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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 11, p. 258.

258 DERA GHAZI KHAN TOWN to be the seat of local administration. The Kasturi canal skirts its eastern border, fringed with thickly-planted gardens of mango-trees ; while ghdls line the banks, thronged in surnmer by numerous bathers. A mile to the west lies the civil station, and the cantonment adjoins the houses of the District officials. The original station stood to the east of the town, but disappeared during the flood of 1857. The courthouse occupies the reputed site of Ghazi Khan's garden; while the lahsil and police offices replace an ancient fort, levelled at the time of British annexation. A handsome bazar has several good shops, built on a uniform plan. Many large and striking mosques adorn the town, the chief being those of Ghazi Khan, Abdul Jawar, and Chuta Khan. The Sikhs converted three of them into temples of their own faith during their period of supremacy. The Indus divides the town from the North-Western Railway, which has a station at Ghazi Ghat. The great trade route from Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan to Jacobabad runs through the town, but the road is not metalled. Some silk is woven in the town, which has a flourishing manufacture of ivory bangles and a less important one of brass vessels. The town has a considerable export of grain, cotton, and indigo. It possesses a cotton-ginning factory in which also rice is husked, wheat ground, and oil pressed; the number of employes in 1904 was 49. The town and cantonment have always been at the mercy of the Indus. In 1856 both were completely washed away. In 1878 the new cantonment was flooded and practically destroyed. A stone embankment was constructed in 1889-91, but in August, 1895, the river attacked its northern end. This point was immediately strength- ened and made into a groyne, which has withstood the attacks made by the river. The works have since been further strengthened; and in 1896 more stone-heads were constructed one furlong apart in continua- tion of the old stone embankment and above the groyne, but they were completely washed away when the river attacked them the following year. In 1901 three hurdle dikes were constructed three- quarters of a mile apart along the west bank, two of which (the upper ones) were carried away the same year owing to an untimely flood which occurred before they were quite complete; the third dike is still standing, with a small breach in the middle of its length. Though the two upper dikes were destroyed, yet they did their work admirably in silting up the main channel and reclaiming several square miles of land; at the third or lowest dike there, has been an accumulation of silt some 12 to 15 feet deep. The system of irrigation dams has also been useful in silting up shallow portions of the river and thus reclaiming a vast amount of land. All danger has been averted for the present ; but the subsoil is so, waterlogged that it is unhealthy in the extreme, and the station may yet have to be abandoned.