127
SIND DIVISION OF THE ARMY.
2. The cantonment of Jacobabad is the head-quarters of the Sind Frontier Force, and
is situated in latitude 28°16' north, longitude 68°28' east. It
stands about 180 feet above the level of the sea, but is about
50 feet below the level of the bed of the Indus at Kashmor,
on the right bank of that river, distant about 80 miles. The whole of the Indus Valley is an
alluvial plain formed by the deposit from the river or its branches, which have swept over
almost every portion of it at some time or other. As is the case in the valleys of all large
rivers, the land is highest at the banks of the Indus from the accumulation of detritus
brought down by the hill torrents, which settles as the velocity of the current decreases; and
lowest the further the bank is receded from, the slope of the plain from the river-bank being
a foot per mile in some places. Like nearly all newly-formed land, the soil consists of stiff
clay and loose sand, which with little labour yields rich crops of cereals, pulses, and vegetables.
It also produces fruit trees when cultivated; but, although the soil is very fertile, the fruit in
general is of inferior quality. Not so, however, the esculent vegetables, which are so welcome
in the cold season, when they can only be grown ; among them may be mentioned potatoes,
cabbages, peas, turnips, carrots, beet, and several kinds of cucumbers, &c. There are two
harvests—the rubbee or spring harvest, and the khureef or autumn harvest. The rubbee crops
consist chiefly of wheat, grain, barley, oil-seeds, opium, hemp, and tobacco; the khureef
generally comprise rice, sugar-cane, cotton, indigo, jowaree, and bajree, which only mature
and ripen in the hot season, and are grown on land artificially watered by means of wells and
canals, These canals and wells are supplied by the Begári, which is fed by the Indus direct ;
the water which flows through camp is exposed to many sources
of impurity on its way from the river. For several miles from
its mouth there are numerous pools of stagnant water with dead fish in the bed of the Be
-
gtri, which are scoured by the first rush of the water; and when the surrounding country is
flooded, the population take shelter on the banks of the canal with all their cattle for several
months, using it not only for drinking and bathing purposes, but converting it into a sewer
as well. Besides, the beds of all the nallahs and water-courses in and around camp are favourite
places of resort for natural purposes when dry; later in the season, when the inundation water
finds its way through breaches in the canals, the water changes from its ordinary yellow
colour to a greenish or dark-brown hue. This is caused by the silt suspended in the water
being intercepted by the vegetation, which retards its flow, when it takes up some vegetable
colouring matter in return from the grass and jungle it traverses. Most of the wells get
brackish in April and May, when the sob-soil water is at its lowest: those situated near the
principal nallahs, however, keep sweet all the year round, as the immense volume of water
that percolates through them washes away the salt in the surrounding ground, which appears
an patches of efflorescence here and there, on which nothing will grow except useless weeds.
Surface drainage is the only system practicable here; no other system is applicable to a sta
-
tion in a hollow as Jacobabad is, being about half way between
the river and the hills, and consequently subject to floods from
both. A slight artificial fall could have been obtained if the bricks, of which the station is
built, had been originally dug equally all round the cantonment, instead of forming three
large tanks inside camp, which poison the air with their noxious exhalations, and at a certain
season of the year become pestilential from putrid fish. An insanitary kind of plinth is, how
-
ever, in course of formation by the accumulation of organic matter, animal and vegetable,
which in a few centuries, if not washed away or disturbed by volcanic agency, may become
a considerable mound like that on which the town of Shikarpur is built, the nature of which
I had an opportunity of seeing last year when the foundation of the new municipal buildings
of that town were being laid. The disadvantage of want of drainage is experienced after a
shower of rain, when the water lodges in different parts of camp, gravitating towards the
hollows, with which most of the compounds are furnished ; but locomotion is attended
with danger and difficulty owing to the slippery and soft nature of the ground, and for some
days after rain in the hot season the place is converted into a vapour-bath. The nature and
appearance of the surrounding country may be imagined when I mention that good bags
of snipe and duck are made within a mile of the station, which may be said to be an island
during the months of September, October, and November. The heavy floods of the last few
years have given a powerful impetus to low vegetation, rank weeds covering spots that used
to be void of vegetable life ; the jungle all round is rapidly increasing and extending, more
especially since the unusual rainfall and inundation of 1874.
3. All the co-efficients that constitute an unhealthly climate are present here, such as
extremes of temperature, moisture, and low, inundated land; con
-
sequently it is a veritable hot-bed of malaria.
Topography and Physical Geo
- graphy.
Water.
Drainage.
Climate.
4. The lines are of modern construction, but the plan on which they are built is sus-
ceptible of improvement : for instance, there is no provision
made for cross-ventilation. The available space per man, including
the verandah, is 1,362 cubic and 126 superficial feet ; exclusive of the verandah, 876 cubic
Lines.