DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.15173#0058
40
CHENAB, OR ACESINES. chap. ii.
resemblance to each other. As a tribe they were
unknown 400 years ago ; and the features of the
whole nation are now as distinct from those of their
neighbours as the Indian and the Chinese. With
an extreme regularity of physiognomy, and an elong-
ation of the countenance, they may be readily
distinguished from the other tribes. That any
nation possessing peculiar customs should have a
common manner and character, is easily understood ;
but that, in such a short period of time, some hundred
thousand people should exhibit as strong a national
likeness as is to be seen among the children of
Israel, is, to say the least of it, remarkable.
We crossed the Chenab, or Acesines, by the
usual ferry, which is about three miles from the
village. It was three hundred yards wide, and had
a depth of nine feet for two thirds of the channel.
Its banks are low on either side, and speedily in-
undated in the hot and rainy seasons. % We are in-
formed that Alexander the Great had to move his
camp precipitately from the Acesines, which Arrian
describes to be a rapid river. During the rains it
is so; but the current did not now exceed one mile
and a half an hour, and it is passable by a ford.
The temperature of this river was 53°, and lower
than the three other rivers of the Punjab which we
had already crossed — the Sutlege, Beas, and
Ravee.
We halted at a mosque on the right bank of the
river, but our quarters must not be mistaken for
a St. Sophia. These buildings consist of mud walls,
over which a terrace roof is formed by wooden
CHENAB, OR ACESINES. chap. ii.
resemblance to each other. As a tribe they were
unknown 400 years ago ; and the features of the
whole nation are now as distinct from those of their
neighbours as the Indian and the Chinese. With
an extreme regularity of physiognomy, and an elong-
ation of the countenance, they may be readily
distinguished from the other tribes. That any
nation possessing peculiar customs should have a
common manner and character, is easily understood ;
but that, in such a short period of time, some hundred
thousand people should exhibit as strong a national
likeness as is to be seen among the children of
Israel, is, to say the least of it, remarkable.
We crossed the Chenab, or Acesines, by the
usual ferry, which is about three miles from the
village. It was three hundred yards wide, and had
a depth of nine feet for two thirds of the channel.
Its banks are low on either side, and speedily in-
undated in the hot and rainy seasons. % We are in-
formed that Alexander the Great had to move his
camp precipitately from the Acesines, which Arrian
describes to be a rapid river. During the rains it
is so; but the current did not now exceed one mile
and a half an hour, and it is passable by a ford.
The temperature of this river was 53°, and lower
than the three other rivers of the Punjab which we
had already crossed — the Sutlege, Beas, and
Ravee.
We halted at a mosque on the right bank of the
river, but our quarters must not be mistaken for
a St. Sophia. These buildings consist of mud walls,
over which a terrace roof is formed by wooden