Language.—Persian was the language of Ittera ture, ceremony, office, and epistolary correspond ence. But Sindi, the language of the people, is spoken from the N. boundary of Kattyawar as far north as Bahawttlpur, and extends from the hills on the west to the desert which separates Sind from the eastern portion of the Indian Peninsula. There are several dialects of it. It abounds in Arabic words. These in the Urdu constitute the languao.e of the learned men, but in Sindi they are the words in comtnon use for names. Its literature consists of translations -of Arabic re ligious and moral works, and popular traditions in poetry, and the Arabic Nashlti character is used by the Muliammadans, but the Hindus have a separate written character.
The Sindi is superior to most of the dialects of Western India in various minor points of refine ment and cultivation as, for instance, in the authorized change of' terminations in poetical words, the reduplication of final or penultimate letters to assist the rhyme, and many similar signs of elaboration.
.1yrieultnre.—Th crops consist of rice, sor ghum, Penicillaria spicata (spiked millet), Indian corn, and in Upper Sind wheat and barley. The method of cleating water - courses adopted hy labourers is peculiar to Sind. They are attended in their work by musicians, and the excitement is kept up by beating drums and blowing horns. Without these they make no progress, but with them the canal-diggers of Sind will do more manual labour than any natives of India. They work uninterruptedly for twelve hours, and use a large hoe (plutoralt) with a short handle. The period for clearing the water courses is the first appearance of a rise in the river (March or April). The seasons for crops in Sind are two, Rabi or spring, and Kliarif or autumn, the produce varying in portions of the country. These divisions of the year do not apply to climate, for they hardly exist. Saltpetre abounds in the soil of Sind, particularly the lower country, and is collected in great quantities. In many districts the surface of the land is covered with a saline efflorescence.
The timber trees of Sind are species of Acacia, Albizzia lebec, Avicennia tomentosa, Azaderachta Indica, species of Capparis, Ceriops, Cordia, Dal bergia, Populus Euphratica. Prosopis spicigera, and species of Tamarix and Zizyphus.
The forests, under the rule of the Andra, were mere hunting preserves, and were admirably adapted, from the thickness of their underwood, for the cover of wild animals of every sort. No
attention whatever was paid to their timber. , In Sind, the grass called Sar, which perhaps is Arundo karka, has its calms, sur jo kanee, made into chairs, and its flower-stalks, beaten to form the fibres called inoonyah, are made into string or twine (moonyalt jo naree), and into ropes (moonyali jo russa).
Nine-tenths of the Sind vegetation consist of plants which are indigenous in Africa, the desert regions assimilating with that country. At least one-half are common Nubian or Egyptian plants, and a considerable number is common to tropical Africa, and South Arabian and Persian plants also occur largely.
The pasture grasses most relished by horses, cattle, and sheep, are Cynodon dactylon, the sweetest and most nutritious of grasses, and abundant everywhere ; also Port eynosuroides, Andropogon involutus, Stend.; Anthistiria ciliata, Alopecurus prateneis, W.; Daetylis glomerata, and Digitaria sanguinalis, P.S.; with the straw of all the grain grasses and millets.
Amongst other wild animals may be mentioned the Gor-khar or wild ass of the deserts, the Equits onager of naturalists.
The river fisheries afford a considerable export trade in dried pullah. Among domestic animals, the camel, of the one-humped variety, ranks first as :a beast of burden, immense numbers being bred in the salt marshes of the Indus.
The wool of Sind forms a staple of almost equal importance, though the larger portion of .the quantity exported comes, not from the province itself, but from Ferozpnr district in the Panjab, and from Afghanistan and Baluchistan.
The spirituous liquors are the gura from molasses, and kuttala from dates; wino called anguri is front the Sind grape ; and liqueurs. sonfi, ninshki, turanji, nusri, gulabi, and kaisart.
It abounds in mineral waters, but the tituatien of the province and its climate alike preclude the hope of their ever being exteloively useful to Europeans, though they might he more employed for sepoys and the people of the country. — Burton's Seinde ; Cunninglarm's India ; Elliot's India ; Elphinstone's India ; Gibson's Form Reports; Ouseley's Travels ; Pennant's Hindustan David Ross, O.I.E, The Land of the Five Rivers and Sind ; if. Murray, The Plants and Drays of Sind.