenon surprised me, as the entrance into this ravine being from the plain, it was evident that the currents which had produced these displacements could not at any era have come from thence. But at the termination of this ravine, which ended nearly at the river, the cause became evident. An ancient canal, now nearly filled up, leads from the river into this ravine, and the rush of the current during the seasons of inundation, has loosened and displaced fragments of the bordering mountains. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The valley is surrounded by comparatively low mountains, most of which are rather bare, many are transversely furrowed on the surface, this may arise from their having been at some former period under cultivation.—The prevailing trees on the surrounding heights are firs, Pinus pendula and cedroides. No fish are to be seen in the river. The birds are the raven, white-necked starling, bullfinch, crimson and yellow shrikelets, blue tomtits, lesser ditto with two stripes on the head, white-rumped waterchat, red-tailed chesnuty sparrow. ”

“ The only ones of any importance are in the Pesháwar Valley. These draw their supplies from the Kábul, Bára, and Swát rivers, but the works supplied by the first two streams only command small areas. The Lower Swát Canal was begun in 1876, but the tribesmen were hostile and the diggers had to sleep in fortified enclosures. The work was not opened till 1885. A reef in the river has made it possible to dispense with a permanent weir. The country is not an ideal one for irrigation, being much cut up by ravines. ”

“ Above this place the valley closes in between walls of precipices and crags, which rise almost abruptly from the Sind to heights of 8,000 and 10,000 feet. The road in many places is only a series of steep and shelving ledges above the raging river, natural rock smoothed and polished into riskiness by the passage for centuries of the trade into Central Asia from Western India, Kashmir, and Afghanistan. ”

“ Until we came near the Boorhan valley, the road passed over a high, dry, sandy plain, with no cultivation, and no water, then the descent took place through picturesque raviny ground with a few isolated mounds, to a fine clear stream. The remaining part extended either along the cultivation of the Boorhan valley, or through similar raviny ground. Two streams were passed, the last is the Hussun Abdul river.
The vegetation of the high plain continues the same. Bheir, Mimosa, Kureel, Ærua, Mudar, Andropogoneæ, Pommereullia, Œgilops, Salvia, and Crotalaria aphylla. ”

“ We encamped near the junction of these rivers, on the right bank of the main stream, at an altitude of 16,620 feet. From the Maium Pass a continuation of the Gangri chain of mountains runs first in a South-easterly direction, then due East, taking a line almost parallel to the higher Southern range of the Himahlyas, and forming a vast plain intersected by the Brahmaputra. On the Southern side of the river can be seen minor hill ranges between the river course and the big range with its majestic snowy peaks and beautiful glaciers. ”

“ In winter, when the river is frozen, travellers are able to continue their course along its bed by proceeding on the ice in those places where the steepness of the rocks obstructs the passage; but at other seasons it is necessary to make a long détour, and to ascend a lateral ravine for eight miles before a point is reached where the steep ridge is capable of being crossed. Leaving Kuru on the morning of the 26th of October, I encamped at the village of Waris, elevated 12,400 feet, among a few fields from which the crops had long been cleared. ”

“ The valley of the Rovuma, bounded on each side by a range of highlands, is from two to four miles in width, and comes in a pretty straight course from the W.S.W.; but the channel of the river is winding, and now at its lowest zigzagged so perversely, that frequently the boats had to pass over three miles to make one in a straight line. With a full stream it must of course be much easier work. Few natives were seen during the first week. Their villages are concealed in the thick jungle on the hill- sides, for protection from marauding slave-parties. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Hindu people who cut the Sanscrit inscription on the rock on Jambu, at Pasir Koléangkak, might have introduced the system of irrigated rice-lands, and called so large a river as the one in question Si Dani, or her of the Paddy, personifying the river which gave the water, as the grain-producer or Ceres. Dhani, C. 298, is a rich and opulent man, and Chidhani or Chi-Si-Dani would be the river typical of opulence either from irrigating the land or from admitting foreign traders at its mouth. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We reached rapids at eleven o'clock. Passed a portage of two pauses, and took dinner at the terminus. Sandstone forms the bed of the river at the rapids here. It inclined E.S.E. about 75°. A continual rapid, called the Galley, being over a brown sandstone rock, succeeds, in which rapids follow rapids at short intervals. We encamped at the Raft rapids. The men toiled like dogs, but willingly and without grumbling. Next day (21st) we were early on the water, and passed the crossing of the Indian portage path from St. Charles Bay, at La Pointe, to the Falls of St. Anthony. ”

“ South of the valley the Satpūra range or third division stretches across the Province, from Amarkantak in the east (the sacred source of the Nerbudda) to Asīrgarh in the Nimār District in the west, where its two parallel ridges bound the narrow valley of the Tapti river. The greater part consists of an elevated plateau, in some parts merely a rugged mass of hills hurled together by volcanic action, in others a succession of bare stony ridges and narrow fertile valleys, in which the soil has [7] been deposited by drainage. ”

“ The village of Lari, at which we encamped, is elevated 11,200 feet. It occupies a large extent of alluvial surface, 120 sloping at a very small angle from the base of the mountains to the river, at a place where a stream issued from among the mountains. The cultivated lands are extensive, but very bare of trees when compared with the villages in Kunawar, or even in Hangarang. ”

“ Water is plentiful in the valley, and is conveyed through the cultivated lands in deeply-cut canals or trenches, faced with walls of stone. Natural meadows of tall grasses, intermixed with luxuriant lucerne and melilot, are common along the banks of the river, especially above the town. ”

“ A small glacier stream fed this valley and supplied plenty of water for irrigation. After passing several small villages we rode across a spur also covered with barley-fields to Rebu, where we had to change our transport. This was quite a picturesque village situated on a rocky knoll, part of the village being on one side and part on the other of the river. Along the various irrigation canals were wild flowers of all kinds. Monkshood grew there, also black and yellow clematis, rhubarb, ranunculus and primulas of different kinds. ”

“ We descended to a beautiful valley of considerable extent, watered by Page's river, which rises in the main range. We reached the banks of this stream at four P.M. and encamped on a fine flat. The extremities from the mountains on the north descend in long and gradual slopes, and are well covered with grass. This was already eaten short by sheep. Two babbling brooks water the flat at the part where we pitched our tents, and which is opposite to Whalan's station; one of these being the river Page, or Macqueen's River; the other known only as The Creek. ”

“ We reached Mooltan on the fortieth day, and the remaining time was expended in navigating the Ravee, which is a most crooked river. The boats sailed from sunrise to sunset, and, when the wind was unfavourable, were dragged by ropes through the water.
Steam most available for the Indus.
There are no rocks or rapids to obstruct the ascent, and the current does not exceed two miles and a half an hour. Our daily progress [201] sometimes averaged twenty miles, by the course of the river; for a vessel can be haled against the current at the rate of one mile and a half an hour. ”