From Attock the course of the Indus to the sea, 940 miles, is S. and S.W., sometimes along a rocky channel, between high perpendicular or forcing its way, tumbling and roaring, amidst huge boulders, the immense body of water being pent within a narrow channel, causing occasional whirlpools, dangerous to navigation, to Kalabagh, in lat. 32's 57' N. long. 71° 3G' E., situated in u gorge of the great Salt Range, through which the river rushes forth into the plaip. In this part of its course it has acquired the name of Nil-ab, or Blue Water, from the colour imparted to it by the blue limestone hills through which it flows. There are some remains of a town on the bank of the river, named Nil-ab (where Timur crossed the Indus), supposed to be the Naulibus or Naulibe of Ptolemy. At Kalabagh the Indus enters a level country, having for a short time the Khusuri Hills, which rise abruptly on the right. It now becomes muddy, and as far as Mittunkote, about 350 miles, the banks bein'g low, the river, when it rises, inundates the country sometimes as far as the eye can reach. Hence the channels are continually changing, and the soil of the country being soft,— a mud basin, as Lieutenant Wood terms it,—the banks and bed of the river are undergoing constant alterations. These variations, added to the shoals, and the terrific blasts occasionally encountered in this part of the river, are great impediments to navigation. The population on its banks are almost amphibious ; they launch upon its surface, sustained by the inflated skins or mussaks, dried gourds, and empty jars used for catching the celebrated pulls fish, the Hilsa of Bengal.
At Mittunkote the Indus is often 2000 yards broad, and near this place, in lat. 28° 55' N., long. 70° 28' E., it is joined, without violence, by the Panjnad, a large navigable stream, the col lected waters of the Sutlej, Beas, Ravi, Chenab, and Jhelum. Its true channel, then a mile and a quarter wide, flows thence through Sind, some times severed into distinct streams, and discharges its different branches by various mouths into the Indian Ocean, after a course of 1977 miles. The Indus, when joined by the Panjnad, never shallows, in the dry season, to less than 15 feet, and seldom preserves so great a breadth as half a mile. Keeled boats are not suited to its naviga tion, as they are liable to be upset. Tho Zoruk, or native boat, is flat-bottomed. Other boats are the Duudi, Dund, Kotal, and Jumpti. Gold is found in some parts of the sands of the Indus.
The shore of its delta, about 125 miles in extent, is low and flat, and at high tide, to a considerable distance inland, overflowed ; and generally a succession of dreary, bare swamps.
In the mouths of the Indus, the tides rise about 9 feet at full moon, and flow and ebb with great violence, particularly near the sea, when they flood and abandon the banks with incredible velocity. At 75 miles from the ocean they cease to be perceptible, Between the Seer and Kori mouths, at the S.E. of the delta, it is overspread with low mangrove jungle, running far into the sea, and from the Seer is a bare, uninhabited marsh. The main stream of the Indus has discharged its waters at many points between Cape Monze, immediately west of Kurachee and the Gulf of Cutch, if not even that of Cambay. Pitti, Hajamri, and Kedi wari, now sea-channels and tidal creeks, shut off from the river, except during the monsoon, are all former mouths of the Indus. The Buggaur or Gharra is still a considerable stream during the inundation ; it takes off from the Indus close to Tatta.
The languages spoken on the N.W. border of India are dialects of Hindi, but sufficiently distinct to be called Sindi, Panjabi, and Kashmiri. Lieu tenant Leech, indeed, has given vocabularies of seven languages spoken on the west of the Indus. The western border tribes are still mostly under patriarchal governments. In the more southerly are the various Baluch tribes in the territories to which they give their name, and whose language is said by Captain Raverty to be a mixture of Persian, Sindi, Panjabi, Hindi, and Sanskrit. The Brahui tribes in Saharawan and Jhalawan, whose great chief is the khan of Khilat, ethnolo gists consider to be of the same Scythic stock as the Dravidian races in the Peninsula, and infer from this that the passage of some of the Dravid ian tribes from Turan was along the valley of the Indus. The Brahui physical type is Scythic, and the language has strong Dravidian affinities. The Brahui is a genuine representative of the pre Iranian population of S.E. Irania or Baluchistan. The Jat of the Lower Indus appear to be of the same race as the Brahui, and are almost black.
The principal towns on the banks of the Indus river are Leh, Attock, Kalabagh, Dehra Ismail Khan, Dehra Ghazi Khan, Mittunkote, Hyderabad.—Captain. Carless ; Lieut. Wood; Dr. Lord; Cunningham ; Findlay ; Elliot; flist. of the• Punjab.