BOMBAY PRESIDENCY 267
Sind, or the lower valley of the Indus, is the most northerly section
of the Presidency. It includes the six Districts of Karachi, Hyderabad,
Thar and Parkar, Lârkana, Sukkur, and the Upper Sind Frontier; and
also the Native State of Khairpur. Tt differs widely in physical features
and climate, no less than in the language, dress, and- customs of its
inhabitants, from the rest of the Presidency, from which it is cut off
by the desert or the sea. Cultivation in Sind is, as a rule, possible only
where irrigation exists, and the province is thus dependent on the
annual inundation of the Indus with its subsidiary system of canals.
The surface of the land is a monotonous desert, interrupted by low
cliffs or undulating sand-heaps, save only where the floods of the great
river, or the silver streak of a canal, have transformed a waste of sand
and scrub jungle into broad acres of smiling crop. Flat and arid for
the most part, Sind possesses an indescribable charm in its wide expanse
of reed and water, where the floods lie held from the adjacent crops
by giant banks of earth, and the silence is broken only by the cries
of myriads of wild-fowl on the wing.
In striking contrast to the Sind desert, the plains of Gujarat stand
first in the Presidency for richness of soil and density of population.
They are watered by many rivers, the most famous of which are the
Narbada and the Tapti, whose valleys are sheets of unbroken cultiva-
tion. Towards he Rann of Cutch the rich plains pass into salt and
sandy waste, and the subsoil is brackish. Gujarat contains the Districts
of Kaira, Ahmadabad, Broach, Surat, and the Panch Mahals, with
numerous petty Native States, of which the most important are Cutch,
Morvi, Gondal, and Bhaunagar, situated in Cutch and the peninsula
of Kathiâwar. Of these, Cutch is an island lying between az° 47' and
z4° N. and, 680 25' and 7r° rr' E., cut off from the mainland by the
great salt waste known as the Rann. Kathiâwar is a peninsula lying
between zo° 48' and 230 45' N. and 68° 56' and 7a° zo' E. It is con-
nected with the mainland of Gujarat by a neck of low-lying land which.
until 18 13 was flooded during part of the year, and is still partly covered
by a large lagoon, the NAL. The State of Baroda, though contained
within this geographical division, is not now politically attached to the
Bombay Presidency.
The remaining portion of the Presidency is divided into high
and low-level tracts by the rugged line of the WESTERN GHATS or
Sahyadris which run parallel to the coast-line for many hundred miles.
Perched upon these frowning eminences stand the hill forts famous in
Maratha history. Behind them lie the scantily watered tracts of the
Deccan plateau, for the most part an almost treeless plain, sloping
from the- ock-bound Ghât edge towards the level fields of Berar and
Hyderab . `-Protected by the hills from the south-west monsoon,
which at times surmounts their crest only to hurl its heavy clouds across
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