Burnes, Alexander: Travels into Bokhara: containing the narrative of a voyage on the Indus from the sea to Lahore, ... and an account of a journey from India to Cabool, Tartary and Persia ; performed by order of the supreme government of India, in the years 1831, 32, and 33 (Band 1) (London, 1835)

delta of the indus.

237

CHAP. V.

on the delta of the indus.

Herodotus said of Egypt, that it was the " gift of
the Nile:" the same may be said of the country at
the mouths of the Indus. A section of the banks
of the river shows a continued succession of earth,
clay, and sand, in layers, parallel to one another ;
and deposited, without doubt, at different periods.
It would be perhaps hazarding too much to state,
that the whole of the Delta has been gradually ac-
quired from the sea ; but it is clear that the land
must have greatly encroached on the ocean. No-
thing is more corroborative of this fact than the
shallowness of the sea out from the mouths of the
Indus, and the clayey bottom and tinge of the
water.

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 a number of arms,
that the inundation is general; and in those places
which are denied this advantage by fortuitous cir-
cumstances, artificial drains, about four feet wide
and three deep, conduct the waters through the
fields. The swell commences in the latter end of