---

Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 22, p. 389.

SIND 389 everywhere be ascended by men and by beasts of burden, but not by wheeled vehicles. Sind.=The province of Sind forms the extreme north-western portion of the Bombay Presidency, consisting of the lower valley and delta of the Indus, and lying between 23° 35' and 28° 29' N. and 66° 4o' and 71° 10' E.' It has an area of 53,116 square miles and a population (1901) of 3,410,223, and includes one Native State, KHAIRPUR, with an area of 6,050 square miles and a population of 19%313• Sind is bounded on the north by Baluchistan, the Punjab, and the State of Bahawalpur; on the east by the Rajputana States of Jaisalmer and jodhpur; on the south by the Rann of Cutch and the Arabian Sea; and on the west by the territory of the jam of Las Bela and of the Khan of Kalat (Baluchistan). It comprises three well-defined tracts: the Kohistan, or hilly country, which lies as a solid block between Karachi and physical aspects. Sehwan, and is thence continued north as a -narrow fringe along the skirts of the Kirthar range ; Sind proper, the central alluvial plain, watered by the Indus; and the Registan, or T har, a band of so-called desert on the eastern border, where rolling sandhills alternating with valleys are often fairly wooded, and there are exten- sive level tracts of pasture land. Almost every portion of the great alluvial tract of Sind has at some time or other formed a channel for the river INDUS (Sanskrit, Sindhu, which gives its name to the province), or one of its many branches. This main central stream of North-Western India, after collecting into its bed the waters bf the five Punjab rivers, has deposited near its debouchure into the Arabian Sea a vast mass of deltaic matter, through which it flows by several shifting channels to join the sea on the southern border of the province. In every direction traces of ancient river-beds may be discovered, crossing the country like elevated dikes, for the level of the land, as in all other deltaic regions, is highest at the river bank. The Indus brings down from the turbid hill torrents a greater quantity of detritus than can be carried forward by its diminished velocity in the plain; and hence a constant accumulation of silt takes place along its various beds, raising their level above that of the surrounding country, and inci- dentally affording an easy means of irrigation, on which the agricul- tural prosperity of Sind entirely depends, by side channels drawn from the central river. Besides the Indus there are some hill streams or nais, of which the HAS, which may almost be called a river, is impor- tant. Appearing as a string of unconnected pools in the dry season, ' All spherical values were obtained from the Compiler, Sind Gazetteer, and are based upon the latest information.